Turn On Tune In Tenet

Tom Cruise’s crazy trip to the movies to see Tenet prompts Night Call’s finest thoughts on Christopher Nolan’s latest movie that none of us have seen. Then we investigate Halo, the Amazon device that says it can read emotions, and debunk its dubious, dangerous claims. Two listeners provide us with their very different experiences with Kratom, off last week’s discussion. Then we are joined by food writer Katherine Spiers of Smart Mouth podcast and newsletter to talk about community fridge projects in LA, the immorality of food waste, the Black Panthers’ breakfast program, and how to support small local restaurants when the government has failed everyone during a pandemic. On an all new Night Call!

NOTES

1. Tom Cruise Tenet tweet 
2. Tenet review 
3. AV Club on going to theaters 
4. The Vow 
5. The Verge breaks down the Amazon Halo 
6. Fitbit and coronavirus 
7. Smart Mouth podcast
8. Smart Mouth newsletter 
9. Katherine Spiers on Twitter 
10. NYC community fridges 
11. LAist on community fridges
12. Food insecurity during COVID 
13. Los Angeles Community Fridges instagram 
14. The People's Bodega 
15. The People's Bodega NYC
16. Black Panthers free breakfast program
17. LA Taco 
18. We Like LA 
19. Luv2eat 
20. Ruen Pair 
21. Desano Pizza 
22. Zen Mei 

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See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's eight pm at an overcrowded movie theater in London, England,
and you're listening to Nightcall. Hello and welcome to Nightcall,
a call in show for artist Tope in reality. My

(00:23):
name is Emily Ashida and I am joined as always
by Molly Lambert and Tess Lynch. Hey, guys, have you
seen Tennant yet? Have you gone to your local movie
theater and watched Tennant? Oh? Yeah, we all piled in
the car and then just jammed ourselves with our friend
Tom TC. Yeah. So Tom Cruise, who is a known

(00:45):
maniac and also just loves the movies, loves the industry
that has done so much for him. I mean, who
wouldn't if you're Tom Cruise. UM put out a little
bit of propaganda this week, urging film goers to take
their lives into their hands and go see Tenant on
the big screen. UM, and he posted this very bizarre

(01:09):
video with with the typically like bombastic to tweet accompanying
it says, big movie, big screen loved it. I hate
him so much. He's just like in his he's in
like one of these full on neopreen masks with like

(01:31):
the vent that I think you're not supposed to have
those are bad. I'm not sure. I don't know the
latest on mask dues, and don't those have. The vent
just sprays your germs out, Okay. Um, people think the
event is high tech and that it's somehow protecting you more.
But actually the vent is for masks that are for

(01:52):
forest fires and stuff, and so it's meant to spray
your germs out and breathe in only the good air.
But people keep using them now and it's bad. Yeah.
So Tom Cruises sprain as well. He's got special germs.
I'm sure his germs are our theat and free. Uh

(02:14):
so it's okay, but he Yeah, it's a very bizarre video.
He sits in like a crowded theater and nobody seems
to acknowledge the fact that Tom Cruise is sitting next
to them at the theater. And then there's just like
a kind of fuzzy handheld camera thing of like the
opening title of Tenant, and then it's like it's over,
and he's like it was great. I loved it. Um,

(02:34):
No no further details. We still can't tell what Tenant
is here in the United States. But I love that
Tom Cruise is the person who's allowed to do a
camera version of Tenant, allowed to just film the screen. Um.
But also I think it was a mission impossible cast
and Cruise screening. Oh okay, that that, you know, kind

(02:58):
of makes a little more sense. That's why people weren't
like Tom Cruise, although he did show like some tweens
being like when he drove by right when he's in
the car in his mask, and then somebody was like,
they must think he's somebody else, but he yeah, he
he's making a big you know, he's it's clearly like

(03:19):
a thing of like I'm wearing a mask so I
can go to the movie theater and therefore you should too.
You have nothing to be afraid of but fear itself.
And in the meantime, I yeah, like nobody's gonna be seen.
I don't think people are going to be seen in
Tendant in the United States, at least I think he
was in England for that. But um, I know that

(03:41):
a lot. This has been like a big moral issue
for critics. The A V Club wrote about it recently,
didn't they, I think so? Um. I mean, there are
reviews that are out because like critics for the most part,
are getting to go to distance reviews where you're just
in a big theater with like a handful of people
and it's you know, relatively safer, I guess, although I

(04:05):
don't know if I was still a critic right now,
I don't know if i'd be doing that, but you
know that there's a there's One of the first reviews
I saw was on Consequence of Sound, Uh, written by
Robert Daniels, and he made sure to have a note
at the bottom that was like, listen, this is the
situation in which I watched this movie. Your own situation

(04:26):
is probably not going to be like mine, so please
consider that, and like, this is by no means an
endorsement to go out and see this movie, even though
his review of it was also pretty middling, as a
lot of them have been. Surprisingly like, it's very funny
because right now, like the Tenant coming out and everything,
the real Nolan heads are very loud and proud on
the internet, and so it's interesting to see how much

(04:46):
the reviews have actually been kind of negative for this one.
And I don't know if that's sort of tinged by
the whole COVID issue or if it's just a bad movie. Um,
probably a combination of both, but um, yeah, it's super interesting.
I I like the tenant is like the Schrodinger's Cat
of movies that we still like, what could it be? Well,

(05:08):
it's also like I've heard people calling it Christopher Nolan Schadenfreud,
or like Christopher Nolan's hubris um, because yeah, he was
so adamant and Warner Brothers was so adamant that this
movie had to be shown in theaters on a big
screen and would not possibly ever go to V O
D or b uh in drive ins. And now I

(05:31):
think they maybe are going to let it go to
drive ins, but it has to also be showing in theaters.
It's so it makes me so mad. I think what
I what I was referencing earlier, and I should clarify,
is that the A. V. Club wrote about the ethics
of covering films that are not going directly to V
O D or where. If you're a critic and you
do get, like Emily said, um, a kind of more

(05:54):
socially distanced viewing of it, is it ethical to say, like,
this movie is great, go see it when the general
public is going to see it in really different circumstances.
But it's hard not to hold all of this against Tenant.
I really didn't have Like I probably would have seen
Tenant if it had been released on v O D
whatever two months ago. I mean, when did this publicity

(06:16):
things start with Tenant? Feels like it's been going on
for a hundred years. For half of the quarantine, it
was like a running joke because they kept pushing back
the opening date. But the posters always were like only
in theaters. Yeah, and so there's still posters up that
are like opening like August whatever, that it did not

(06:36):
actually open here, And like I understand the like, you know,
not all filmmakers are like this. Some are some art.
It's completely within their rights to be like the kind
of person who's like, no, my movie needs to be
seen in a theater, Like I am that kind of
filmmaker that it is like a legit. It's art. There's
no right or wrong way to to to want your
art to be out there, Like you can have your

(06:57):
own preference. This is all value you free. But in
this specific circumstance that we find ourselves in, I think
the inflexibility on that part, I mean it really is
like okay, if you really are only supposed to see
this movie in theaters, then we have to wait to
put it out, Like, if it's worth that much to you,
then then you should probably just delay it until it

(07:18):
actually is safe, because I understand, like if you've worked
so hard on something and you really you know, you
have made something that is made for a big screen experience,
which I think that there is such a thing. Um
And even though I'm not the biggest Nolan fan in
the world, I understand that that's the way he approaches
his movies and it's effective and so that's fine. It's

