August 10, 2026 • 33 mins
Hour 3 - In 2017, Hollywood’s Sunset Square was named a Historic Preservation Overlay Zone, solidifying its place in L.A.’s architectural history.
Former reality TV star Spencer Pratt spent just under $71,000 on hotels for himself, his campaign staff and his fundraising operation, mostly at the Hotel Bel-Air and the Four Seasons Hotel in New York, according to recently released campaign finance filings in the mayoral race. Pratt had AI-designed billboards placed across the city.
Bass removed 6,200 people off the streets.
Burbank mogs Downtown LA.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
This is Monks and Merrill hosted by Michael Monks and
Chris Meryll.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
This is Monks and Merrill. Follow us on the socials
as well at Monks and Merrill, at Monks and Meryl,
where I think we're giving eulogies today. That was Caitlyn's
idea for the Oh you social media?
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Yeah, I don't know, man, because last time we did
a social video that involved those eagles. We've got a
lot of crazy people that don't follow.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
A lot of crazy. But let's be honest. In the
vein of social media, it's also like the most popular
posts that we've had.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
I know, because it attracted a different crowd. Like you
can tell from our talk back today, there are people
who are ready to play about this, which is fun,
you know our audience, but social media crowd is not. Well,
it went into the other. But it doesn't matter media,
it doesn't matter. I don't like that. I like to
play with our friends. I like bonuses.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
So if we get social middle bonus, well, my agent
got a digital bonus, didn't you negotiate one.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
My bonuses are much easier to attain. I put on
a smile, dealed my I walk out here with money
falling out of my pocket every Friday.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
This just in apparently has been a homicide is being
investigated as poisoning, and Shadow is from the number one
suspect Warren is being issued at this time.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Wow, So there you go, acial word we think from
the police. So we've had what Jackie officially dead age fourteen,
Shadow not back in the next Since then, we had
Shadow one call and say, uh, leave, leave me alone.
Susan and I are happy.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
Now.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Others say Susan is behind it. Then we had Susan
call and say, no, it was, We had nothing to
do with it.
Speaker 5 (01:41):
Hi, y'all, this is Joe Lane, the other Eagle. Now
I don't know what that Susan bird is talking about. Yeah,
that little hussy, she ain't got Shadow. Shadow's mine, oh mine,
and no one, no one, nobody has no Bird over
Joe Lee. And that's wrap. This refers to herself in
the third Bird. I just want to give my condolences.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Oh Joe Lead and you're flaming locks of auburn hair
and your ivory skin and your eyes of emerald green.
My goodness, Shadow, we did it. We're taking care of you,
know what I mean? Now you can be your authentic shell.
We can finally be together. Oh ever again, Okay, there's
(02:34):
the wrong number. Oh that's not Joe Lean, that's Joseph.
That's right. Suggesting the shadow is homosexual. Well, I think
you said us by bird. You know, there are a
lot of Bye Bye Birdie across the country. There are
a lot of nothing that's not bad. That's not bad.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
There are a lot of gay bars in big cities. Uh,
there's usually one called the Eagle. I'm not kidding, really,
I don't know what that is.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Wait a minute. That was the name of the bar,
and the Duke's hazzard that was the eagle nest. What's different?
Oh it's different.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Oh I'm saying they're called the Eagle. They're just called
the Eagle. Is that like a Is that a gay term? No,
not that I know of. Well maybe then when they
let you in.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
I haven't tried to go in, just sharing some insider base.
I just didn't know. I didn't know.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Okay, well, you know it would make sense I suppose
that there are gay eagles because there are gay bars
called the Eagle. Okay, no reason to be homophobic about it.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
I'm taking your word for it. I'm I'm curious. Well,
I'm curious about the bird. They left the curious in
curious about the birds. I'm not curious about the bar. No, mom,
I'm curious about bird. That's why all these websites are
on my search history. All right, let's get back to
what QUI. We talked about this too, because Rick Caruso
has pretty much rebuilt this Palisades village which I saw
(03:48):
in the opening on this a while back. It looks beautiful,
looks like the kind of place. It wouldn't let you
and I go, well, speak for yourself. It looks fancy,
looks nice. Arijuana's in there, k Bakery, Blue Ribbons, Sushi,
Zimmerman and Veronica Beard really good stuff.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Yeah, it's a great sign to see this type of
investment in a community desperately looking to find some semblance
of its old self as it rebuilds into whatever this
new Pacific Palisades is going to be after last year's fire.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
So yeah, but then what about the other part of this.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Well, there is some interesting piece that I found in
the Pallasadian Post, an independent paper there in the community. Okay,
it's called the Business Block, and it was an historic
structure that suffered significant and beautiful old structure, very very
very cool building, but it was mostly destroyed in the fire. However,
the frame, the facade, that basically the main walls survived,
(04:45):
and there were questions, what will we do about this?
Should we tear it down? Should we keep it? Well,
the Palisadian is reporting that at least a portion of
the standing ruins of the historic business block building is
safe to be preserved. That means it doesn't have to
be demolished. And this was a structural engineering analysis that
a councilman, Tracy Park's office put out. If you look
(05:06):
up online for those of you who are listening, if
you look up the Palisades Business Block, you'll see what
the building look like, and you will probably also see
what's left of it. You will see that it was
a lovely old historic building, and now you will see
just the frame, and you might wonder, like, well, what's
the point of this?
Speaker 2 (05:21):
You know, why save this? I you know, I'm not
usually with you on a lot of this historic preservation
because you want to preserve everything. Not every cardboard box
that's sitting out there needs to be preserved historically, which
is driving me nuts. It's like the Berry building. Oh,
authors had a cup of coffee here one time, So
now we have to save this and rope it off
(05:43):
and no one can ever develop it. It's as ridiculous
to me as these arguments about we have to save
skid Row because of its cultural relevance. Nonsense. Move on.
But I do think that this is one of those
situations where it's not like this was an abandoned building.
This is a tragic happenstance. The bones are still there.
And do you think this this building still tells a story? Yeah?
(06:04):
Does that make sense? Like its best days are still
ahead of it.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
I think okay, And you can do some creative stuff,
even if it is just the front facade that that's
able to remain. You can do some cool stuff to
you know, pay homage to the past and create some
new opportunities.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
You know, this thing was opening more than a hundred
years would you say that, Yeah, it's old. Yeah, yeah,
now they noticed the Starbucks building. That kind of breaks
my heart.
Speaker 4 (06:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Of course.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
There's not a lot of independent personalities in communities anymore
because we as consumers don't demand it.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
That's our fault. There are some disagreements about this. I
just get a lecture from my liberal You know.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
There are plenty of people who are like, well, I
want coffee, Let's go to a Starbucks instead of let's
go to Dustbros. Monks and Merrill's Cafe. You know, some
people make Starbucks their entire personality, Chipotle their entire personality,
dunk In their entire personality. And that's why communities don't
have personalities of their own anymore.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Yeah, I can't say much. I have an Apple phone,
so it's not the same. Like, the Apple people are weird,
aren't they. People that come on Apple people are like
Starbucks people, they're weird.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Yeah, I'm an android guy and the will Eurism Act
towards me.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
But android people are kind of like Protestants in the
in the seventeen hundreds.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
It's like, you're looking, I mean, you're calling me Protestant.
I know, we're kind of role reversing here. You'd be like, uh, oh,
oh you're Protestant. Oh no, you'd say, oh you're Catholic.
Oh you're part of that. Oh oh you're in the cult.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Oh.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Two engineers who were retained by the property owner previously
told the city's Office of Historic Resources that preserving any
of the ruins was not even feasible, but preservation advocates
pushed for the city to seek an independent assessment.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
That's what came back.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
And so it looks like at least half of the
remaining structure and there is not half at this building left.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
This is mainly just the front and like a couple
of side looks like a Hollywood set, right.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Yeah, yeah, it's it's sad, but it looks like at
least half of that can somehow be preserved.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Wish. And this is right across the street from that
Palisades village exactly. Yeah, this is a major commercial district
for that part of the Caruso said needs to be
torn down. He said it's an ice sord. He doesn't
like it. Sometimes I don't like him. Wow, you trusted.
