June 4, 2025 • 28 mins
Nathan Marsak, Los Angeles historian, preservation advocate: 'Los Angeles Before the Freeways' captures a mostly lost city. Elderly man builds tree house to protest eviction from state-owned home.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Gary and Shannon and you're listening to KFI
AM six forty, the Gary and Shannon Show on demand
on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Well, we were.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Talking about that two hundred year old condom at the
Amsterdam Museum and the history there from nine eighteen thirty.
Los Angeles is not often in the same conversation of history.
We make distinctions between our city and going to just
the East Coast for a juxtaposition of buildings and appreciating
(00:36):
history and what still remains. Of course, going to Europe
and the like anywhere else on the globe is a
totally different ballgame. But there is quite a bit of
history in Los Angeles. Maybe it's not preserved as well
as it is in other places. But Nathan Marsak is
an author from Los Angeles and celebrates all of the
(01:02):
history of Los Angeles architecturally and the like.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
That exists or that has tragically.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Been lost in some situations in a lot of cases,
and Nathan has helped expanded has helped expand a book
that was originally put out by photographer Arnold Hyland. Nathan
is joining us now to talk about this. First question, Nathan,
are you currently wearing a bow tie.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
Thanks for having me on, And the answer is incredibly No,
I'm wearing a long, regular necktie, but it is from
the nineteen.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Thirty Are you wearing pants?
Speaker 4 (01:38):
No, we live in a zoom era now, and so
I'm just in like my pajama shorts, but then a
full suit on top.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yes, that's the way to do. I like the honesty.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Let's talk about Arnold Hyland originally who put out this
book Los Angeles before the freeways. How did you find
out about this guy? And how did you fall in
love with this book?
Speaker 4 (02:00):
You know, I'll tell you I've always loved old buildings
and I've always loved Los Angeles. Those are my two
great passions in life. And so I was in a bar.
I moved to Los Angeles in the mid nineties. I'm
a Santa Barbara boy originally, and it was in a
bar and I'm near Central Library because I used to
go there to try and you know, pick up librarians.
And one of the old rummies he says to me,
you know, kid, you like old la out that window
(02:21):
right there that was all mansions and I'm like no,
it's like yeah, and all the buildings down here, you know,
they used to have finials and turrets and gargoyles on them.
I'm like, come on, and they're like And there was
a guy, it was Arnold Highland, and he took photos
in the fifties and he put out books about it.
And I said, well, I'll go to Barnes and Noble
and find these books. And they're like, yeah, you know,
good luck because the only printed a couple hundred copies
(02:42):
of each one. So I got obsessed and I kind
of made it my mission to find these book. One
was he had two books. One was called Bunker Hill,
a Los Angeles landmark, and one was called Los Angeles
Before the Freeways. It comes out in nineteen eighty one,
six hundred copies. I finally find the book, and I
would kind of drive around with it like a like
a weird Phantom Thomas guide, you know, like on my
lap graving around downtown. I'd be like, like, look at
(03:05):
that giant, crazy building, and then I would look at
and be like, oh, and it's a parking lot now.
And so I started to sort of develop this idea
about what's old like in the nineteen fifties, if you
were walking around downtown, was nothing but Victorian buildings. There
had been a giant building boom in the eighteen eighties
because of the new railroads, and Hyland knew that this
stuff was starting to disappear, so he got obsessive about
(03:26):
photographing it. I would have done the same thing if
i'd been around that time. And so I got this book,
and I eventually said, you know what, someday, I'm going
to reprint this.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
You go to the south, you go to the East coast,
and there are mansions that exist the way they existed
in the eighteen hundreds or before then. We don't have
that in Los Angeles. And the way that you described
the Brunson Mansion, which was once on the corner of
Fourth and Grand, I find to be fascinating. And the
fact that we lost that is just heartbreaking. Could you
(03:58):
talk a little bit about the Brunson Mansion?
Speaker 4 (04:01):
Oh, I certainly could. So. If you know downtown, if
you've been to Bunker Hill, those two big matching eighties Granite,
you know Reggian era muscular buildings, the Wells Fargo Center,
originally the Clark Center, that's what the Brunton Mansion was.