(07:40):
just like you have to have some flexibility or like
understand that we're not working in regular times right now.
I don't know if he just isn't aware of that
because he doesn't have a cell phone or what, but
he's a very special man. But yeah, it's it's wild. Yeah,
I mean, I think if you're like, people should go
see my movie and if they die, they die, Yeah,

(08:02):
I mean, or it's like it's just going to be
me and Tom Cruise watching this movie and nobody else.
That's like, okay, then that's uh, that's very exclusive art
then that you have made. Yeah, I was doing jokes
about like the Virgin Tenant and the Chad Bill and
Ted Saved the World, Because Bill and Ted Saved the
World just came out yesterday on v o D, of course,

(08:26):
and people liked it. People said it's it's good and funny,
and they were like, maybe people will start making more
like medium budget comedies again because everything can't be tenant. Now.
I wonder, I really wonder, like once we started, start
to get into the stuff that was made during COVID

(08:46):
and then is released during COVID, like what that's good,
Like what projects that works out best for because man
oh man, the production guidelines for shooting in COVID really
rule out a lot of kinds of content. So um,
we'll see about that. While we are not going to
movie theaters, we have decided to take a little ride

(09:10):
with Nexium for hbos. Like we've joined the COLT even
though it's been shut down. We've yes, we've taken the bow.
I finished the first up. We'll probably be talking about
this more on the podcast and coming episodes. So if
you are also watching the VOW, please give us a
night call it to four oh four six night and
let us know what you think. But I when I

(09:30):
finished watching the first episode last night, I was so
disturbed by If that were the end of the story,
I would have joined nex Um, no question. It was
so appealing to me. I mean, like all the cult
things we watched, all the documentaries we ever watch about cults,
there's stuff or you know, weird communes that take a turn. Um.

(09:50):
We've always said it's like there. It takes a while
to get to the point where you're like, oh, this
is bad, and but that's how they get you. They
don't start off being scary, otherwise it wouldn't work. Yeah,
I mean this is pretty scary. The first episode is
really like the lobster in the pot, you know, where
they're turning up the temperature extremely gradually. Because there is

(10:13):
something about how Nexium appears to be a very good
natured self help group in the beginning, Like when you're
introduced to it, it seems like the people who are
being interviewed about it are are really like relatable kind
of you know, they're not like necessarily even down on
their luck and like feeling like broken shells. It's just
that they feel like they could be doing a little

(10:35):
bit better, a little bit better than they're doing and
artistically and professionally and in their love lives. It's like,
I just feel like, you know, I want more joy
in my life. And then you see the gatherings, you know,
which also are strange to watch those kind of things
under quarantine because there's so much hugging and like putting
sashes on each other and stuff, so it seems like

(10:55):
it's from a different time, which it is. But yeah,
I mean, I came to Nexium late. We've talked about
Nextium on the podcast before, and we know how dangerous
in bonkers it became, but dude, it seemed it seemed
like a really great self help group to me in
episode one. I think I haven't watched the Value yet.

(11:16):
I plan on doing it this week. I have, like
I listened to one of I think several podcasts about
Nexium maybe a year or two ago, and I think
one of the things I did come away from it
with it's just like that there's again like sucks to
be an actress, to have the specific insecurities and needs

(11:38):
of an actress, because that seemed to be really like
fundamental to a lot of the people who got brought
into it and ultimately had like you know, leadership roles
in it is that there's it felt very um parallel
to the sorts of things that you the sorts of
psychological dynamics that are a play when you are in

(11:58):
a cast or in a theater come or something like that. So, um, yeah,
I'm really interested to see the series. Oh man, it's
very good, uh and disturbing. Yeah, I mean I felt
very strongly that this entire religion, whatever you wanna call it,
cult group, it seemed very much just like a knockoff

(12:19):
of scientology. Yeah, yeah, similar. It has less of a
sci fi element to it and more of a like
human nature kind of thing, you know, But the needs
that it claims to address, I think that's that's the cross.
It's like, if you have your starting with the same
kinds of people with the same kinds of problems, and

(12:39):
some people want the ale Aron Hubbard Space Aliens route,
and some people want something that feels more like a
you know, like a support group. Plus you know. Yeah,
I think the thing that felt scientology about it to
me was like the having different words for everything, all
the made up words. There's a thing the main fundamental
thing is integrating yourself. That you have parts of yourself

(13:04):
that are disintegrated and you have to work on yourself
to integrate them. Oh man, all of myself is disintegrating
right now. Well. One of the things that I mean,
I felt that I could have so easily been drawn
in because they have what is what they're called limiting mindsets.
I think, Um, so you write down things that you

(13:24):
think you know about yourself, like I'm not a morning person,
limiting beliefs, limiting beliefs, thank you. Um, and then lv's
you got to drop those lv's. But I was kind
of like I mean, and also of course, um, they
had someone who is afraid to drive on the freeway featured,
and I was like, oh no, now, I'm now I

(13:45):
really want to join this cult, but not not for long.
I'm sure by episode two I'll be back out. Um,
well yeah we should, uh, we should keep watching. I'm
I need to start watching. And if you are watching
the vow right now, give us a night call and
let us know what you think. Oh for six night,
We'll we'll revisit this next week or a week after.

(14:08):
And yeah, I can't wait. Bring on the branding. Why
don't we take a break and when we come back,
we'll have tales of credum welcome back to night Call.
We'd like to take a night call, a couple of

(14:29):
night calls with some opposing views about a little substance
called cretum. This is some point counterpoint Cradham edition. Sorry Cradham.
Hey y'all. My name is Jamie, A huge fan of
the pod, and when I saw y'all we're talking about Cradham,
I got so excited and immediately had to call in UM.

(14:49):
I have been using it off and on for about
three years now, and it's been a great help to me.
I have chronic back pain from choliosis in pretty vowding variety,
and it's helped to alleviate too much all of these symptoms. However,
I have had pushbacks from my psychiatrist, who was against
leaving on any kind of drugs, but I don't think
the medical community has enough data to be pushing one

(15:11):
way or the other. I love Crowdham personally, and I
think it's been extremely helpful to me, and I think
it's ridiculous for the government to try to classify this
as a Schedule one drug just based off the data
that's already come out about it from users like me. UM. Anyway,
that's my experience, and thank you for talking about this.
I swear nobody is and I've been using it for

(15:31):
so long. UM anyway, thank you. By all right, let's uh,
let's take another Crowdham called just for balance. Hey, Nicole
of my name is John. I'm from Florida, in the
Panhandle of Florida. UM. I was just listening to your
episode about creat um um. I wanted to share you
my experience with you, so I started taking it. I

(15:55):
was a really bad alcoholic and UM. When I started
taking creatum, the cravings for alcohol totally disappeared and I
was able to totally kick that habit. And it was
very it was very bad habit um. So in that sense,
it was a miracle cure um. I didn't have much

(16:19):
DTS or anything, so it wasn't like it took care
of me physically. It was it was just mentally. But
because of that, as a result, I got hooked on crowdum,
which is something that's totally possible and a lot of
the proponents of legalization or the you know, letting people
use it on their own without a doctor, is they're