Spencer Pratt tell the story of a neighborhood right in
the Palisades. He almost lost everything, He lost his house.
But there's new report out on how he spent his
(08:18):
campaign cash. Okay, there was a lot of it, all right,
And we'll talk about that as Monks and Meryl continues.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
You're listening to Monks and Meryll on demand from kf
I AM six forty more stimulating talk.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
So glad to have you with us as we can
all help each other get through this very difficult day
after we've lost Jackie, the Big Bald Eagle and Big Bear. Meanwhile,
Spencer Pratt, remember he ran for mayor you, Well, we'd
like to do interaction.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
We do have a correction. We like to make sure
that we get to things right. Earlier, you said that
you like to hang out at the I didn't say
I like to hang out. What happened was there was
a talk baggles Nest and I said, that's the name
of the Bar and the Dukes of Hazzard. But we
got an officionado, this is roscopy, cold tine, real, the
(09:11):
Bar and Dukes of Hazard. It's not the Eagle's this,
it's the Boar's.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
You've got a couple of corrections actually in the talkbacks
that we're like, you're an idiot.
Speaker 6 (09:23):
Hi.
Speaker 5 (09:23):
My name is Jerry Springbird, and I would love to
get a few of these birds on my show.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
The scandal here is incredible.
Speaker 6 (09:34):
I think we can do something with this.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
All right.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
I'm looking forward to that, all right. So yeah, Jackie
officially dying today. The reality TV star Jackie the Eagle. Yeah,
sad day there dying at age fourteen, and speculation shadows
behind it.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Spencer Pratt's ultimately unsuccessful campaign for mayor of Los Angeles
managed to get a lot of attention and also raise
a lot of money. And there's a new report out
by the LA Times detailing how the campaign spent that money.
He says he spent around seventy one thousand dollars. This
is you know, all the campaigns have to file these
documents by certain calendar dates in order to meet the
(10:12):
regulation set by the state, and so you have to
detail exactly how much you spent, if you owe any money,
and that sort of thing so that it can be scrutinized.
So he submitted these forms in the LA Time. You're
over evaluated them. Well, just making sure Pratt spent just
under seventy one thousand dollars on hotels, primarily at Hotel
bel Air and the Four Seasons Hotel in New York.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Was a campaigning in New York. I think he probably
traveled and do some media. I should point out this
is not the bell Air Motor Hotel either. What's that
I don't know, but it's only eighty two dollars on
booking dot Com. Yeah, I'm guessing that he's not the
bell Air Motor Hotel where Shadow is shacked up right
now with his trollep replacement. Now, the characterization of this
(10:58):
is that there's a bit of a contradiction with the
image that he's putting forth. I would say that's an understatement,
but you know, at the same time, it's he's from
the Palisades. Well, remember he did the story. By the way,
I would just look this up if you wanted to
book a hotel Bellier tomorrow for the cheapest room is
(11:21):
fourteen hundred dollars a night.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Yeah, yeah, well, let's get that digital bonus and we'll
think about it.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Well, I've got the digital bonus. You don't get a squat.
The problem is is that he said, Mayor Bass, you're
living in your mansion. This is my home. It's a
is a airstream. And there's problems with that because and
I pointed this out at the time, and I call
all kinds of health for it too. I saw the
commercially he did in the airstream and I said, that
is not a lived in RV. It was clean, it
(11:48):
looked like it came off the showroom. And I can
tell you as someone who's actually lived in an RV
in order to pay off its debt, which I did
for two years. There's stuff outside. You use the outdoor
space as a living space. But he had it parked
in front of his burned out mansion and said this
is where I live. Meanwhile, he's spending donation dollars and
by these are people who wanted him to get elected.
(12:10):
They gave him seventy one thousand dollars to be spent
on trying to get his message out there, to try
to get more radio TV time, to get more materials presented,
whatever it might be. I don't know that they would
be that they would say, listen, I'd be happy to
put you up in the Hotel bell Air. I mean,
(12:31):
even if they wanted to help the guy out, do
you think you could just stay at Are you okay
just staying at the Hyatt? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (12:36):
I was wondering is there a hotel brand that would
have been acceptable to a broader swath of the population.
I'm sure there are also people who are like, I
don't give a care if he said a Hotel bel
Air one hundred percent true, And honestly, I don't care
if they say the Hotel bel Air.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
I think it's just one of those things where the
message if you're.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Saying you're sleeping in a mobile home basically a motor
home outside your old house or on the land that
your house would used to stand off, yes, and you're
actually he's staying at one of the best hotels in.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
The country, exactly, you know the U. Yeah. And honestly,
the other problem that I have with this is I
think he's genuinely a victim of bad management. I think
that that fire devastated him and his family. I have
he is absolutely a victim, But then all of a sudden,
it was like he turned that into a prop and
(13:23):
I and there are people who can't afford to go
stay at the Hotel bel Air, who lost their homes
in the Palisades that came even afford to rebuild the
homes of the Palisades because they couldn't get insurance for
it that they fell victim to all the same policy issues,
reservoirs being worked on and emptied pumps not being strong enough,
you know, fire not being put out completely when it
was the the original fire. All of these different things
(13:45):
that he was a victim of too. They're still suffering.
But he's collecting campaign dollars and staying in the Hotel
bel Air. Where are they staying right now? I mean
that's where That's where I think I have the biggest
issue with this. He's genuinely a victim.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
Yeah, what he was saying was it really wouldn't have
been safe to stay in that the airstream, even on
his property because there were security concerns, and so he
had a shack up an hotel. But I think the
optics of choosing Hotel bel Air I think are worthy
of scrutiny.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
We probably wouldn't let any other candidate get away with it. No,
I want you to imagine this were Mayor Bass who
was staying in the Hotel bel Air exactly. You know,
if this is imagine if Mayor Bass had gone into
Boyle Heights and demanded that Lineage take all of those
victims and put them up in a hotel, and then
we find out that it's the Hotel bel Air, right,
Because that's one of the things they've been discussing is
(14:35):
you know, you need to need Lineage needs to pay
for temporary housing for all of these people who have
been affected by the smell coming out of this fire,
the warehouse fire Boyle Heights. But we've never actually identified
where that temporary housing is. Yeah, that's true. Is it
the Beverly Hilton? I don't know. I don't think it was.
Brand is acceptable for folks, Well, I'm telling you that
(14:57):
the highest, the most expensive one is not the most acceptable.
That one's never going to be acceptable to most folks.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
So the campaign spent about seventy one thousand dollars on
hotels like Hotel bell Air as well as the Four
Seasons hotel in New York also not not a cheap
place to stay, but that was barely a fraction of
what was raised. Over All, they spent about three million dollars,
so it was a full on campaign. He had consultants,
he had campaign firms, billboards, all that stuff, all campaign
(15:25):
expenses exactly, So they spent on that. But yeah, I
guess that that was the first time that we knew
exactly how much that he had spent on the hotel. Remember,
this became a minor issue for him because it did
contradict the very compelling ad that he put out, like hey,
Mayor Bass lives in the mayor's mansion, that the oraman
lives in a very nice home, and this is my
home and I'm in this. It was a very very
(15:45):
compelling message that was then.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
I thought it was the best add of the year.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
Yeah, and then it was countered by that report in
TMC that showed that he was actually living in Hotel
bel Air. So and he tried to explain at the time,
we had some security threats, but still, well, if you're
going to say in the video that this is where
you live.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
And I yes, you could split hairs. That is where
you live, right, that is your property. He said, this
is my home. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, well it is
that's right. Yeah, And that's when he got called out.