North and Grant, and there was a judge. His name
was Brunson. He was very rich, and he built a
(04:22):
like eighteen thousand square foot mansion, the kind of stuff
you think about knob Hill in San Francisco. This Bunker
Hill was like our knob Hill, and it had finials
and it had turrets and frescoes inside and stained glass
and freezes. And it only lasted till like nineteen seventeen
because somebody said, you know what we need here, We
need a parking lot and a garage. Because of Los
(04:43):
Angeles entered the age of the automobile, people were like,
all these funny old buildings, you know, they're they're falling down,
they're pointless. We don't like them, Like, get rid of it.
We need parking lots. And that's sort of what Los
Angeles is known for all over the world. You know.
I've been all over the world and people always say like, oh,
you're from La. What did they tear down you know, yesterday?
And I'm like, uh, you know, thanks a lot.
Speaker 5 (05:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
It's like I brought up Parker Center the other day.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
I got some crap about it because it's a dated reference.
But Parker Center is another piece of history that even
cinematic history alone that we.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
Lost well, I know, I kind of got into the
old LA thing and part and I know you were
mentioning Perry Mason. It's like super noir. Everyone loves old
Noir La. Everyone's seen you know, Black Dolly and stuff
like that. Parker Center, designed by Welton Beckett, opened in
nineteen fifty five, super important, super progressive for the way
in which it changed policing and the way we jailed people,
(05:44):
Like the cells had rubber matts and it had glass
walls instead of bars, and the city was so hot
to tear it down. And what's there now? Nothing still
a parking one. Yeah, not even a parking one. It's
like it's fenced off. So they destroyed it as some
sort of you know, performative justice for criminals, and it's
I was just rolling my eyes and you know what
they say, When it's gone, it's gone. And it breaks
(06:06):
my heart that we are still, especially now with you know,
the housing push all down around USC where there used
to be incredible craftsman homes, those are falling left and right.
We're really watching, especially in the last five years, we're
watching the city disappear before our eyes.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
I love the spirit we don't learn.
Speaker 4 (06:21):
We don't learn it.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
No, we are big dumb animals.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
I love the spirit with which you talk about the
older architecture and the passion were you. Did you use
that to talk to Arnold Hyland's family about reissuing the
book and expanding upon it.
Speaker 4 (06:37):
Absolutely. They were very type fisted about his legacy and
about the negatives that existed, and I really had to
sort of prove myself. I started writing about bunker Hill,
especially around two thousand and five for a blog called
on bunker Hill, and that's when I reached out to them,
And it took about ten years before I convinced them
that I wasn't. You know, anyone who has an archive
(06:58):
always thinks, oh, you know, we're gonna a million dollars
at it. I hate to say it, folks, but no,
you put out a book like this, you do it
for the love. And once they realized that I was
completely obsessed, they said, okay, kid, you know, here's the negatives.
Go to town. And then I went to very important
Angel City Press, Dean and Titan of Great La Publishing.
(07:22):
They also put out my book on bunker Hill called
Bunker Hill Los Angeles and ACP was like, we love
this idea, let's reprint this book. And everyone wonders, like,
who wants to sit and look through you know, one
hundred and fifty photos of old building like eighteen eighties
buildings in the nineteen fifties downtown. And it has been
selling really well. People really eat it up, They love it.
(07:43):
They If I can make people as enthusiastic as I
am about it, then I've done my job.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
We're talking to Nathan Marsak. Nathan, can you hold on
for another segment?
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Absolutely awesome. I have some more questions.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
I also want to find out if you ever picked
up that librarian or librarians.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
I think everyone wants to know.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
I'll tell you I was not terribly successful, but I
wasn't totally unsuccessful.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Oh go, that's excellent. T tell you the story. Gary
and Shannon will continue.
Speaker 5 (08:08):
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Live everywhere on the iHeart Radio app.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
We're talking with Nathan Marsak, who has put out a
reissue of a book, Los Angeles Before the Freeways, Building
on what Arnold Hyland put together back in the eighties,
which was a collection of his photos of some of
the greatest architecture that La has ever seen. Granted it's not,
you know, six hundred years old, like the tavern in
(08:38):
Scotland or something like that, but it is important to
know kind of where.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
We were one hundred and ten years ago, and it's
hard to imagine.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
It wasn't until that Angelina Joe Lee movie Changeling I
think twenty years ago something now, fifteen twenty years ago
where it shows all the orchards out where several freeways lie,
that you think of Last Angels having a history before
the freeways, because so much of it has been lost
as well, we don't have those museums of mansions that
(09:09):
once were in downtown La anymore.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Nathan, you said the family gave you that Highland's family
gave you access to his negative so his entire collection
of photos. Was there anything surprising that you saw in
the negatives that you didn't see in the original book.