(16:39):
not going to tell you that you can get severely
addicted to it. Just like you can and opioid or
a cigarette. The withdrawals are pretty much the same analogus
to opioid withdrawals UM, restless legs at first and then
aching all over the body, vomiting diarrhea, things like that.
So I say, stifullly, I traded one addiction that was

(17:02):
killing me for one that is most certainly not. But
it's still something I have to do every day. It's
been six years. I have to take it every six
hours or so. There have been a couple of times
when I've been off it with the help of a
psychiatrist to um, you know, stepping it down, UM, stepping

(17:23):
down the tolerance and finally stepping off, and of course
because I have an addicted personality, shortly thereafter started it again.
But I'm right now in the process of hopefully coming
down with the help of my girlfriend and my family
for the last time. It was something that I was
very ashamed of for a very long time, and I
was able to ask for the help I need. Is

(17:45):
Cradham good? Yes? Um? Should people be taking Crawdham on
their own? Should be folding gas stations? I don't know.
I think it should be something that the professional can
prescribe to you and help you kick the really bad
addictions you have. UM. From what I understand, it's not

(18:06):
hard on the body. It doesn't make you high in
the way that opioids do. It doesn't impair your judgment,
jour anything. It's more of a body feeling. UM. It
definitely needs to be researched. Thank you for talking about this.
This is my daily existance and so it's good to
hear other people talking about it. Thank you, Wow, thank

(18:28):
you so much for sharing that. I mean both of
those calls, we actually got a ton of feedback. UM.
I missed the conversation last week. I was really sorry
to miss it, but we we got a ton of
calls and emails UM, and we were very grateful to
listen to and read all of them. So full disclosure.
Since the last episode, I have actually tried crowdam for myself.

(18:51):
I tried. I tried a varietal called you guys will
be very pleased to know about this called vampire crowdam.
Um it and I would totally agree with what the
second collar said. It's not it doesn't get you high.
It is completely a body feeling in a way that's
kind of strange like it does. It is like an

(19:14):
opioid esque body of feeling. I have a lot of
shoulder and back pain naturally all the time, and it
just went away in a way that I like. Even
just the absence of that pain was enough to make
me feel like maybe I was high because I was like, oh,
I have no pain and buy a body. This is incredible. Um.
But I was expecting to be able to like fall
asleep after that, because I sometimes have had trouble recently

(19:37):
falling asleep, and it didn't help with that at all
for me. I wasn't like woozy or whatever. It was
just a pleasant body feeling. But I can see that
I can totally see how that could be addictive, just
because it's nice to not feel pain and it's like
weirdly workable, Like I was having very lucid conversations with

(19:58):
people while I was on it. So yeah, it's it's something.
It doesn't feel that disruptive to your life. It's not
like being on on oxycodone or whatever. Um yeah, I yeah,
it was. It was interesting. I mean, it's interesting to
know that you can get withdrawals from it even if

(20:18):
it doesn't feel like anything. Uh, yeah, it's so. It's
apparently the plant is related to the coffee plant. So
I think that in a similar way that if you
kind of quit if you're a big coffee drinker and
you quit coffee cold turkey, that can be kind of difficult.
I think that might be a little bit analogous to it.

(20:39):
But I I do think the second color is right,
and that like, yeah, if you have an addictive personality
like I for the most part, don't think that I do.
So I am not like out to get a big
shipment of cradam anytime soon. Um, but if you know
that about yourself, and yeah, maybe this is something to
steer clear of. But um, definitely more research should be

(21:02):
done into it. I mean, it seems sort of like
an oversight that it hasn't been. That call also seemed
like sort of a good argument against like using it
to get off OPI it's because essentially sounds like you're
just transferring into a different addictive substance that you then
have to get off. I think that the plus side
why people are proponents of it is that yes, it's

(21:23):
still you can still have a dependency on it, You're
just less likely to die from it. So that's sort
of the one upside there. Did you have any side
effects from it? Because some of the feedback that we
got people had really wide ranges of like different kinds
of side effects from really intense constipation that one person
said like, I can't do it anymore because it was

(21:44):
just so awful. Um. Other people were such huge fans.
But when you look into the side effects that are listed, um,
they have such a wide range from hair loss to
psychosis um. And obviously that's a great reason for it
to be tested and looked into further, because you wonder like,

(22:05):
is that something to do with the different strains or
just a different reaction or an interaction. I think the
way that you prepare it has a lot to do
with that. My friend who does it regularly made a
kind of brew of it for me that's a little
more um like time consuming than just sort of boiling
it with water and taking it like a tea, making

(22:25):
a sludge of it. Basically. UM. I guess the solids
in it are a lot of what causes people to
feel upset, stomach um or have other to just abtract
issues with it. So I took something that was pretty
filtered and um and pretty smooth and easy to to drink.

(22:45):
You had the top shelf Cradham, I did. I got
that top shelf that that uh yeah, Katherine didn't have
been the hunger vampire. I didn't have any other side
effects other than that, which is surprising because I get
really nauseous off of opiate. It's like if I'm on
the VI get in or whatever for whatever reason, I

(23:07):
tend to get pretty pretty sick. Um. So that was
my own personal experience. But it seems like the types
of Crowdham very wildly wildly um, and people's own tolerance
and you know, compatibility with it varies widely. So yeah,
I don't know if it's just because we were talking
about it um or if it is just becoming more widespread.

(23:30):
But I saw my first sign for it in the
valley a couple of days ago at a smoke shop. Yeah,
how is it being advertised? Well, it was like, um,
like a sandwich board out front, just like here's all
the things we have in the smoke shop, and it
was like CBD crawdam like vapes or whatever. Um. I

(23:54):
was just surprised that Crowdham was like the headliner. Maybe
it was the second headliner. I'm glad we got so
many calls about it, Like it does feel like a
thing like I never hear anybody talking about it either.
It's just something that I always register if I'm like
not in New York or l A, that it is around. Um,
like it was around in Florida last time I was

(24:15):
in Florida, and um, yeah, it's it feels kind of
semi semi regional or it's not a coastal elite drug
will say. But yeah, yeah, anyway, thanks for your calls everybody.
That was great. Yeah, give us more calls about Crowdham
and other other legal like cures mind altering substances that

(24:41):
are not just for coastal elites. Yeah, and if you've
had bad experiences with Crowdham, we would also like to
hear about them. We are now the Crowdham Research Council. Yeah,
apparently we're doing the work that nobody else will do.
Thank you Emily for for actually venturing out in the
field there. Why is it called vampire this one? I

(25:03):
have no idea. I have no idea. Uh yeah, it
beats me. I could look into it, but I didn't
make the order. So I'm so after we're all done, um,
going to a crowded movie theater to watch Tenant. How
about we all hook into our Halo devices and uh

(25:24):
check in our on our emotions and uh body fat
percentages and feed that information to Amazon. Does that sounds
like a future we all want? Oh my god, hallo?
Uh yeah Amazon. Amazon announced that it's going to release
this device called a Halo, which is they're kind of

(25:47):
health and fitness body tracker type device, um, but has
the added benefit of doing a full three D body
scan on you to detect your body fat content and
also scan you for your emotional or monitor your your
emotions over the day. I guess through the tone of

(26:07):
your voice. There's a story about this on the Verge.
Dieter Bond, my former colleague, wrote about it. Um about
this this release, which I think it's not. It's not
out yet, but when when was it going? When are
they planning on releasing it later this year? I don't know.
Hopefully neverfully they think about this my main issue, So