He's like, that is my home, and then he went
into attack mode, which is, by the way, it's a
very effective messaging that I used it when he got
sort of called out on it. Hey, you watched the
(16:21):
tents disappear. You've seen this before, right, you see the
tents are there, the tents are going right, then the
sidewalks get reopened, and then the tents come back, and
you get the same block has got new tents again
and again and again. What your money is actually accomplishing.
Next Monk's and merel KFI AM six forty, we're live
everywhere in the iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
You're listening to Monks and Merrill on demand from KFI
AM six.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Jackie officially dead at age of fourteen.
Speaker 7 (16:50):
Guys, this is Bob of the Idea is just coming
down the hill and we stopped through the Starbucks up
there and the Shadow was in there with a kick
cap of age.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
Disgusting. But remember Shadow was the replacement Eagle too, right,
because Jackie had a hook up before.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Well yeah, but I mean he came in and this
is just I wasn't following this at the time, but
what I just read briefly was that Shadow kind of
came in and kicked the other one out, decided that
he was going to be what happened to what happened?
I don't know, mister b I would need maybe somebody
to offer the backstory on what happened. Nobody seems to
care about mister Bees because here's the other thing. All
(17:26):
of these birds are just characters in other people's lives,
and basically they're mad because this one got written off
the show. Yeah, that's how it works.
Speaker 6 (17:33):
For that. Hey, they're monks and Merrill a shadow here.
I just want to deny categorically that I did not
take out a two million dollar life insurance Poulo Sam
Jackie a month before she.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Disappeared, but nobody said anything.
Speaker 6 (17:47):
It was only for one million. Oh and I had
no information regarding the double indemnity clues.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Oh wow, I.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
Had nothing like it A lot like a confession rather
than an explanation.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
I have some good news out of Boyle Heights. Tell me,
because often we see what's going on in Boil Heights,
we see poor leadership, and we see that they're pandering
to the people of Boyle Heights. After the fire happened there,
and they come out and they say, what can we
give you. We'll make lineage buy you whatever you want,
air conditioners, air purifiers, will have them put you up
in temporary housing for as long as you need. Whatever
you need. We'll bring in mariachi bands, And in fact
(18:23):
they did at a meeting, they brought in a mariachi
band for those that are unfamiliar. They're having a community meeting,
and then somebody had to bring in the Bandchi. Well,
we're in a crisis, but you noted this morning when
we were listening to some news coverage out of other
things at Boyle Heights, is that what you're doing. You're
you gonna play this for the audience. All right, let's
(18:44):
do it.
Speaker 8 (18:45):
Several hundred people lining up in Boyle Heights this evening
over at the Hollandbeck Park to receive back to school
supplies as well as some everyday necessity.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Okay, cool.
Speaker 8 (18:54):
Mayor Bass and Councilwoman Isabelle Giravo, all right, we all
make mistake.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
That's pretty bad, but I think she does prefer Corado.
I think we'll hoy, you're pronounce it, but okay, you're thinking, okay, cool.
They're having back to school. There's lots of back to
school stories happening right now. All right, cool, they're lighting up,
they're doing school supplies. Kids are being taken care of,
and then you find out who's kind of behind it.
Speaker 8 (19:13):
Mayor Bass and Councilwoman Isabelle Gerrado, they hosted this event
and the kids got to pick out everything from notebooks
to backpacks, and then the parents even received recovery resources
things like air purifiers to help curb some of the
effects from that massive lineage warehouse fire that started in June.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
So basically they played like Santa Claus. They showed up
and they went, we're here to take care of everyone
who wants backpacks. Oh no, I'm so happy, thankful, because
most of us right now we need it.
Speaker 7 (19:46):
Everything's suspensive.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Is this also going out in the back of what
is that? I don't this is It's like we've got
Mariachi's in the communities, we got Shakira showing up with
Mayor bass now and everything suspensive. We're working in collaboration
with my office a lot of different community organizations to
provide the resources that the people in this community need.
They tell us what they need and we deliver.
Speaker 8 (20:10):
And it wasn't just the distant live entertainments.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Always a party in Boile Heights. Look, it's great for
Boile he It's great. Great. I'm glad. I'm glad you've
got a sense of community. I'm glad You've got these
events going on, and you think, can you keep it down?
We're trying to work here exactly right, Here's where I
run into issues. This is the definition of grandstanding, because
are there any other communities anywhere in the city of
Los Angeles that might need some attention, like all of them,
(20:36):
thank you, Like all of them. That's pretty weoch. Like
so many. The mayor isn't going out there and handing
out backpacks to every community. She's making sure Boyle Heights
sees her because she can't have this come back on
her during the campaign. She wants to have this Boyle
Heights disaster be a win for her, and she is
fighting hard to say, look, I won Boyle Heights. I
(20:58):
found them the resources they need. She ended out air
purifiers like Trump tosses out paper towels after a hurricane.
I was just throwing into the crowd. She doesn't have
much in the way.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Of a record to campaign on us. She's kicking off
her campaign disasters. She's got a big campaign event planned
for Saturday to kick off the fall campaign. And I
don't know what she's going to talk about because even
her signature Inside Safe program.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
The LA Times did a nice write up on this, noting.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
That as frequently as these camps are moved, they come
right back. I've seen it with my own eyes. Inside
Safe has moved more than six thousand people into hotels, motels,
and other temporary housing since the program launched back in
December of twenty twenty two, but by June thirtieth of
this year, the latest numbers, forty three percent of those
(21:50):
participants were back outside. Okay, that does include people who
left voluntarily or were.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Expelled, or just they left volunteer knocking inside on the
street are not safe exactly. By the end of last year,
twenty three inside Safe areas had received at least five
separate visits, and during the final quarter of the year,
thirty six of the program's forty five operations took place
at locations that had already repopulated. So they go in,
(22:16):
they move the tents. We're gonna get you into a room.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Come on, you get the photo op, you get the
brag about it. Yeah, but then the tents come back,
either with new people or when these people leave the program,
they come back. That's exactly right. So that is it's
spent a lot of money. It got some good headlines
in the beginning. I've said this that I believe our
heart's in the right place, but it's not an effective program.
(22:41):
And at some point you've got to stop using your
heart and start using your brain and saying this isn't working.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
We have to shift gears. So this reminds me of
other big political, ambitious efforts, and that is that they go,
here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna get people into
a motel room until we can get them into some
long term places. And they go great. So they get
the hotel rooms and the motel rooms lined up at
a cost of eighty two thousand dollars per room per year.
(23:07):
It's not cheap. It's not cheap because it's almost three
times my rent. Okay, I'm just gonna say, Alle has
spent more than three hundred million dollars on inside safe
and that's where most of it's going. So the issue
that and this is just the motel rooms, right that
we're talking about the forty two eighty two thousand dollars
a year. Eighty two thousand dollars a year. You could
(23:28):
get them the top floor of Michael's apartment building next
to their tents on skid row for less than eighty
two thousand dollars a year. Yeah, right, you could. Okay,
So that set I mean we're talking helped me math
this out, seven thousand dollars a month. Basically rent is
what is going into this so that said. What happened
was they said, we're gonna get you to a motel rooms.
So they sent the social workers out. They said, we're
(23:49):
gonna get you to a We're gonna get you into
a room, and then we're gonna get your help. And
they went, okay, we're coming, We're coming. This sounds great.
They PLoP them in a motel room and they and
so the people are like, great, where are we going next?
Are we going to get a voucher for are we
going to go into some other addiction treatment. We're going
to go into whatever it is because I need help
and I'm ready to get off the street. And then
they say, yeah, we're waiting for that to open up. Yeah,
we're waiting for spots on this. So they put the
(24:11):
cart before the horse on this. Yeah, they didn't have
a plan, no place, And that's where the frustration continues
to pile up. And it's where our frustration continues them
ount because it's our tax dollars going toward it. It's
a total waste of money. We'll wrap up this solemn,
solemn day. You're listening to Monks.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
And Meryl onto the Air from KFI AM six ft.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Available anywhere on the Iart Radio app. Wrapping up this
edition of the show here on Monday afternoon. If you
missed a minute of the action, you missed a lot.