Speaker 4 (09:27):
Oh very much so. I should mention that the original book,
as published in nineteen eighty one by Dawson's Books, has
one hundred and fifteen images in it, and this new version,
the expanded version with bigger, larger, lush pictures, one hundred
and forty three images. Wow, because he shot in like
the one twenty format. Each each strip of negatives was
(09:48):
three shots, So each shot from the book had two
other shots next to it, and usually those were like
it's a house, It's like, let's say it's the Brussau Mansion,
and it's like two other versions of that. But once
in a while he turn around and shoot something across
the street. And in a lot of cases, those are
the ones that just blew my mind. That was stuff
that no one had ever photographed before. So I was
(10:08):
just thrilled to be able to put about thirty forty
images like that in the book that no one's ever
seen before.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
What do you think about Los Angeles's time with the
street cars? Do you see us ever returning to any
sort of.
Speaker 4 (10:24):
That you know we are they're trying to re engineer
Los Angeles to be Manhattan. You know, you can build
as big as you want without zoning if you're near
a bus. And then they're building without parking. They're like,
everyone's just gonna ride, you know, public transit and have
bicycles from now on. We're Los Angeles, damn we always
I think dams aren't it. We were built around the automobile.
(10:46):
We're an oil town and God blessed the street cars.
But the narrative that there was a conspiracy by big
oil and big tire, big road to destroy the street
cars is false. That's actually it's actually not true. It's
great and Rodgers rabbit, But we like bringing back Broadway.
Huizar tried to put street cars back on Broadway. I
don't know if that's ever gonna happen. And don't get
(11:08):
me wrong, if I could go back in time and
ride the you know, the yellow car out to the
Orange Groves, you know, or or ride the red car downtown,
that'd be amazing. But I think we, you know, we
can't even build a bullet train. Come on, it would
cost a billion dollars in studies to find out if
we could have street cars in Los Angeles. So I'm
gonna go ahead and say that that day has passed.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
I just love that era though, and that idea of
getting around l A and vibrant.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Yeah exactly.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
Oh yeah, I'm an old New Orleans boy. My family's
from there, and so I ride, you know, the street
car up and down St. Charles Avenue. Yeah, I know
it and it's there's just nothing better than that. And
I just don't know if it would totally translate to
LA And I would love to be proven wrong, you know,
twenty years from now, I'd love to have a nice
street car cruising down. But you know, when I moved
to Highland Park thirty years ago, we didn't have the
(11:59):
gold Line, and you know, it was just empty tracks.
So we're slowly putting back public transits. Uh.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
Is there a specific landmark or neighborhood or building that
you think is most at risk right now?
Speaker 4 (12:13):
Oh, that's an excellent question. Well, I don't have to
tell you how heartbreaking the fires were in January. But
the stuff that the sort of areas we're tearing down
right now, just in spades, is like Koreatown and Westlake,
that area, like around MacArthur Park, so many incredible buildings
between there and like down towards USC, so many incredible
(12:36):
built like mostly houses built in the turn of the century,
turn of the last entries, like around nineteen oh five,
and I'm just watching them go left and right. They're
being demolished for these you know, six story gray boxes
that have that are absolutely featureless, that are built to
the edge of the property on either every side because
(12:56):
there's no more zoning in Los Angeles. They call it
a density bonus. It's not a density bonus. It's the
zoning variant. And I've probably seen there's probably been a
thousand important houses demolished and commercial structures demolished since I
started tracking them around twenty twenty one.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
So did you marry a librarian?
Speaker 4 (13:18):
I married an archaeologist.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Okay, same kind of thing, and I love like, I.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
Love trust me. I had a very lengthy stretch of
you know, brainy girls with glasses and drinking problems, but
that's what I like, and I like. But but then
I met this too little archaeologist and she's a little
more sane and sober, so I said, okay, you know
you're the one, and we've been together ever since.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Well, you got to know your limits.
Speaker 4 (13:46):
Exactly. You gotta know at some point you've got to
you got to grow up.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
And yeah, oh there is that too.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
By the way, Nathan's going to speak about the book
coming up Los Angeles before the Freeways, part of the
Marine North of lecture series for the La City Historical
Society coming up on Sunday. That's June eighth Sunday afternoon
at the Tape Auditorium at the Central Library.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Rife with librarians. I'm sure and.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
Oh it's like I'm like, it's in a candy store.