(26:28):
I guess, um reading about this on the Verge, the
good news is there is some good news um that
it doesn't use GPS or Wi Fi tracking and that
tone and I think the body. The tone is what
monitors your tone of voice. Body is the three D
scan that monitors your body. Fat tone is opt in
and you train it to get used to your voice

(26:49):
by reading text back to it, and then it will
occasionally listen to you, um like intermittently, not on a schedule,
and it will report back on your emotional state. For me,
tone is way more troubling, yes than body, because also
I'm like, who actually wants to know? You know what
I mean? Like, who wants to know? Who wants to

(27:10):
know how often you get upset? You kind of do
know how often you get upset. It just seems like
such traumatic information for a wearable track or to deliver
to you, like you're depressed, you're really angry. And it's
also you know, we don't know who is eventually going
to be paying for this information and having access to
it and knowing you know, what your emotion levels are

(27:34):
on your halo on any given day, and like whether
or not that could be used as justification for law
enforcement to do X, Y or Z to you because
you were angry on your halo. I mean, there's so
if you just think like five steps ahead for what
this technology could be used for. It starts to get
very very dystopian very quickly. And you know, I mean

(27:56):
I think I haven't seen anybody say anything positive about this.
But that doesn't meet Like Jeff Bezos is now like
what he's uh like a millionaire. He's a double hundred
two two billion dollars Is that right? Um? He doesn't
like who cares? He can he can, you know, make

(28:16):
this a product that people He can he like he
didn't with Alexa already, Like that's the thing that everybody
feels like they need now, even though I don't personally,
I think that if you have Alexa in your house,
you are an insane person. Uh. But and I and
I include a lot of friends of mine in this. Um.
But yeah, there's no there's like public opinion doesn't matter,

(28:37):
Like this will just be a part of our lives.
Like Amazon is far reaching enough. This is just going
to be a part of our lives. Um. Yeah. And
it's they're they're saying all the right things about how
easy it is to delete this data and to control
the data, and that they're not going to sell it.
The problem is that there's no reason to trust Amazon
at all, you know, which is something that people are

(28:58):
always slow to learn. But all so, I mean, I'm
kind of unsure about how it. I know that it's
like linked your phone and that it's a wearable but
if it's recording you intermittently, how can it avoid recording
other people around you as well? Um, And again, like
we we talked about with the Bluetooth proximity and stuff
like that, the way that you could piece to gather

(29:19):
things and claim that you're assisting and solving a crime
or whatever with a randomly picked up source of dialogue
that also could be someone else talking like in the
rabbit Hole is so deep with this particular feature that
you can just think of like a myriad of ways
that this could be horribly and criminally misused. Yeah, I

(29:39):
had a problem, Like I think that wearable tech is
a UM kind of a rubicon that we crossed a
while ago with UM with the Apple Watch. And I
was like super spooked out by the Apple Watch when
that came out, just because I think anything that is
on your person and meant to be on your person
at all times like that that feels like voluntarily like

(30:01):
narking on yourself, regardless of voluntelling. Thing is that it does.
And that's with Apple that has as far as the
big tech companies go, Apple is pretty goods as far
as like information security and keeping your data private, like
like that's not the business that they're in. So but
even still, you know that's still on a WiFi signal,

(30:23):
that's still or you know that's still Bluetooth connected to
your phone or whatever. Like it's not. It doesn't exist
in a vacuum. It's not an analog watch. And when
Apple or when Amazon is making a version of that,
that is like so much more invasive when you're talking
about emotions and stuff. I absolutely do not trust Amazon

(30:44):
with any of my data, let alone my emotional data. Like,
I sincerely doubt that it works UM because, as Meredith Whittaker,
who we had on recently demonstrated, all of that kind
of like we're going to use tech to read your
oceans stuff is largely vaporware bullshit. Uh it's like a

(31:06):
mood ring. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. It's also
it capitalizes. I think that the reason that this is
being pushed out now is recently there was discussion about
how the fitbit might be able to UM basically diagnose
coronavirus or give you a some kind of a clue
if you're exhibiting symptoms by monitoring heart rate changes and stuff.
But it kind of just seems also to exploit like

(31:29):
a heightened sense of hypochondria and paranoia. That's very understandable
for people to have right now, but it's weird to
tack on tone because again, I can't understand how that
benefits a person who's experiencing emotions, and like, I guess
it serves as a mirror, but as Molly pointed out,
it's being interpreted by AI that is notoriously bad at

(31:50):
deciphering human emotions at all. So you could be told
that you're, you know, a very like depressed or angry
person when maybe that's just a flaw. Yeah, Like, and
that's that's completely aside from yeah, completely aside from the
data privacy or anything. It's like, once you put something
in the mix that you're you are essentially like performing

(32:12):
for you know, you have an audience in the form
of this halo device that kind of changes your entire
relationship to yourself and your emotions and like makes you
think about them in a way that maybe is not
completely natural, like healthy uh, you know, those are all
values that vary from person to person, but still, like

(32:33):
it's just I don't, yeah, who would want that in
their lives? Here here at Nightcall, we only endorse one
form of regulating your emotions, and that is astrology. Yes,
the one true therapy. Instead of an emotion monitor, just
read some astrology and it will tell you what moved

(32:55):
you're in today and then you know, I thought it
was interesting the perfor wormative like performing emotion for your
for your wearable is interesting because it I mean, we
all had differing opinions about the episode, um the Black
Mirror episode knows Dive, but it reminds me a lot
of that where it becomes kind of like what, um,
you're you're almost like whether or not they're selling your data.

(33:17):
It seems like a way to practice being a false
version of yourself and and also that that could be
super exploited for like brand. I mean, it's almost like
you're you're becoming your own brand. You're losing any kind
of depth and just like flattening yourself into like a
happy brand. Yeah, because like who knows what could be
used against you if your data shows that you are

(33:38):
sad and miserable all the time, Like, who knows what's
gonna getting marketed to you because of that? Who knows
like how you're going to be profiled in any kind
of like police database. You know, it's all, Oh, it's
such a bad idea. Oh my god, I cannot think
that this is anywhere close to legal. It feels like
the Yeah, it feels like the beginning of like pre

(33:59):
cry It's totally yeah, it's uh, it's very minority report. Um.
Speaking of TC tomb friend cruise Pal, I'm going to
call him that forever now, friend cruise Path. So we're
gonna take a quick break and when we come back,
we're going to be joined by our guests. This week,

(34:20):
Katherine inspires to talk about food, community fridges and all
sorts of food stuff, so stay tuned for that. Welcome back.
We are now joined by Catherine Spires, a food and
culture journalist who hosts a food history podcast called smart

(34:42):
Mouth and edits a newsletter on the same topic at
smart Mouth dot sub stack dot com. Welcome Catherine to
the podcast. How are you today? I'm so good, Thank
you so much for having me. We are so excited
to have you. I just started reading the smart Mouth
newsletter after listening to the podcast and it's so good.
Thank you. That's really nice of you to say. I

(35:02):
do like that it has other writers not just me,
so I can be like, if you don't have to
listen to me more. Yeah, it's nice to kind of
spread it around and you have some really good contributors.
There was one um about Midwestern ice creams that was great.
I think that was by Ellen or no, the Ellen Canner.
One was the New Orleans Fritter. Yes, the fritter that's