KFIAM six forty dot com the iHeartRadio app and subscribe
to our podcast and we will deliver it to you
free of charge every single day. They don't pile up
in your inbox. They replace each other. If you miss
a day, no big deal, and we do appreciate you
(24:53):
clicking that subscribe button and joining us. If you've been
to downtown Burbank recently, you know that it is built,
is thriving community, and frankly, some officials in that area,
some people who work in real estate and civic oriented businesses,
they're saying, you know, we're doing better than the City
of Los Angeles because we don't get in people's way.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
Some are saying that, I think all are saying. Well.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
The La Times profiled this with the headline beautiful Downtown
Burbank isn't a punchline. The city is booming while Downtown
LA struggles. Yeah, continues to struggle. And the only thing
about Burbank that's not going well is that escalator at
the AMC that is it? Otherwise everything else is working wonderfully.
(25:38):
You talk about a punchline, that's like that thing works
about as often as the McDonald's ice cream machine. Now, look,
I remember when I got back from my vacation. I
haven't mentioned this place in a while, So I'm going
to say it just once. When I was when I
got back from Carmel by the Sea, and I posted
a photo of my Central Coast vacation, several photos just
to say California is awesome, but why can't LA be
(25:58):
more like Carmel?
Speaker 2 (25:59):
And I did?
Speaker 3 (26:00):
I get a comment that was fair. I was like, oh,
you think LA can be like Carmel? And I was like, Okay,
maybe I should have been a little more specific. And
the same is true. I think when you're comparing LA
to Burbank, you're you're talking about a much smaller geographic
area that could be easier to tend to. But at
the same time, if LA can't demonstrate even a minor
(26:20):
amount of civic pride and civic due diligence to create
safe spaces and clean spaces and business friendly spaces, I
think that comparisons are apt. I don't you don't think
the Burbank LA comparison is apt. I think the Burbank
LA comparison is apt. Yeah, I agree that the people
that are critical of the comparison, Yeah, and at it
(26:44):
so that what they're talking about a scale, and this
is what you're talking about a scale, right, and you go,
Burbank's only got I don't know how many people hundred
thousand people in Burbank.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
LA has got four million people, right, and you can't
do the same things. I would also argue though, that
Burbank doesn't have the same resources as four million people.
Burbank doesn't have a beach, right, Burbank doesn't. I mean,
we've got mountains. But they were on fire yesday, by
the way, that Walnut fire in Burbank.
Speaker 8 (27:08):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
They think car accident may have caused no way, Yeah,
people were thinking. I was seeing people online that are like,
this is ourson and others, you know whatever. It sounds
like it was a car accident that yeah, car started
so anyhow that said, yeah, Burbank's studios, but so does LA.
So it's like you've got the you've got to it's
how you use the resources that exactly. LA has a
(27:31):
bunch of little Burbanks or a bunch of little Carmels. However,
you want to look at exactly at the park, downtown, neighborhoods.
You know, think of any part of the city of
Los Angeles, Hollywood, North Hollywood, all the beaches can be
compared to the central coast beaches.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
Exactly, and you neglect every single corner of it.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Part of this, I think has to do with and
you talked about this in the beginning. It has to
do with that bureaucracy. Whereas Burbank goes here, we're gonna
do this, We're gonna have this outreach here, We're gonna
we're gonna streamline things, We're gonna do this. La goes Nope,
we have to have more departments. Nope, we have to
have more community impact study. We're gonna have to We're
gonna have to see how much neighboring cultures feel about you, uh,
putting different colored street lights up, something of that sort.
(28:10):
And every little special interest gets far too much difference.
And there is no if you notice this, there's no
unity in the city of Los Angeles. The personality is
split far too much. If you if you go to Burbank,
which we're in Burbank right now, Right, it's got a vibe. Okay,
We've got we've got studios here, and then you've got
(28:31):
some some residences that are among the studios. And it
feels kind of old school Los Angeles when we think
of old school, Right, you get the same kind of
stuff in pockets of LA. But then you'll get these
other pockets where you go, well, we're gonna do this
over here, and we're gonna do And when I'm not
talking about zoning, I'm talking about what is the uniform
(28:51):
uh LA vibe? Well, I think it's it's what are
you going? On the other hand, I think L I mean,
LA is extraordinarily diverse, and there are a lot of
different parts of the city that are representative of what's
the common thread? What's the thread that keeps them all together?
Other than city Hall?
Speaker 3 (29:08):
No, I think it's poverty at this point, poverty of resources,
personal financial poverty, mismannered neglect.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Right, it's all negatives. So where's that common thread that's
all there is? What's that thing that says, yeah, this
is us, Yes we are and this you know, we
had a conversation a month ago talking about a new
logo for the City of Los Angeles. They were spending
one hundred thousand dollars on investigating a new logo, however
much it was, and they wanted to do with this
big research on it, and I said, look, we just
(29:37):
need something that's going to thread everything together. Whether it's
the port, whether it's the beaches, whether it's the entertainment industry,
whether it's you know, the tourism industry, whether it's the
families in the valley just trying to get by day
in and day out, whether it's people in Woodland Hills
just trying to keep Bideborrah off their lawn because she's
out there trying to save every squirrel she runs across.
(30:01):
What is the thread that ties everything together. That's the
branding that LA needs, And that's where I just think
the leadership is missing a grander vision.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
I think it would be helpful if we started the
show today talking about street takeovers and then the show
got taken over.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
Well, yeah, because Jackie died.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
But there's a sense of lawlessness and a sense of
no consequences for people who do break the law. It's true,
and that permeates the entire city from sea to Shining
Sea and that's negative. And I don't know how you
can even begin to think about a unifying message until
you get the basic fundamentals of governance correct. And obviously
(30:42):
we can't rely entirely on a city government to develop
civic pride. But if you're not invested civically, you're not
helping to shape that. But what incentive do you have
to be invested civically?
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Right now?
Speaker 3 (30:53):
When you see all of the red tape, you see
what gets you, which is nothing. How many different neighborhood
group outside of Boyle Heights are clamoring for the opportunity
to fix intersections or to get homeless camps off of
their all importance, every single one of them. Yeah, and
nothing's given. So what is the vision?
Speaker 2 (31:12):
What? There's not one? There you go, This is what
I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
What every time you hear Mayor Bass stand up or
Nathanya Rahman stand up and talk about bold leadership and
they both say it, bold leadership is in vogue in
political speak right now.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
It's just a word. It is just a word, but
bold means something and right now they need bol We
need bold leadership in Los Angeles that says this status
quo is not acceptable, and that includes the pispoort leadership
of people like Karen Bass and Nithia Romo. You think
when I say vision, they go, here's my vision. It's
not a gin, it's not an actual vision. It's more
(31:49):
just words. Yeah, right, I want to see. Tell me
what it is. What is the vibe I need, whether
I'm in the Pacific Palisades or I'm in Boyle Heights.
What is the feeling that I have about being in
Los Angeles? What regardless of neighborhood, what is the common thread?
What is the overall vision? And right now we've got
a bunch of groups that have their own independent visions
(32:11):
fighting to come out on top, and that leaves us
with nothing and.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
Far too many people, including people who vote, who look
around and think, yep, this is fine.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Those are the same people that are out there like
crying about a dead bird today, same people that are
voting this way.