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
You can find out more when you go to La
lacityhistory dot org. The events page on there is going
to have more about Nathan and that. That talk coming
up again Los Angeles before the Freeways, the Tape Auditorium
at the Central Library coming up on Sunday afternoon at
two Apart.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Nathan, that was so much fun. Thank you so much
for joining us.
Speaker 4 (14:32):
You guys are the best. Thank you, thanks so much.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
You bet all right, coming up more stuff including I
don't talk about that.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Let's talk about the elderly treehouse when we come back.
Speaker 5 (14:43):
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
FBI and Port Authority police have arrested a guy at
JFK Airport and Queen's overnight in connection with their investigation
into the bombing of that fertility clinic and Palm Springs.
He was a They believe that he may have been
supplying materials for the bomb.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
That was used.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
He was a guy from Washington State, private payrolls increased
far less than expected in May. Adp national employment reports
showed this morning a new potential warning sign for the
direction of the economy and air quality in the Midwest
and the East really bad, but for no reason of ours.
(15:26):
Out of control wildfires in Canada is producing a bunch
of smoke that is pouring to the south, and there's
a plume of dust that originated from the Sahara over
in Africa that's tracking west across the Atlantic Ocean. They're
saying that the dust could collide with the smoke sometime
(15:46):
someplace around the South this week, causing unhealthy air quality
and very hazy, dull skies during the day. But of
course gorgeous sunrises and sunset.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
It is Wednesday, so don't forget. Let us know what
you are watching. I'm a big fan of adults on
Hulu right now. We're also going to be talking to
Justin Worsham. We're going to be talking parenting coming up
in about an hour from now. Research showing that most
consider their dad to be a top life mentor.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
We'll dig into that as well. Well.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
Benito Flores is upset that his home in El Serena
was being taken away from him. He says that the
home was illegally seized after its owner, the Department of Transportation,
left at vacant. He'd been allowed to stay for a
few months, but with Zen told he had to go
(16:41):
to this nearby home owned by the agency. But now
that clock has ticked too far down on that home
as well.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Well.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Over the months, he has Benito sawed wooden two by
fours to use as a brace between the front door
and an anterior wall to make it harder to breach.
He has bolted shut the metal screen door. He has
secured the entrance. He has retreated into a wooden structure
(17:13):
that he has built twenty eight feet high in an
ash tree in the backyard, a treehouse.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
I have a question.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
This goes back to the screwdriver from last week, the
slotted versus flathead. Yeah, what other kind of two by
fours are there besides wooden?
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Why did they write.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
That that is redundant? You're right, Chris Little is somewhere
losing his freaking mind anyway.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Well, I guess you could have a you have a
metal stud I don't know.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Yeah, you're right, it's so redundant wooden two by fours.
You know what, Let's get this author who wrote this
in the La Times, Liam Liam Dylan, Let's get on
the horn.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
No, it turns out that Benito then retreated to that
wooden structure in the backyard. If the police wanted to believe,
they're going to have to go up to his treehouse
and get him.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
He says, I planned to resist as long as I can.
It's six feet tall, three feet wide.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
They say it represents the last stand for Benito and
a larger protest that has captured the national attention. Starting
in March twenty twenty, he and a dozen others occupied
empty homes owned by Caltrans. They were acquired was this
imminent domain acquired by the hundred and a half century
(18:31):
ago for the freeway expansion that never happened, for.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
The original high speed rail plan, the idea of that
something is never going to happen. The agencies have continued
to offer referrals for permanent housing. They've offered financial settlements
of up to twenty thousand dollars if group members would
leave voluntarily. The evictions would have been a last resort,
but they would be required by law. Basically, Tina Booth,
(19:00):
director of Asset Management for the Housing Authority of the
City of La which is operating the program on behalf
of Caltrans, says, we just don't have any authority to
operate outside of that.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
Unfortunately, this is one of those things that you'll find
a lot with people who get older. They don't understand
that there are rules and the hoops that they have
to jump through, and I get it. Caltrans wants to
sell this guy's home and a bunch of other empty
houses in Elserino to public or nonprofit housing providers, which
(19:30):
would make them available to people like Oh, I don't know, Benito,
low income residents for rent or purchase.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
He says.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Evicting him makes no sense because the properties intended to
be used as affordable housing that he qualifies for. Yes,
and you still have to jump through all the hoops.