(35:25):
like actually more historically important than the Beigne but never
gets talked about, maybe because it's harder to make because
it's made with rice. Yeah, what what is it called?
A cola? Cola? A cola? Honestly, I'm probably mispronouncing it
and you'll get all your Louisiana listeners irate, but it's
spelled c a l a. Yeah. Um, how did you

(35:48):
decide to start smart Mouth because you were formerly the
food editor at l A Weekly. Yeah, right, and then
we all got fired. And then I was like, well,
here's the thing about being a journalist, Like having a
full time job kind of means nothing so and also
doesn't pay anything, so I might as well have nothing
and be paid nothing on my own terms. We follow

(36:08):
this model as well. Yeah, you guys get it exactly.
So that's just what I'm doing with food stuff. Um, yeah,
it's it's been really nice, like during quarantine. I think
I keep bringing this up on the podcast to just
talk about food. Um, the last comforting thing we have
left potentially and somehow like the hottest topic of COVID too,

(36:30):
like it is. It is some of the biggest like
media news has centered around food journalism and the food world.
It just feels like because everybody's cooking now, these these
issues affect us even more, like down to the media
level all of it. Yeah, I think people are remembering
that they can cook a lot more than maybe they do.
I think a lot more people are cooking a lot
more than they have recently. Molly kind of recently went

(36:53):
on a search for the perfect cold soup. I saw that. Yes,
I'm not into soup, so I didn't have anything to
offer you, Molly. I'm I don't know, especially like cold soup.
I don't know. Maybe I'd rather have a popsicle. It's
just the same thing popsicle, yes exactly, but with no

(37:17):
savory only sweet. Okay, that's just a popsicle. Yeah. Have
you seen any of the TikTok videos about the n
y U kids who are in their dorms being delivered
the sad meals because they're they're like stuck and they
can't come out of their dorms. Oh no, Yeah, it's

(37:39):
that I kind of fixated on that way too long,
because I mean they were getting these bags and some
some of the contents were just like a cupcake and
peanut butter, and then there was the one, like the
big meal I guess was a chicken and watermelon salad,
which then like one of the TikTok people like accidentally
dropped on the floor and they were like cleaning up

(37:59):
the chicken and watermelon salad, and I was like, this
is very evocative and horrible. Um. But I that's kind
of why I've been enjoying your newsletter so much, because
I feel like all I think about in my downtime
is is food. Um. Is there anything you've been enjoying
cooking or eating during the core? Um? Honestly, like getting

(38:20):
more into salads because I realized that, like I at
my core and a child when it comes to eating,
and I need to remember to eat my vegetables, so
I've been trying to get creative around that. And also
I joined a C s A. So I get vegetables
delivered to me and it's like what am I going
to do with these? So you have to do them?
And then also this is like so basic of me,

(38:41):
but I have perfected my banana bread recipe. So which
one do you use? Um? I started with the Joy
of Cooking recipe, but I add more lemon and like,
I think it's calls for a banana and a half,
so I do like three bananas, and then also toasted hazelnuts.
I decided that's actually the key. Yeah, I can't do

(39:03):
any great, it's real great. That sounds so much better
than walnuts. Yeah, yeah, it works a lot better. I
guess some people don't like hazel nuts, but if you do,
you gotta go that route. Well, I'm allergic to walnuts,
so hazel nuts sound great. Perfect. Um. We also wanted
to talk a little bit about community fridges because I
know that you were kind of interested in starting one. Um,

(39:24):
did you ever manage to get that going? Yeah? So
we did. Um, two friends and I just started doing it.
On our own and we're just sort of calling around,
cold calling establishments in our neighborhood. Um. We partnered together
because we all live really close to each other. And
then we found a place, um, a wine bar um
nearby to where we live, in a neighborhood called Virgil

(39:44):
Village UM, and they were open to doing it, and
we partnered with a group, and it took a while
to actually make it happen. But now the refrigerator is
there and exists and it's feeding people. Can you explain
the concept of the community of fridge for people who
might not be familiar with it. Yeah, it's basically just
a refrigerator that's in a public space that anyone can

(40:05):
put food in and take food out of. Oh night,
like a food library kind of exactly. Yeah. A lot
of people compare it to a little libraries. Yeah, that's
that's awesome. So, like I've read that there have been
some weird, kind of bureaucratic hang ups with these. They
started in New York. I think, um by a group
a New World in our Hearts. UM. I don't know

(40:25):
if that was the first one ever, probably not, but
definitely kind of inspired the l A movement of community fridges. Um,
but there was one in competent I think that only
lasted two weeks. I think this was an l aist
report by Lillian Kalish and um it was basically like
the person who installed it was named Canny Web And

(40:48):
the city first started complaining that this violated property maintenance
and electrical codes because so when you contacted the wine bar,
that was to get the electrical source for the fridge
right and to put it on their proper pretty so
those two things. Yeah, Um, I think the electricity probably well,
I have no idea, but that's like an expensive part
of it. Especially I think in Los Angeles week it's

(41:09):
a lot hotter than it does. There's like a ton
of them in Oakland, and I don't think they have
the same heat concerns that we do, because it must
have to be constantly like super running on super high
just to like combat the fact that it's outdoors in
exact degree. And people who are more organized and have
more resources have actually started building little sheds around the refrigerators.
I think to cut down on how much energy needs

(41:30):
to be used. Oh that's smart, and you could also
if you did that, I mean, then you can start
daydreaming that it would be possible to do like a
full community kitchen, which would be nice as well, but
exactly and would instantly get shut down as well. Yeah yeah, yeah,
the content one. Um, they said that the person who
would installed it here she had to install a latch,

(41:51):
a safety latch on the outside so that it could
be locked. And then once they installed the latch, then
they were notified that they had violated the safety code
that wires all fridges on the street to like not
have doors because of something we've talked about on this podcast,
which was the Punky Brewster episode that featured the being
trapped in a fridge scare, which I guess was a

(42:12):
real thing. Yeah, I mean, it seems like it's such
a great idea, and I know, um, I think CNN
may have reported on this recently that food insecurity is
for obvious reasons just such it's like just blowing up
and so many more people are food insecure. But the
city Molly brought to my attention that like l a
p D had been trying to like seize or shut
down a lot of these fridges. Yeah, I saw that

(42:34):
the Highland Park one got shut down. Um, they've you
know were sited for violating some code or something. But
I think with Catherine was saying, it's like if you
get business to host it, I believe that is more legit.
But I also think they're just trying to figure out
ways to shut this down because they hate when we

(42:55):
have nice things. Yeah, exactly, it doesn't matter um who
host it. I don't think. And I think that really
the fridges are sort of acting outside of laws and legislation.
Like I think that the ones that have been shut down,
health department officials or whoever had to work really hard
to find a way to shut it down. It's just
like there's no legislation around these community fridges yet. But

(43:16):
I do think that it is probably a good idea
to have them off the sidewalk, both so that they
don't attract official attention and also I think for accessibility issues,
don't don't block sidewalk. Yeah, we're very anti scooter for
that reason. Yes, I agreed. I think also like an issue,
and we're going to see this more and more, you know,
like Hurricane Laura just came through, like Texas and Louisiana.