Speaker 7 (32:25):
Oh my goodness, guys, this was by far the funniest
episode you guys have done so far. My signs are
hurting and oh my god, great job. I need a
new pair of pants.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
Oh no, you know, all it takes is for a
beloved bald eagle to die and suddenly we.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Have a comedy hour. We have another mistress that just
called us to I think we've had We're back again
tomorrow at noonish. Monks and Merril KFI AM six forty
live everywhere in the I Heard Radio.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Appf on demand.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
You've been listening to Monks and Merrill here the show
five weekdays from noon to three on kf I AM
six forty at anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
This is Monks and Merrill hosted by Michael Monks and
Chris Meryll.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
This is Monks and Merrill. Follow us on the socials
as well at Monks and Merrill, at Monks and Meryl,
where I think we're giving eulogies today. That was Caitlyn's
idea for the Oh you social media?
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Yeah, I don't know, man, because last time we did
a social video that involved those eagles. We've got a
lot of crazy people that don't follow.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
A lot of crazy. But let's be honest. In the
vein of social media, it's also like the most popular
posts that we've had.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
I know, because it attracted a different crowd. Like you
can tell from our talk back today, there are people
who are ready to play about this, which is fun,
you know our audience, but social media crowd is not. Well,
it went into the other. But it doesn't matter media,
it doesn't matter. I don't like that. I like to
play with our friends. I like bonuses.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
So if we get social middle bonus, well, my agent
got a digital bonus, didn't you negotiate one.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
My bonuses are much easier to attain. I put on
a smile, dealed my I walk out here with money
falling out of my pocket every Friday.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
This just in apparently has been a homicide is being
investigated as poisoning, and Shadow is from the number one
suspect Warren is being issued at this time.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Wow, So there you go, acial word we think from
the police. So we've had what Jackie officially dead age fourteen,
Shadow not back in the next Since then, we had
Shadow one call and say, uh, leave, leave me alone.
Susan and I are happy.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
Now.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Others say Susan is behind it. Then we had Susan
call and say, no, it was, We had nothing to
do with it.
Speaker 5 (01:41):
Hi, y'all, this is Joe Lane, the other Eagle. Now
I don't know what that Susan bird is talking about. Yeah,
that little hussy, she ain't got Shadow. Shadow's mine, oh mine,
and no one, no one, nobody has no Bird over
Joe Lee. And that's wrap. This refers to herself in
the third Bird. I just want to give my condolences.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Oh Joe Lead and you're flaming locks of auburn hair
and your ivory skin and your eyes of emerald green.
My goodness, Shadow, we did it. We're taking care of you,
know what I mean? Now you can be your authentic shell.
We can finally be together. Oh ever again, Okay, there's
(02:34):
the wrong number. Oh that's not Joe Lean, that's Joseph.
That's right. Suggesting the shadow is homosexual. Well, I think
you said us by bird. You know, there are a
lot of Bye Bye Birdie across the country. There are
a lot of nothing that's not bad. That's not bad.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
There are a lot of gay bars in big cities. Uh,
there's usually one called the Eagle. I'm not kidding, really,
I don't know what that is.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Wait a minute. That was the name of the bar,
and the Duke's hazzard that was the eagle nest. What's different?
Oh it's different.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Oh I'm saying they're called the Eagle. They're just called
the Eagle. Is that like a Is that a gay term? No,
not that I know of. Well maybe then when they
let you in.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
I haven't tried to go in, just sharing some insider base.
I just didn't know. I didn't know.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Okay, well, you know it would make sense I suppose
that there are gay eagles because there are gay bars
called the Eagle. Okay, no reason to be homophobic about it.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
I'm taking your word for it. I'm I'm curious. Well,
I'm curious about the bird. They left the curious in
curious about the birds. I'm not curious about the bar. No, mom,
I'm curious about bird. That's why all these websites are
on my search history. All right, let's get back to
what QUI. We talked about this too, because Rick Caruso
has pretty much rebuilt this Palisades village which I saw
(03:48):
in the opening on this a while back. It looks beautiful,
looks like the kind of place. It wouldn't let you
and I go, well, speak for yourself. It looks fancy,
looks nice. Arijuana's in there, k Bakery, Blue Ribbons, Sushi,
Zimmerman and Veronica Beard really good stuff.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Yeah, it's a great sign to see this type of
investment in a community desperately looking to find some semblance
of its old self as it rebuilds into whatever this
new Pacific Palisades is going to be after last year's fire.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
So yeah, but then what about the other part of this.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Well, there is some interesting piece that I found in
the Pallasadian Post, an independent paper there in the community. Okay,
it's called the Business Block, and it was an historic
structure that suffered significant and beautiful old structure, very very
very cool building, but it was mostly destroyed in the fire. However,
the frame, the facade, that basically the main walls survived,
(04:45):
and there were questions, what will we do about this?
Should we tear it down? Should we keep it? Well,
the Palisadian is reporting that at least a portion of
the standing ruins of the historic business block building is
safe to be preserved. That means it doesn't have to
be demolished. And this was a structural engineering analysis that
a councilman, Tracy Park's office put out. If you look
(05:06):
up online for those of you who are listening, if
you look up the Palisades Business Block, you'll see what
the building look like, and you will probably also see
what's left of it. You will see that it was
a lovely old historic building, and now you will see
just the frame, and you might wonder, like, well, what's
the point of this?
Speaker 2 (05:21):
You know, why save this? I you know, I'm not
usually with you on a lot of this historic preservation
because you want to preserve everything. Not every cardboard box
that's sitting out there needs to be preserved historically, which
is driving me nuts. It's like the Berry building. Oh,
authors had a cup of coffee here one time, So
now we have to save this and rope it off
(05:43):
and no one can ever develop it. It's as ridiculous
to me as these arguments about we have to save
skid Row because of its cultural relevance. Nonsense. Move on.
But I do think that this is one of those
situations where it's not like this was an abandoned building.
This is a tragic happenstance. The bones are still there.
And do you think this this building still tells a story? Yeah?
(06:04):
Does that make sense? Like its best days are still
ahead of it.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
I think okay, And you can do some creative stuff,
even if it is just the front facade that that's
able to remain. You can do some cool stuff to
you know, pay homage to the past and create some
new opportunities.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
You know, this thing was opening more than a hundred
years would you say that, Yeah, it's old. Yeah, yeah,
now they noticed the Starbucks building. That kind of breaks
my heart.
Speaker 4 (06:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Of course.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
There's not a lot of independent personalities in communities anymore
because we as consumers don't demand it.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
That's our fault. There are some disagreements about this. I
just get a lecture from my liberal You know.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
There are plenty of people who are like, well, I
want coffee, Let's go to a Starbucks instead of let's
go to Dustbros. Monks and Merrill's Cafe. You know, some
people make Starbucks their entire personality, Chipotle their entire personality,
dunk In their entire personality. And that's why communities don't
have personalities of their own anymore.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Yeah, I can't say much. I have an Apple phone,
so it's not the same. Like, the Apple people are weird,
aren't they. People that come on Apple people are like
Starbucks people, they're weird.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Yeah, I'm an android guy and the will Eurism Act
towards me.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
But android people are kind of like Protestants in the
in the seventeen hundreds.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
It's like, you're looking, I mean, you're calling me Protestant.
I know, we're kind of role reversing here. You'd be like, uh, oh,
oh you're Protestant. Oh no, you'd say, oh you're Catholic.
Oh you're part of that. Oh oh you're in the cult.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Oh.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Two engineers who were retained by the property owner previously
told the city's Office of Historic Resources that preserving any
of the ruins was not even feasible, but preservation advocates
pushed for the city to seek an independent assessment.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
That's what came back.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
And so it looks like at least half of the
remaining structure and there is not half at this building left.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
This is mainly just the front and like a couple
of side looks like a Hollywood set, right.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Yeah, yeah, it's it's sad, but it looks like at
least half of that can somehow be preserved.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Wish. And this is right across the street from that
Palisades village exactly. Yeah, this is a major commercial district
for that part of the Caruso said needs to be
torn down. He said it's an ice sord. He doesn't
like it. Sometimes I don't like him. Wow, you trusted.