You still have to do all the paperwork.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
You know.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
It's not as easy as just saying, well, I qualify
for what you want to do here with this, with
this house or this property. It's just not that Unfortunately,
it's not that simple anymore. It may have been at
one point, it's not that way. There's too much red tape.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
The way that Benito says it is they are out
of options, that his treehouse, as much as a form
of protest as it is, is really the only option
before he moves into his and sleeps in his van.
And he wrote he and others wrote an open letter
to Sheriff Robert Luna and said, we're going to live
on the streets for the rest of our lives. So
(20:27):
the idea that this is a this is one of
the hardest parts about it. But it is one of
those things like you move into a neighborhood where the
airport is there before you and then complain about the
air traffic. You know, you complain about the noise from
the airport. This is an awful, awful.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Well, you move into a vacant home that's not yours.
You're gonna have to pay the piper. It's all that's yeah,
I mean you you know, Yes, story's sad. It's very
sad that Benito us to live in a treehouse. But
he moved into a home that wasn't his, and it
was vacant, and they're going to at some point and
get it from you.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
And if it makes sense.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
If it doesn't make sense, it doesn't make sense, Just
like in this case, it doesn't make sense. They're trying
to take the home away from him to give it
to someone just like him. Why isn't it him? Why
can't he just stay put? That's what this stuff is
intended for. Well, you know that's actually best case scenario.
If he's going to get press out of this, they
(21:23):
might make an exception and be like, all right, Benito,
you can move to the front of the line.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
We'll see how it's going. Maybe you can stay in
your home or what have you.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
But you move into a home that's not your home,
chances are it's not going to work.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Out for you.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
This is a pretty gross story out of Long Beach.
An ad who is working with disabled children has been arrested.
We'll tell you why when we come back.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
It is as dark as you could go in your mind.
Gary and Shannon will continue.
Speaker 5 (21:50):
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
I was scrolling through Facebook to find an old image
that had come up, and one of the things that
I'm now being forced in my algorithm is a page
called Los Angeles Relics, and it's pictures of La back
from the forties and fifties and things like this is
the four level Interchange, the first stack interchange in the world,
(22:18):
nineteen fifty four, the Horleywood Harbor, Pasadena and Santa Ana freeways.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
It's it's wild.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
I was off a couple days, stayed at a Weston,
said the word Weston and immediately got an email on
my phone from Weston. I mean, the listening is out
of control, the directed ads, all the things are.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
It's so cute.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
How we worry about sharing passwords and privacy and social
security emit, it's all. It's all done. It's done.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
When we get into swamp Watch at the top of
the hour, one massive figure in the Democratic Party has
given up on the Democratic Party. They just said that
they'll be independent from this point.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
For I have a story about what you need to
do if you want a job in the federal government.
Yes they're still hiring, but you got to write an
essay to get in. We'll tell you what the subject
needs to be.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Let chech ept do it. There you go.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
There is an aid working for a school in Long Beach,
twenty two years old, arrested on suspicion of possessing and
distributing images of the sexual abuse of children. She was
working with disabled kids. The Longbeach Unified School District. The
LAPDS Harbord Division served a warrant and arrested her just yesterday. Now,
(23:46):
the school district says she was specifically a contractor, not
a direct employee of the district.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Okay, I have a question, but before I get to it,
police also announced that a thirty seven year old kids
so Welker coach was arrested on suspicion of attempting to
meet up with a minor for sex. That was in
Redondo Beach so also Harbor area.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
What kind of.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Checks are we doing before we put people in the
company of our children.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
Listen, I'm amazed. I've said this multiple times. I referred
to the training background check, fingerprinting I had to go
through as a soccer coach.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
For seven year olds.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
I mean, and the specifically the coaches training that you
had to go through, where they'd bring in all the
coaches and then whoever's the for whoever represents the league,
would say here's how you can talk to kids, Here's
what you can't say to kids. Here's how you refer
you know, if you suspect something that your kids. The
kids are being abused or whatever mistreated in some way,
(24:53):
you can always go through the league. We have a
specific phone number that you can call, or email address
that you can or you know references. You can't hug
a kid, you have to hug, you have to side
hug or fist bump a kid. You can't ever give
a kid a ride home alone. You gotta have somebody
else in the car, or other kids in the car.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Whatever. I mean.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
That kind of stuff for a volunteer organization was so
much more aggressive, it seems, than anything that these people
have had to go through. Yeah, and they have much more.