(43:39):
Like on top of the like food security that is
happening for economic reasons and for COVID reasons, like there
are going to be more and more natural disaster related
food and security situations. I was just I'm in Iowa
right now. I went and worked for a little bit
at a very very ad hoc kind of would bank

(44:00):
um that was being put together because a ton of
people there hadn't had power for two weeks and all
of their food went bad. And so like, if you
already had a system set up like a m a
community fridge, or you know, just a kind of mutual
like a public mutual aid type situation, then you wouldn't
have to scramble to put that kind of thing together.

(44:21):
It could be in place, and like people would know
what to do and where to go, because I think
like half of it is putting it together and half
of it is getting the word out so people know
that they can access those resources. Yeah, that makes a
lot of sense. Um. It kind of reminded me the
community fridges of one of the things that I now
look back fondly on from the beginning of quarantine, where
everyone was really not going to the store and there

(44:43):
were a lot of major shortages where um and also
when Molly lost her cat, like neighbors were kind of
talking to each other. Not to use the next door
motto like when neighbors talk, good things happen, but like
I was genuinely bar growing sugar and flour and stuff
from my neighbors, and the community fridge kind of seems

(45:04):
like a natural extension of that, and and kind of
maybe a way to get something good out of a
truly awful experience, to just be able to recognize, like
you know, the need and the surplus and like how
those things can exist next door to each other. But
I'm also curious, have you encountered anybody who's been against
the fridge, Like, do you have any fridge haters? No,

(45:27):
I wouldn't say anyone who's actively against it. It was
just like a lot of the businesses that we contacted,
so this is a really good idea, but we can't
do it here. And I think in a lot of
cases it was like they don't want to do it
there for so many reasons. Um, we actually have insurance.
There's an organization called Fridge that offers insurance for these
public fridges, so technically that shouldn't be an issue. And

(45:49):
when I say that, I kind of like get ignored.
I think they just don't. I mean, and I kind
of understand people getting nervous about people gathering at their
business to not you know, patronize the rein so but um, yeah,
no one. I don't think anyone is actively against them,
but a lot of people are just kind of hesitant
to get involved. That makes sense. I saw that there
was one that was opening up in Eagle Rock also,

(46:10):
just as of a couple of days ago. I think
Molly may have seen that too. Um, But I was cured.
I was like, I wonder, how you know how quickly
these are going to pop up versus how quickly they're
getting dismantled. It's kind of nice to hear that it's
a more complicated process to get them taken down, that
it's hard to find those codes that they're violating. Um.
And also that people are willing to kind of like,

(46:32):
you know, install a latch if they're supposed to install
a latch, take the latch off if they're not allowed
to have it. Um. But I wonder how people, if
they're interested in joining this project can kind of get involved.
And like, is there a hub in l A, Like
is there a website that people can check out if
they want to propose a community fridge in their neighborhood. Yeah,
so there's a couple of different ways of doing it.

(46:52):
You can definitely just do it yourself, that is like
one of the options. Um, But I do think it's
probably important to think about how much work the are
going to take. Um. So joining an organization is probably
great just for having other people on the cleaning schedule,
and I do think a cleaning schedule is important. There's
the one that I'm working with is called the People's Bodega.
They actually started with kind of like a different idea.

(47:15):
They're more about support at the marches, but they kind
of pivoted to the refrigerators as well. The big one
is l A Community Fridges, which I'm not involved with,
but apparently like they are run like the military, and
I mean that in like the good organized way, and
like there's like slack notices that go off. There's like
a public like volunteer schedule and everyone has to report

(47:37):
in that they've done their volunteer time and all that
kind of stuff. So that one's probably for people who
just want to, like I don't want to do all
the work of trying to find a place for a fridge,
because that is the annoying part of it. I think. Yeah,
I mean, it seems like there is so much opportunity
to kind of rethink the way that we all take
care of each other as a community. And when this

(47:58):
project started, I believe the New York I think it
started in New York, and maybe it started everywhere at
the same time. The People's Bodega started in New York, right, Yeah, well,
I think so. Actually, like there's People's Bedega and then
there's People's Bedega n y C. And I don't know
if they just they're joined together now. I don't know
how that started. But yeah, the community fridges are like

(48:21):
ten years old, like as a concept as we know
it now, but definitely when they started around ten years
ago and it was mostly in Europe, it was way
more about food waste, combating food waste, and I think
that like during COVID it's switched and food waste is
usually written as one of the reasons for doing it,
but I think it's definitely about people getting enough food. Yeah,
and it it definitely feels like it is in the

(48:42):
tradition or inspired by the Black Panthers Breakfast program completely,
which was, you know, a community program to provide free
breakfast for everybody in a neighborhood that sort of acknowledges
you know, food and security and other things that the
government that's not really dealing with. And I believe that

(49:03):
also was you know, they tried to find ways to
criminalize that, um, even though you should be able to
feed people for free. Yeah, it definitely has a lot
of similarities. I think a lot less organized than the
Black Panthers were, Like they had a point from the start,
whereas I think when the fridges first started, both at
the beginning and now during COVID, it was kind of

(49:25):
ad hoc and just like we'll try it out. But
it is, like I said, with l A community fridges,
it's becoming pretty organized. One of the things it was
a long time ago. Katherine. But on your Instagram, I remember, um,
you had a post discussing businesses that don't take cash.
I will not name the restaurant. It's it's a very

(49:45):
interesting topic for me. Named the restaurant. No, I don't
want to because because people were so mean to me
for and you know, my point in that post was
actually I wish that the journalists um, were writing about
this restaurant, UM in the sense of the neighborhood that
it's in and the fact that it doesn't accept cash,
And then the people who got mad at me, I

(50:07):
don't think are very intelligent people, but it was still
really a hard couple of days to be screamed at constantly.
It's weird because it too, I mean, you can be
kind of like, well, I understand why a business would
decide to not have not accept cash, and to also
acknowledge the fact that that's wrong, you know, for a
number of more important reasons. Yeah, I didn't think that

(50:30):
it was weird to say that it's classist because it
is classiest because a lot of people don't have bank
accounts and so they don't have plastic they can only
pay with cash. And I do think that, um, you know,
everyone's becoming more socially aware and that's so good. UM.
And I wonder if people who took offense at the
idea of it being classes last year would maybe still

(50:50):
feel the same way this year. Yeah, I mean, I
there's there are a few businesses in my neighborhood that
are cashless and we're called out um on social media
and the engagement was really interesting because the business is
a lot of the businesses are pretty like socially aware
and they were just like we've been robbed too many times,

(51:11):
like the insurance blah blah blah. But it's hard because
a lot of the neighborhoods that are cash less are
really like, you know, the kind of weird l a
awful gentrified mix of like these old residents, you know,
a lot of on housed people and then these newcomers
who are like just paying with the chip. And you
can feel the tension there, and it felt like the

(51:31):
tension was kind of playing out in that conversation in
an interesting way. And I think it seems as though
like food journalists are also very split on the issue,
at least from your post about it. But yeah, I
wonder kind of how that would be tackled now, And
I wonder if that's something that when you cover a
restaurant that is cash less, like you should feel compelled
to kind of get into that a little bit in
the coverage. Yeah, I think it's an interesting data point

(51:53):
kind of the way that you would talk about anything
else having to do with a restaurant, and actually your
point ties in perfectly because as we put our fridge
in the parking lot between a little grocer called Ricks
Produce and a wine bar called Melody and Melody Um
is often listed as one of the gentrifiers of Virgil Village.
I mean it is in a lot of ways, but