Spencer Pratt tell the story of a neighborhood right in
the Palisades. He almost lost everything, He lost his house.
But there's new report out on how he spent his
(08:18):
campaign cash. Okay, there was a lot of it, all right,
And we'll talk about that as Monks and Meryl continues.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
You're listening to Monks and Meryll on demand from kf
I AM six forty more stimulating talk.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
So glad to have you with us as we can
all help each other get through this very difficult day
after we've lost Jackie, the Big Bald Eagle and Big Bear. Meanwhile,
Spencer Pratt, remember he ran for mayor you, Well, we'd
like to do interaction.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
We do have a correction. We like to make sure
that we get to things right. Earlier, you said that
you like to hang out at the I didn't say
I like to hang out. What happened was there was
a talk baggles Nest and I said, that's the name
of the Bar and the Dukes of Hazzard. But we
got an officionado, this is roscopy, cold tine, real, the
(09:11):
Bar and Dukes of Hazard. It's not the Eagle's this,
it's the Boar's.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
You've got a couple of corrections actually in the talkbacks
that we're like, you're an idiot.
Speaker 6 (09:23):
Hi.
Speaker 5 (09:23):
My name is Jerry Springbird, and I would love to
get a few of these birds on my show.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
The scandal here is incredible.
Speaker 6 (09:34):
I think we can do something with this.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
All right.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
I'm looking forward to that, all right. So yeah, Jackie
officially dying today. The reality TV star Jackie the Eagle. Yeah,
sad day there dying at age fourteen, and speculation shadows
behind it.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Spencer Pratt's ultimately unsuccessful campaign for mayor of Los Angeles
managed to get a lot of attention and also raise
a lot of money. And there's a new report out
by the LA Times detailing how the campaign spent that money.
He says he spent around seventy one thousand dollars. This
is you know, all the campaigns have to file these
documents by certain calendar dates in order to meet the
(10:12):
regulation set by the state, and so you have to
detail exactly how much you spent, if you owe any money,
and that sort of thing so that it can be scrutinized.
So he submitted these forms in the LA Time. You're
over evaluated them. Well, just making sure Pratt spent just
under seventy one thousand dollars on hotels, primarily at Hotel
bel Air and the Four Seasons Hotel in New York.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Was a campaigning in New York. I think he probably
traveled and do some media. I should point out this
is not the bell Air Motor Hotel either. What's that
I don't know, but it's only eighty two dollars on
booking dot Com. Yeah, I'm guessing that he's not the
bell Air Motor Hotel where Shadow is shacked up right
now with his trollep replacement. Now, the characterization of this
(10:58):
is that there's a bit of a contradiction with the
image that he's putting forth. I would say that's an understatement,
but you know, at the same time, it's he's from
the Palisades. Well, remember he did the story. By the way,
I would just look this up if you wanted to
book a hotel Bellier tomorrow for the cheapest room is
(11:21):
fourteen hundred dollars a night.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Yeah, yeah, well, let's get that digital bonus and we'll
think about it.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Well, I've got the digital bonus. You don't get a squat.
The problem is is that he said, Mayor Bass, you're
living in your mansion. This is my home. It's a
is a airstream. And there's problems with that because and
I pointed this out at the time, and I call
all kinds of health for it too. I saw the
commercially he did in the airstream and I said, that
is not a lived in RV. It was clean, it
(11:48):
looked like it came off the showroom. And I can
tell you as someone who's actually lived in an RV
in order to pay off its debt, which I did
for two years. There's stuff outside. You use the outdoor
space as a living space. But he had it parked
in front of his burned out mansion and said this
is where I live. Meanwhile, he's spending donation dollars and
by these are people who wanted him to get elected.
(12:10):
They gave him seventy one thousand dollars to be spent
on trying to get his message out there, to try
to get more radio TV time, to get more materials presented,
whatever it might be. I don't know that they would
be that they would say, listen, I'd be happy to
put you up in the Hotel bell Air. I mean,
(12:31):
even if they wanted to help the guy out, do
you think you could just stay at Are you okay
just staying at the Hyatt? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (12:36):
I was wondering is there a hotel brand that would
have been acceptable to a broader swath of the population.
I'm sure there are also people who are like, I
don't give a care if he said a Hotel bel
Air one hundred percent true, And honestly, I don't care
if they say the Hotel bel Air.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
I think it's just one of those things where the
message if you're.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Saying you're sleeping in a mobile home basically a motor
home outside your old house or on the land that
your house would used to stand off, yes, and you're
actually he's staying at one of the best hotels in.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
The country, exactly, you know the U. Yeah. And honestly,
the other problem that I have with this is I
think he's genuinely a victim of bad management. I think
that that fire devastated him and his family. I have
he is absolutely a victim, But then all of a sudden,
it was like he turned that into a prop and
(13:23):
I and there are people who can't afford to go
stay at the Hotel bel Air, who lost their homes
in the Palisades that came even afford to rebuild the
homes of the Palisades because they couldn't get insurance for
it that they fell victim to all the same policy issues,
reservoirs being worked on and emptied pumps not being strong enough,
you know, fire not being put out completely when it
was the the original fire. All of these different things
(13:45):
that he was a victim of too. They're still suffering.
But he's collecting campaign dollars and staying in the Hotel
bel Air. Where are they staying right now? I mean
that's where That's where I think I have the biggest
issue with this. He's genuinely a victim.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
Yeah, what he was saying was it really wouldn't have
been safe to stay in that the airstream, even on
his property because there were security concerns, and so he
had a shack up an hotel. But I think the
optics of choosing Hotel bel Air I think are worthy
of scrutiny.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
We probably wouldn't let any other candidate get away with it. No,
I want you to imagine this were Mayor Bass who
was staying in the Hotel bel Air exactly. You know,
if this is imagine if Mayor Bass had gone into
Boyle Heights and demanded that Lineage take all of those
victims and put them up in a hotel, and then
we find out that it's the Hotel bel Air, right,
Because that's one of the things they've been discussing is
(14:35):
you know, you need to need Lineage needs to pay
for temporary housing for all of these people who have
been affected by the smell coming out of this fire,
the warehouse fire Boyle Heights. But we've never actually identified
where that temporary housing is. Yeah, that's true. Is it
the Beverly Hilton? I don't know. I don't think it was.
Brand is acceptable for folks, Well, I'm telling you that
(14:57):
the highest, the most expensive one is not the most acceptable.
That one's never going to be acceptable to most folks.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
So the campaign spent about seventy one thousand dollars on
hotels like Hotel bell Air as well as the Four
Seasons hotel in New York also not not a cheap
place to stay, but that was barely a fraction of
what was raised. Over All, they spent about three million dollars,
so it was a full on campaign. He had consultants,
he had campaign firms, billboards, all that stuff, all campaign
(15:25):
expenses exactly, So they spent on that. But yeah, I
guess that that was the first time that we knew
exactly how much that he had spent on the hotel. Remember,
this became a minor issue for him because it did
contradict the very compelling ad that he put out, like hey,
Mayor Bass lives in the mayor's mansion, that the oraman
lives in a very nice home, and this is my
home and I'm in this. It was a very very
(15:45):
compelling message that was then.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
I thought it was the best add of the year.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
Yeah, and then it was countered by that report in
TMC that showed that he was actually living in Hotel
bel Air. So and he tried to explain at the time,
we had some security threats, but still, well, if you're
going to say in the video that this is where
you live.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
And I yes, you could split hairs. That is where
you live, right, that is your property. He said, this
is my home. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, well it is
that's right. Yeah, And that's when he got called out.
He's like, that is my home, and then he went
into attack mode, which is, by the way, it's a
very effective messaging that I used it when he got
sort of called out on it. Hey, you watched the
(16:21):
tents disappear. You've seen this before, right, you see the
tents are there, the tents are going right, then the
sidewalks get reopened, and then the tents come back, and
you get the same block has got new tents again
and again and again. What your money is actually accomplishing.