Here's the thing. I saw these kids two times a
week for ninety minutes at a time. These people are
around kids six seven, nine hours a day.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Whatever it is, right.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
I mean, for it to get to the point of
a warrant and arrest has to be pretty blatant. And
I think that the hoops you had to jump through
while a pain in the ass good.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
And I didn't mind it. That was the thing.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
Like I as a parent, was perfectly willing to go
through a two hour welcome mindless seminar, hoping that the
other people that were in the room were the same
way as I was, which was this is a perfectly
acceptable way to scream for coaches.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
All right.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Coming up next, we will get to what kind of
essay you got to write to get into the federal
government these days, as well as.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
What did you say.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
The very high profile democrat that has given up on
the party?
Speaker 2 (26:26):
How do have I not heard about this? I don't know.
I think you'll be surprised. I was surprised when I
saw it.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
I love it when news breaks on this show. It
happens all the time. I think that that eagle is
going to take flight again.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Gary and Shannon will continue.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
If you miss any part of our show, just go
back and check out the podcast. It's posted every day
right after the show airs. And all you have to
do is wherever you find podcasts, just type in Gary
and Shannon.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
You'll see our faces there. Hey, oh, if you do that.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
If you do that, you'll get the special Weekend and
it doesn't even make air. It's all fresh stuff for
the weekend, and it's dirty.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Sometimes it's dirty, it's less.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Is there a disclaimer on that, though, because like if
people are listening with their children and then they just
pull it up the way my mother pulled it up
like she would our weekday podcast.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Wonder if it does tell you that, it should.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Tell you that there's I don't want to I don't
want to teach kids new words.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
I'm not in the business of that. I have to
look at that.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
So type in Gary and Shannon, find the podcast, subscribe
to it, rate it, comment on it.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Most importantly, share it with people.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Your kids should know the basics at this point, right
my kids, No, my kids teach kids are kids, they're
grown adults.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
They're not there kids.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Well, there are always kids in your heart. They'll always
need you.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
No, they will not. It does say E for explicit
on Apple podcasts.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Oh my god, that's awesome an E rating more like
a rap album, very similar, very similar.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
Gary Shannon will continue right after this. You've been listening
to The Gary and Shannon Show. You can always hear
us live on KFI AM six forty nine am to
one pm every Monday through Friday, and anytime on demand
on the iHeartRadio ap
This is Gary and Shannon and you're listening to KFI
AM six forty, the Gary and Shannon Show on demand
on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Well, we were.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Talking about that two hundred year old condom at the
Amsterdam Museum and the history there from nine eighteen thirty.
Los Angeles is not often in the same conversation of history.
We make distinctions between our city and going to just
the East Coast for a juxtaposition of buildings and appreciating
(00:36):
history and what still remains. Of course, going to Europe
and the like anywhere else on the globe is a
totally different ballgame. But there is quite a bit of
history in Los Angeles. Maybe it's not preserved as well
as it is in other places. But Nathan Marsak is
an author from Los Angeles and celebrates all of the
(01:02):
history of Los Angeles architecturally and the like.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
That exists or that has tragically.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Been lost in some situations in a lot of cases,
and Nathan has helped expanded has helped expand a book
that was originally put out by photographer Arnold Hyland. Nathan
is joining us now to talk about this. First question, Nathan,
are you currently wearing a bow tie.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
Thanks for having me on, And the answer is incredibly No,
I'm wearing a long, regular necktie, but it is from
the nineteen.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Thirty Are you wearing pants?
Speaker 4 (01:38):
No, we live in a zoom era now, and so
I'm just in like my pajama shorts, but then a
full suit on top.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yes, that's the way to do. I like the honesty.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Let's talk about Arnold Hyland originally who put out this
book Los Angeles before the freeways. How did you find
out about this guy? And how did you fall in
love with this book?
Speaker 4 (02:00):
You know, I'll tell you I've always loved old buildings
and I've always loved Los Angeles. Those are my two
great passions in life. And so I was in a bar.
I moved to Los Angeles in the mid nineties. I'm
a Santa Barbara boy originally, and it was in a
bar and I'm near Central Library because I used to
go there to try and you know, pick up librarians.
And one of the old rummies he says to me,
you know, kid, you like old la out that window
(02:21):
right there that was all mansions and I'm like no,
it's like yeah, and all the buildings down here, you know,
they used to have finials and turrets and gargoyles on them.
I'm like, come on, and they're like And there was
a guy, it was Arnold Highland, and he took photos
in the fifties and he put out books about it.