(52:16):
it's brought up a lot of um conversation about what
being a gentrifier means exactly and exactly who is a gentrifier.
If you are a renter, can you be a gentrifier
or is it actually the real estate developers and the
landlords who are gentrifiers. Obviously I just gave my own
opinion away. Yeah, but it is like interesting to see

(52:37):
people's reaction like to Melody, you know, providing the electricity
for for this refrigerator and being like, oh, that's cool
that they're doing that, versus like, oh, that's just performative.
It doesn't matter. They're still horrible. Well, it seems like
there's been a lot of discussion about Virtual Village, specifically recently,
because it is this kind of corridor that was a
lot of like Central American groceries and UM has been

(53:02):
gentrifying for the past ten years. And then of course
there was the squirrel mole jam scandal. Yeah, the anchor
of the Virgil Village gentrification wave like got completely disrupted.
I just think it's like funny to compare to think
about that in the context of these fridges. It's like,

(53:22):
you know, the fearmongering over the fridges, It's like, oh,
what if their food goes bad in there? And it's
like the food is going bad in the restaurants that
you're like paying for having it on toast for That's
such a good point. Didn't you write about this recently
about like you didn't get food poisoning from where you
think you got food poisoning from. Yeah, I did. How

(53:43):
people think that they know where they got food poisoning from.
But the actual um, the time between eating something that
poisons you and then actually getting sick can vary from
like three hours to twenty eight days depending, Yeah, seriously,
And it depends on like what kind of bacteria you ingested,

(54:05):
your own personal um immune system. That there's a lot
that goes into it. And yeah, because people said that
they never got sick from squirrel and I was like, maybe,
but maybe they did and we'll never know. That's the thing. Yeah,
And I mean also with the l al fresco thing
where they're putting tables and chairs on the sidewalk. It's like, well,

(54:25):
that's also blocking the sidewalk for food reasons, So why
would anyone care if a fridge isn't even blocking anything. Yeah,
some people really don't like it when other people try
and help each other. They sure don't, especially the people
who have all the stuff and don't need anything. Seemingly
are the ones who don't want other people having community. Well,

(54:47):
one of the things that strange is I've seen, um,
just like anecdotally that some of the people who are
objecting to the fridges are just like there, it's like
a germ vector. How can you be sure that this
stuff is clean? It's like, well, then a don't use it.
But also if you go to like Bristol Farms or
Gellson's and you're paying nine dollars for a bag of grapes, like,
chances are those have fallen on the floor and just

(55:09):
been put right back. Millions of people come by and
touch them. Like the the idea that something would the
myth of grocery stores, like the they're clean or something
like the half of the work of of a grocery
store of like an American grocery stores to create this
illusion of plentitude and cleanliness that is like not at

(55:31):
all necessarily the case, and often even if it is,
it results in tons and tons of food waste, like
like there's so so much food waste just at the
grocery store level, um, before you bring it into your
house and then don't eat half of the stuff you
get Like yeah that And I think people a lot
of people because they're used to they're used to patronize

(55:52):
in the grocery store just like assume that it is
like normal and good and clean and uh efficient, um,
and grocery stores. Yeah, there there are like laws against
grocery stores distributing food that they have to throw out,
and then there's laws against dumpstering, which again I feel

(56:12):
like if you want to eat food out of a
dumpster and you know the risk, it should be fine.
But you know, yeah, whenever I worked at grocery stores,
just like, you throw so much stuff away that isn't
necessarily bad. When I was in high school, I worked
for a bakery that um gave everything away at the
end of the day that hadn't been sold. They just
did it every day. Some guy came to the back

(56:34):
door and we just handed him whatever hadn't been sold.
And I wonder it was in l A. So maybe
like the regulations were more liberal um where this was.
But I also kind of feel like sometimes honestly, it's
best to just do a thing, and if you're told
five years later, oh, actually there's regulations against that, you
can be like, oh, I'll stop, But why wouldn't you
just give food away or put a fridge in somewhere?

(56:56):
And because like I was saying, the refridges aren't illegal,
they just aren't addressed yet by laws, So do it right.
And it's like like Silicon Valley's whole business model is
like finding a loophole of something that's not illegal yet
and doing it. And their model is obviously very exploitative
and based on exploiting workers, but it's like finding things

(57:18):
that aren't illegal that just are helpful and good and
then they try to criminalize it seems insane. It does. Um.
I was going to ask you, Catherine also because um,
we we've talked I think on the podcast about l
A Weekly and how it's changed and everything, But do
you have any um, like favorite kind of places that

(57:40):
have that have taken that over doing like really good
food reporting on a local level. And do you have
any recommendations where people can look into that stuff besides
smart Mouth No? Um, Like, yeah, you have to kind
of search them out. But there are a lot of
food writers during newsletters like I am too. So if
you just start following food people on Twitter, you'll quickly

(58:02):
find out who all is doing the newsletters. There's also, um,
there are people doing I think when Instagram first started
and like food instagramming, like we all know what the
stereotype of it is, but there are people like writing
longer captions and doing more thoughtful work. Um, there's like
l A Taco obviously covers of places yeah that wouldn't

(58:25):
be covered necessarily by the l A Times, etcetera. There's
another one. Um, I feel like I'm getting the name wrong.
I think it's called We Like l A. Is that
what you know that? It's okay? Yeah, I think we
like l As definitely. I Yeah, I always wonder because
I know I've been I follow like all of the
social media accounts of like my my local like little restaurants,
and I get super stressed. I think Casita del Campo

(58:48):
maybe was recently like featured in some kind of thing
where they talked about how how business had suffered and
they were worried about closing. Um. And so I'm curious
how we can kind of like prop up our favorite
teeny tiny little restaurants and stuff like that, um right now,
because it seems as though for a long time, for
for the first few months of the quarantine and everything,

(59:08):
it seemed as though there was a lot more hope
that you know, there'd be more assistance um to the
small restaurants and small businesses. And now you can just
kind of feel the shift in the outlook. Uh. And
it's so awful. Um. So if you have any favorite
l A places that you're concerned about that you want
people to check out that are good, let's hear. Um. Well,

(59:30):
let's see what restaurants do I like. I like um
Love to Eat, which is tie in Hollywood, Um, Ruined
pair Love Love to Eat. It's so good, it's so good. Yeah,
what do you get there? Everything? I'm not like just
like go nuts. The menu is huge, Like take two
months and go through the whole menu and try absolutely everything. Um.
Another one in Thai Town called Ruined pair, which is

(59:53):
really good. Um, I love Desuo Pizza, but I know
that they have at least one other location. I think
in cam it does, so I don't know if it
counts as a small They were yeah there, that was
like the after school pizza place, um, last two years
ago for for my family, that's like a really good
after school pizza place. That yeah, it was a quick walk,

(01:00:18):
was the only reason. And then I was like, this
is great. Yeah, I think that everybody should. Um, if
you have social media, you might as well like advertise
like your favorite restaurants too, Like even if you're not
like a food person, put it in your Instagram stories
or whatever, just say it. But I also, I'm sure
I know not everyone who loves food agrees with me,
but I do feel like it's really important to not

(01:00:39):
dine in. Yes, I think workers are in a really
difficult position because obviously we all know they need money,
but the government is not going to give it to them,
so they have to keep working. And having spoken at
length with a lot of restaurant workers, they don't actually
want to be there, like it's scary. So just order
take out no totally and tip generously. Yeah, like the