Next Monk's and merel KFI AM six forty, we're live
everywhere in the iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
You're listening to Monks and Merrill on demand from KFI
AM six.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Jackie officially dead at age of fourteen.
Speaker 7 (16:50):
Guys, this is Bob of the Idea is just coming
down the hill and we stopped through the Starbucks up
there and the Shadow was in there with a kick
cap of age.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
Disgusting. But remember Shadow was the replacement Eagle too, right,
because Jackie had a hook up before.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Well yeah, but I mean he came in and this
is just I wasn't following this at the time, but
what I just read briefly was that Shadow kind of
came in and kicked the other one out, decided that
he was going to be what happened to what happened?
I don't know, mister b I would need maybe somebody
to offer the backstory on what happened. Nobody seems to
care about mister Bees because here's the other thing. All
(17:26):
of these birds are just characters in other people's lives,
and basically they're mad because this one got written off
the show. Yeah, that's how it works.
Speaker 6 (17:33):
For that. Hey, they're monks and Merrill a shadow here.
I just want to deny categorically that I did not
take out a two million dollar life insurance Poulo Sam
Jackie a month before she.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Disappeared, but nobody said anything.
Speaker 6 (17:47):
It was only for one million. Oh and I had
no information regarding the double indemnity clues.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Oh wow, I.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
Had nothing like it A lot like a confession rather
than an explanation.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
I have some good news out of Boyle Heights. Tell me,
because often we see what's going on in Boil Heights,
we see poor leadership, and we see that they're pandering
to the people of Boyle Heights. After the fire happened there,
and they come out and they say, what can we
give you. We'll make lineage buy you whatever you want,
air conditioners, air purifiers, will have them put you up
in temporary housing for as long as you need. Whatever
you need. We'll bring in mariachi bands, And in fact
(18:23):
they did at a meeting, they brought in a mariachi
band for those that are unfamiliar. They're having a community meeting,
and then somebody had to bring in the Bandchi. Well,
we're in a crisis, but you noted this morning when
we were listening to some news coverage out of other
things at Boyle Heights, is that what you're doing. You're
you gonna play this for the audience. All right, let's
(18:44):
do it.
Speaker 8 (18:45):
Several hundred people lining up in Boyle Heights this evening
over at the Hollandbeck Park to receive back to school
supplies as well as some everyday necessity.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Okay, cool.
Speaker 8 (18:54):
Mayor Bass and Councilwoman Isabelle Giravo, all right, we all
make mistake.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
That's pretty bad, but I think she does prefer Corado.
I think we'll hoy, you're pronounce it, but okay, you're thinking, okay, cool.
They're having back to school. There's lots of back to
school stories happening right now. All right, cool, they're lighting up,
they're doing school supplies. Kids are being taken care of,
and then you find out who's kind of behind it.
Speaker 8 (19:13):
Mayor Bass and Councilwoman Isabelle Gerrado, they hosted this event
and the kids got to pick out everything from notebooks
to backpacks, and then the parents even received recovery resources
things like air purifiers to help curb some of the
effects from that massive lineage warehouse fire that started in June.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
So basically they played like Santa Claus. They showed up
and they went, we're here to take care of everyone
who wants backpacks. Oh no, I'm so happy, thankful, because
most of us right now we need it.
Speaker 7 (19:46):
Everything's suspensive.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Is this also going out in the back of what
is that? I don't this is It's like we've got
Mariachi's in the communities, we got Shakira showing up with
Mayor bass now and everything suspensive. We're working in collaboration
with my office a lot of different community organizations to
provide the resources that the people in this community need.
They tell us what they need and we deliver.
Speaker 8 (20:10):
And it wasn't just the distant live entertainments.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Always a party in Boile Heights. Look, it's great for
Boile he It's great. Great. I'm glad. I'm glad you've
got a sense of community. I'm glad You've got these
events going on, and you think, can you keep it down?
We're trying to work here exactly right, Here's where I
run into issues. This is the definition of grandstanding, because
are there any other communities anywhere in the city of
Los Angeles that might need some attention, like all of them,
(20:36):
thank you, Like all of them. That's pretty weoch. Like
so many. The mayor isn't going out there and handing
out backpacks to every community. She's making sure Boyle Heights
sees her because she can't have this come back on
her during the campaign. She wants to have this Boyle
Heights disaster be a win for her, and she is
fighting hard to say, look, I won Boyle Heights. I
(20:58):
found them the resources they need. She ended out air
purifiers like Trump tosses out paper towels after a hurricane.
I was just throwing into the crowd. She doesn't have
much in the way.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Of a record to campaign on us. She's kicking off
her campaign disasters. She's got a big campaign event planned
for Saturday to kick off the fall campaign. And I
don't know what she's going to talk about because even
her signature Inside Safe program.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
The LA Times did a nice write up on this, noting.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
That as frequently as these camps are moved, they come
right back. I've seen it with my own eyes. Inside
Safe has moved more than six thousand people into hotels, motels,
and other temporary housing since the program launched back in
December of twenty twenty two, but by June thirtieth of
this year, the latest numbers, forty three percent of those
(21:50):
participants were back outside. Okay, that does include people who
left voluntarily or were.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Expelled, or just they left volunteer knocking inside on the
street are not safe exactly. By the end of last year,
twenty three inside Safe areas had received at least five
separate visits, and during the final quarter of the year,
thirty six of the program's forty five operations took place
at locations that had already repopulated. So they go in,
(22:16):
they move the tents. We're gonna get you into a room.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Come on, you get the photo op, you get the
brag about it. Yeah, but then the tents come back,
either with new people or when these people leave the program,
they come back. That's exactly right. So that is it's
spent a lot of money. It got some good headlines
in the beginning. I've said this that I believe our
heart's in the right place, but it's not an effective program.
(22:41):
And at some point you've got to stop using your
heart and start using your brain and saying this isn't working.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
We have to shift gears. So this reminds me of
other big political, ambitious efforts, and that is that they go,
here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna get people into
a motel room until we can get them into some
long term places. And they go great. So they get
the hotel rooms and the motel rooms lined up at
a cost of eighty two thousand dollars per room per year.
(23:07):
It's not cheap. It's not cheap because it's almost three
times my rent. Okay, I'm just gonna say, Alle has
spent more than three hundred million dollars on inside safe
and that's where most of it's going. So the issue
that and this is just the motel rooms, right that
we're talking about the forty two eighty two thousand dollars
a year. Eighty two thousand dollars a year. You could
(23:28):
get them the top floor of Michael's apartment building next
to their tents on skid row for less than eighty
two thousand dollars a year. Yeah, right, you could. Okay,
So that set I mean we're talking helped me math
this out, seven thousand dollars a month. Basically rent is
what is going into this so that said. What happened
was they said, we're gonna get you to a motel rooms.
So they sent the social workers out. They said, we're
(23:49):
gonna get you to a We're gonna get you into
a room, and then we're gonna get your help. And
they went, okay, we're coming, We're coming. This sounds great.
They PLoP them in a motel room and they and
so the people are like, great, where are we going next?
Are we going to get a voucher for are we
going to go into some other addiction treatment. We're going
to go into whatever it is because I need help
and I'm ready to get off the street. And then
they say, yeah, we're waiting for that to open up. Yeah,
we're waiting for spots on this. So they put the
(24:11):
cart before the horse on this. Yeah, they didn't have
a plan, no place, And that's where the frustration continues
to pile up. And it's where our frustration continues them
ount because it's our tax dollars going toward it. It's
a total waste of money. We'll wrap up this solemn,
solemn day. You're listening to Monks.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
And Meryl onto the Air from KFI AM six ft.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Available anywhere on the Iart Radio app. Wrapping up this
edition of the show here on Monday afternoon. If you
missed a minute of the action, you missed a lot.