And I said, well, I'll go to Barnes and Noble
and find these books. And they're like, yeah, you know,
good luck because the only printed a couple hundred copies
(02:42):
of each one. So I got obsessed and I kind
of made it my mission to find these book. One
was he had two books. One was called Bunker Hill,
a Los Angeles landmark, and one was called Los Angeles
Before the Freeways. It comes out in nineteen eighty one,
six hundred copies. I finally find the book, and I
would kind of drive around with it like a like
a weird Phantom Thomas guide, you know, like on my
lap graving around downtown. I'd be like, like, look at
(03:05):
that giant, crazy building, and then I would look at
and be like, oh, and it's a parking lot now.
And so I started to sort of develop this idea
about what's old like in the nineteen fifties, if you
were walking around downtown, was nothing but Victorian buildings. There
had been a giant building boom in the eighteen eighties
because of the new railroads, and Hyland knew that this
stuff was starting to disappear, so he got obsessive about
(03:26):
photographing it. I would have done the same thing if
i'd been around that time. And so I got this book,
and I eventually said, you know what, someday, I'm going
to reprint this.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
You go to the south, you go to the East coast,
and there are mansions that exist the way they existed
in the eighteen hundreds or before then. We don't have
that in Los Angeles. And the way that you described
the Brunson Mansion, which was once on the corner of
Fourth and Grand, I find to be fascinating. And the
fact that we lost that is just heartbreaking. Could you
(03:58):
talk a little bit about the Brunson Mansion?
Speaker 4 (04:01):
Oh, I certainly could. So. If you know downtown, if
you've been to Bunker Hill, those two big matching eighties Granite,
you know Reggian era muscular buildings, the Wells Fargo Center,
originally the Clark Center, that's what the Brunton Mansion was.
North and Grant, and there was a judge. His name
was Brunson. He was very rich, and he built a
(04:22):
like eighteen thousand square foot mansion, the kind of stuff
you think about knob Hill in San Francisco. This Bunker
Hill was like our knob Hill, and it had finials
and it had turrets and frescoes inside and stained glass
and freezes. And it only lasted till like nineteen seventeen
because somebody said, you know what we need here, We
need a parking lot and a garage. Because of Los
(04:43):
Angeles entered the age of the automobile, people were like,
all these funny old buildings, you know, they're they're falling down,
they're pointless. We don't like them, Like, get rid of it.
We need parking lots. And that's sort of what Los
Angeles is known for all over the world. You know.
I've been all over the world and people always say like, oh,
you're from La. What did they tear down you know, yesterday?
And I'm like, uh, you know, thanks a lot.
Speaker 5 (05:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
It's like I brought up Parker Center the other day.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
I got some crap about it because it's a dated reference.
But Parker Center is another piece of history that even
cinematic history alone that we.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
Lost well, I know, I kind of got into the
old LA thing and part and I know you were
mentioning Perry Mason. It's like super noir. Everyone loves old
Noir La. Everyone's seen you know, Black Dolly and stuff
like that. Parker Center, designed by Welton Beckett, opened in
nineteen fifty five, super important, super progressive for the way
in which it changed policing and the way we jailed people,
(05:44):
Like the cells had rubber matts and it had glass
walls instead of bars, and the city was so hot
to tear it down. And what's there now? Nothing still
a parking one. Yeah, not even a parking one. It's
like it's fenced off. So they destroyed it as some
sort of you know, performative justice for criminals, and it's
I was just rolling my eyes and you know what
they say, When it's gone, it's gone. And it breaks
(06:06):
my heart that we are still, especially now with you know,
the housing push all down around USC where there used
to be incredible craftsman homes, those are falling left and right.
We're really watching, especially in the last five years, we're
watching the city disappear before our eyes.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
I love the spirit we don't learn.
Speaker 4 (06:21):
We don't learn it.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
No, we are big dumb animals.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
I love the spirit with which you talk about the
older architecture and the passion were you. Did you use
that to talk to Arnold Hyland's family about reissuing the
book and expanding upon it.
Speaker 4 (06:37):
Absolutely. They were very type fisted about his legacy and
about the negatives that existed, and I really had to
sort of prove myself. I started writing about bunker Hill,
especially around two thousand and five for a blog called
on bunker Hill, and that's when I reached out to them,
And it took about ten years before I convinced them
that I wasn't. You know, anyone who has an archive
(06:58):
always thinks, oh, you know, we're gonna a million dollars
at it. I hate to say it, folks, but no,
you put out a book like this, you do it
for the love. And once they realized that I was
completely obsessed, they said, okay, kid, you know, here's the negatives.