(01:01:03):
al fresco thing where it was like, well, we're gonna
let restaurants reopen in this limited fashion where we let
them have outdoor seating, just the whole thing, but forcing
them to reopen. It's like somebody was talking about this yesterday.
They were like, I is this an open and shut case?
Like should restaurants be open or closed? And it's like, well,
they should be closed, and the government should be paying

(01:01:24):
them to stay closed and be paying the workers and
bailing out small businesses the way they bailed out like
cruise ships and airlines and stuff like that exactly. And
I have heard some people say they're worried that only
ordering takeout will mean that people will lose their jobs,
but I don't think that's true if for no other
reason that every restaurant worker I've talked to you says

(01:01:45):
that their job responsibilities have shifted, Like everyone's just movement
is doing slightly different stuff as needed now. And I
feel like when you when you pick up food in person,
you can tip yep. Yeah. I mean I've been going
to UM just because it's nearby, and they were doing
bags of produce that were me sized as a solo

(01:02:06):
quarantine er. I didn't have to get like a big
CSA box, but Little Dom's was doing like a nice
small um produce bag, and so I was kind of
going there regularly because I would get that and then
I would like, you know, maybe get some eggs for
more than I would normally pay for eggs. But I
was like, you know, I'm doing this instead of going
to the grocery store, so and I'm not eating, Like

(01:02:26):
my entire eating out budget is like freed up now,
so um, I can do this. And then like after
a while, I got some note in my bag that
was like, hey, you know, we've been doing this thing
for a while. We were able to hire back, like
I don't remember, it was like five to ten of
their employees that they had put on furlough or something,
and so it's like, yeah, this stuff it does make

(01:02:47):
a difference. And like, you know, choosing where to to
spend your money and where to you know, to invest
in the neighborhood businesses that you like, it can make
a big difference. I think. Yeah. Corina long Worth from
End of Night Call had a good post the other
day to where she was like, um, I'm worried about
the small places, you know, she was like, everybody knows

(01:03:09):
that like places like John and Vinnie's or whatever, we'll
like get bailed out and you know, have investors no
matter what. But you know, she was talking specifically about
like small Italian red sauce places that you know have
been here since the fifties, that you know, are part
of what makes l a great um and a great
place to live. And I was saying, like Thai Town,

(01:03:31):
you know, is you mentioned a couple of places in
Thai Town, but like Thai Town has you know, some
of the best food in l A and is a
place I'm always worried about gentrifying because it's right next
to Hollywood, and you know, it's a relatively recent um enclave.
So I definitely encourage everybody to support like especially you know,

(01:03:54):
ethnic enclave neighborhoods, especially Asian restaurant I believe how to
lost business when COVID first started because of racism. So
you know, support places in the San Gabriel Valley, support
Korea Town. Yeah, because didn't Tai Fung in Arcadia closed? Well,
didn't Tai Fung is an international change, I know, but

(01:04:15):
I was shocked. I was like the fact that this
is affecting Din'tai Fung of all places, is really unexpected
to me. I think one thing that like I feel
like I truly know nothing about is what to assume
is more at risk restaurant wise, because a lot of
times it feels like it's not the places you would expect.
Like when I heard the thing about Didn'tai Fung, I

(01:04:35):
was actually I was quite shocked, and you would think, oh,
it has this whole you know, international business round, like
you know, they could you know, hopefully buffer it from
that kind of thing. And I do think that, like
you know, not that I'm most worried about them, but
I do think that like the john and Binneys of
the world aren't necessarily they don't have the biggest um margins.

(01:04:56):
Like I don't think that those places are necessarily like
a lot of those sort of fancy, trendy places in
l A that I don't even go too normally um
have shut down just because they're not really working with
that much of a margin there. That's true. I think
it then becomes just you know, if they go away,
can they come back? Versus the smaller places. But I
mean it is it's surprising what survives and what doesn't. Um,

(01:05:20):
I was always dunking on this one restaurant, but I
continued to go That's in Low Steel is that I found. Uh.
I liked their food, but I found it very overpriced
and I took strong offense to their decore this podcast. Okay,
you we know when you're talking about they, they're they're

(01:05:41):
the ones who are down to clown Does everybody? Does
everybody have one restaurant they'd like to recommend for people
to get take out from. Well, but wait before we
say that, let me just say that they've they've done
such a good job of taking care of their workers. Um,
since they've been take out only, they're really strict about
having everyone wear a mask, and their takeout is like

(01:06:01):
they have really high standards for the takeout. They obviously
really care about food. So I'm just gonna go on
the record and say, even though I never named them
and I'm not naming them now, that I forgive them
and I support them. Um, And it was nice because
we'll call it Los Fieleas t g I Fridays or
code Flair. Nice. But yeah, let's favorite places to get

(01:06:25):
take out I'd love to hear about as well. But
I just had to say I'm sorry, I was wrong.
I misjudged them. They had a lot of chokes and
they just didn't like it. But now I don't have
to look at the chute. I want to plug Zen
May in Chinatown, which is my favorite, like American Chinese
place in Chinatown. Uh really good, just everything. Check it out. Yeah.

(01:06:49):
I would echo the love to Eat recommendation from Catherine.
That has been my go to a lot, just because
I'll usually order like two dinners so I can have
something later on. Um. And the crab fried rice is
like a big goat to there that is uh um,
a lot of food and it's delicious. I love I

(01:07:11):
love a crab fried rice in general, and they do
it very very well there. Um. And there's a whole
Um also. I learned in in in ordering take out
from them because I hadn't done that before. There's a
whole Um like app that is specifically for a lot
of the Thai restaurants in l A. And I don't

(01:07:31):
really know what the deal with it is, but it
seems like they figured out, like a lot of these
restaurants team together to have a different platform to work
on that's not like seamless or door dash or whatever,
which you know, I was happy to learn about. I
hope that it it is better for their employees and
stuff to to use that um to use that alternate app.
But that was cool, nice, Katherine. Do you have any

(01:07:54):
favorite takeout spots to plug besides the ones that you've listed,
anyone you're you're worried about and you want to throw
them at a support I'm worried about all of them.
I feel like I can't even like my brain is
filled with so many names right now, I think I'm
gonna take a slightly different tech and kind of to
Emily's point, call the restaurant. Any restaurant're ordering delivery or
take out from, call them directly first and see if

(01:08:16):
they'll do delivery directly. They won't always do it, but
just see if they will, because if they do, they
get more money off of your order. And if they don't,
if enough people call them and ask them, maybe they
will start doing their own delivery. Yeah, and if you
can go pick it up in person, then you don't
have to screw over a door dash or seamless person
who we all know are getting super exploited and underpaid

(01:08:39):
during this time. If you can go in in person
and leave a tip in a tip jar, that's probably ideal. Yeah, yeah,
well I think that's it. So, Katherine, thank you so
much for joining us. Where can people find you on
social media? Oh? Um, let's see on Instagram at smart
Mouth podcast and my personal one at Katherine Underscore Spires
and then on Twitter at Katherine Spires. I never use

(01:09:00):
a podcast one and yeah. The podcast is called smart Mouth,
which is two words and um. The newsletter is at
smart Mouth dot sub stack dot com. Thanks for listening
to Nightcall. We will be back next week and as always,
leave us a night Call at two four oh four
six night or a night email at Nightcall Podcast at
gmail dot com and we look forward to hearing from you.

(01:09:24):
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