KFIAM six forty dot com the iHeartRadio app and subscribe
to our podcast and we will deliver it to you
free of charge every single day. They don't pile up
in your inbox. They replace each other. If you miss
a day, no big deal, and we do appreciate you
(24:53):
clicking that subscribe button and joining us. If you've been
to downtown Burbank recently, you know that it is built,
is thriving community, and frankly, some officials in that area,
some people who work in real estate and civic oriented businesses,
they're saying, you know, we're doing better than the City
of Los Angeles because we don't get in people's way.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
Some are saying that, I think all are saying. Well.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
The La Times profiled this with the headline beautiful Downtown
Burbank isn't a punchline. The city is booming while Downtown
LA struggles. Yeah, continues to struggle. And the only thing
about Burbank that's not going well is that escalator at
the AMC that is it? Otherwise everything else is working wonderfully.
(25:38):
You talk about a punchline, that's like that thing works
about as often as the McDonald's ice cream machine. Now, look,
I remember when I got back from my vacation. I
haven't mentioned this place in a while, So I'm going
to say it just once. When I was when I
got back from Carmel by the Sea, and I posted
a photo of my Central Coast vacation, several photos just
to say California is awesome, but why can't LA be
(25:58):
more like Carmel?
Speaker 2 (25:59):
And I did?
Speaker 3 (26:00):
I get a comment that was fair. I was like, oh,
you think LA can be like Carmel? And I was like, Okay,
maybe I should have been a little more specific. And
the same is true. I think when you're comparing LA
to Burbank, you're you're talking about a much smaller geographic
area that could be easier to tend to. But at
the same time, if LA can't demonstrate even a minor
(26:20):
amount of civic pride and civic due diligence to create
safe spaces and clean spaces and business friendly spaces, I
think that comparisons are apt. I don't you don't think
the Burbank LA comparison is apt. I think the Burbank
LA comparison is apt. Yeah, I agree that the people
that are critical of the comparison, Yeah, and at it
(26:44):
so that what they're talking about a scale, and this
is what you're talking about a scale, right, and you go,
Burbank's only got I don't know how many people hundred
thousand people in Burbank.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
LA has got four million people, right, and you can't
do the same things. I would also argue though, that
Burbank doesn't have the same resources as four million people.
Burbank doesn't have a beach, right, Burbank doesn't. I mean,
we've got mountains. But they were on fire yesday, by
the way, that Walnut fire in Burbank.
Speaker 8 (27:08):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
They think car accident may have caused no way, Yeah,
people were thinking. I was seeing people online that are like,
this is ourson and others, you know whatever. It sounds
like it was a car accident that yeah, car started
so anyhow that said, yeah, Burbank's studios, but so does LA.
So it's like you've got the you've got to it's
how you use the resources that exactly. LA has a
(27:31):
bunch of little Burbanks or a bunch of little Carmels. However,
you want to look at exactly at the park, downtown, neighborhoods.
You know, think of any part of the city of
Los Angeles, Hollywood, North Hollywood, all the beaches can be
compared to the central coast beaches.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
Exactly, and you neglect every single corner of it.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Part of this, I think has to do with and
you talked about this in the beginning. It has to
do with that bureaucracy. Whereas Burbank goes here, we're gonna
do this, We're gonna have this outreach here, We're gonna
we're gonna streamline things, We're gonna do this. La goes Nope,
we have to have more departments. Nope, we have to
have more community impact study. We're gonna have to We're
gonna have to see how much neighboring cultures feel about you, uh,
putting different colored street lights up, something of that sort.
(28:10):
And every little special interest gets far too much difference.
And there is no if you notice this, there's no
unity in the city of Los Angeles. The personality is
split far too much. If you if you go to Burbank,
which we're in Burbank right now, Right, it's got a vibe. Okay,
We've got we've got studios here, and then you've got
(28:31):
some some residences that are among the studios. And it
feels kind of old school Los Angeles when we think
of old school, Right, you get the same kind of
stuff in pockets of LA. But then you'll get these
other pockets where you go, well, we're gonna do this
over here, and we're gonna do And when I'm not
talking about zoning, I'm talking about what is the uniform
(28:51):
uh LA vibe? Well, I think it's it's what are
you going? On the other hand, I think L I mean,
LA is extraordinarily diverse, and there are a lot of
different parts of the city that are representative of what's
the common thread? What's the thread that keeps them all together?
Other than city Hall?
Speaker 3 (29:08):
No, I think it's poverty at this point, poverty of resources,
personal financial poverty, mismannered neglect.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Right, it's all negatives. So where's that common thread that's
all there is? What's that thing that says, yeah, this
is us, Yes we are and this you know, we
had a conversation a month ago talking about a new
logo for the City of Los Angeles. They were spending
one hundred thousand dollars on investigating a new logo, however
much it was, and they wanted to do with this
big research on it, and I said, look, we just
(29:37):
need something that's going to thread everything together. Whether it's
the port, whether it's the beaches, whether it's the entertainment industry,
whether it's you know, the tourism industry, whether it's the
families in the valley just trying to get by day
in and day out, whether it's people in Woodland Hills
just trying to keep Bideborrah off their lawn because she's
out there trying to save every squirrel she runs across.
(30:01):
What is the thread that ties everything together. That's the
branding that LA needs, And that's where I just think
the leadership is missing a grander vision.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
I think it would be helpful if we started the
show today talking about street takeovers and then the show
got taken over.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
Well, yeah, because Jackie died.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
But there's a sense of lawlessness and a sense of
no consequences for people who do break the law. It's true,
and that permeates the entire city from sea to Shining
Sea and that's negative. And I don't know how you
can even begin to think about a unifying message until
you get the basic fundamentals of governance correct. And obviously
(30:42):
we can't rely entirely on a city government to develop
civic pride. But if you're not invested civically, you're not
helping to shape that. But what incentive do you have
to be invested civically?
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Right now?
Speaker 3 (30:53):
When you see all of the red tape, you see
what gets you, which is nothing. How many different neighborhood
group outside of Boyle Heights are clamoring for the opportunity
to fix intersections or to get homeless camps off of
their all importance, every single one of them. Yeah, and
nothing's given. So what is the vision?
Speaker 2 (31:12):
What? There's not one? There you go, This is what
I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
What every time you hear Mayor Bass stand up or
Nathanya Rahman stand up and talk about bold leadership and
they both say it, bold leadership is in vogue in
political speak right now.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
It's just a word. It is just a word, but
bold means something and right now they need bol We
need bold leadership in Los Angeles that says this status
quo is not acceptable, and that includes the pispoort leadership
of people like Karen Bass and Nithia Romo. You think
when I say vision, they go, here's my vision. It's
not a gin, it's not an actual vision. It's more
(31:49):
just words. Yeah, right, I want to see. Tell me
what it is. What is the vibe I need, whether
I'm in the Pacific Palisades or I'm in Boyle Heights.
What is the feeling that I have about being in
Los Angeles? What regardless of neighborhood, what is the common thread?
What is the overall vision? And right now we've got
a bunch of groups that have their own independent visions
(32:11):
fighting to come out on top, and that leaves us
with nothing and.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
Far too many people, including people who vote, who look
around and think, yep, this is fine.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Those are the same people that are out there like
crying about a dead bird today, same people that are
voting this way.
Speaker 7 (32:25):
Oh my goodness, guys, this was by far the funniest
episode you guys have done so far. My signs are
hurting and oh my god, great job. I need a
new pair of pants.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
Oh no, you know, all it takes is for a
beloved bald eagle to die and suddenly we.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Have a comedy hour. We have another mistress that just
called us to I think we've had We're back again
tomorrow at noonish. Monks and Merril KFI AM six forty
live everywhere in the I Heard Radio.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Appf on demand.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
You've been listening to Monks and Merrill here the show
five weekdays from noon to three on kf I AM
six forty at anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
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