Go to town. And then I went to very important
Angel City Press, Dean and Titan of Great La Publishing.
(07:22):
They also put out my book on bunker Hill called
Bunker Hill Los Angeles and ACP was like, we love
this idea, let's reprint this book. And everyone wonders, like,
who wants to sit and look through you know, one
hundred and fifty photos of old building like eighteen eighties
buildings in the nineteen fifties downtown. And it has been
selling really well. People really eat it up, They love it.
(07:43):
They If I can make people as enthusiastic as I
am about it, then I've done my job.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
We're talking to Nathan Marsak. Nathan, can you hold on
for another segment?
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Absolutely awesome. I have some more questions.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
I also want to find out if you ever picked
up that librarian or librarians.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
I think everyone wants to know.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
I'll tell you I was not terribly successful, but I
wasn't totally unsuccessful.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Oh go, that's excellent. T tell you the story. Gary
and Shannon will continue.
Speaker 5 (08:08):
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Live everywhere on the iHeart Radio app.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
We're talking with Nathan Marsak, who has put out a
reissue of a book, Los Angeles Before the Freeways, Building
on what Arnold Hyland put together back in the eighties,
which was a collection of his photos of some of
the greatest architecture that La has ever seen. Granted it's not,
you know, six hundred years old, like the tavern in
(08:38):
Scotland or something like that, but it is important to
know kind of where.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
We were one hundred and ten years ago, and it's
hard to imagine.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
It wasn't until that Angelina Joe Lee movie Changeling I
think twenty years ago something now, fifteen twenty years ago
where it shows all the orchards out where several freeways lie,
that you think of Last Angels having a history before
the freeways, because so much of it has been lost
as well, we don't have those museums of mansions that
(09:09):
once were in downtown La anymore.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Nathan, you said the family gave you that Highland's family
gave you access to his negative so his entire collection
of photos. Was there anything surprising that you saw in
the negatives that you didn't see in the original book.
Speaker 4 (09:27):
Oh very much so. I should mention that the original book,
as published in nineteen eighty one by Dawson's Books, has
one hundred and fifteen images in it, and this new version,
the expanded version with bigger, larger, lush pictures, one hundred
and forty three images. Wow, because he shot in like
the one twenty format. Each each strip of negatives was
(09:48):
three shots, So each shot from the book had two
other shots next to it, and usually those were like
it's a house, It's like, let's say it's the Brussau Mansion,
and it's like two other versions of that. But once
in a while he turn around and shoot something across
the street. And in a lot of cases, those are
the ones that just blew my mind. That was stuff
that no one had ever photographed before. So I was
(10:08):
just thrilled to be able to put about thirty forty
images like that in the book that no one's ever
seen before.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
What do you think about Los Angeles's time with the
street cars? Do you see us ever returning to any
sort of.
Speaker 4 (10:24):
That you know we are they're trying to re engineer
Los Angeles to be Manhattan. You know, you can build
as big as you want without zoning if you're near
a bus. And then they're building without parking. They're like,
everyone's just gonna ride, you know, public transit and have
bicycles from now on. We're Los Angeles, damn we always
I think dams aren't it. We were built around the automobile.
(10:46):
We're an oil town and God blessed the street cars.
But the narrative that there was a conspiracy by big
oil and big tire, big road to destroy the street
cars is false. That's actually it's actually not true. It's
great and Rodgers rabbit, But we like bringing back Broadway.
Huizar tried to put street cars back on Broadway. I
don't know if that's ever gonna happen. And don't get
(11:08):
me wrong, if I could go back in time and
ride the you know, the yellow car out to the
Orange Groves, you know, or or ride the red car downtown,
that'd be amazing. But I think we, you know, we
can't even build a bullet train. Come on, it would
cost a billion dollars in studies to find out if
we could have street cars in Los Angeles. So I'm
gonna go ahead and say that that day has passed.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
I just love that era though, and that idea of
getting around l A and vibrant.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Yeah exactly.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
Oh yeah, I'm an old New Orleans boy. My family's
from there, and so I ride, you know, the street
car up and down St. Charles Avenue. Yeah, I know
it and it's there's just nothing better than that. And
I just don't know if it would totally translate to
LA And I would love to be proven wrong, you know,
twenty years from now, I'd love to have a nice
street car cruising down. But you know, when I moved
to Highland Park thirty years ago, we didn't have the
(11:59):
gold Line, and you know, it was just empty tracks.
So we're slowly putting back public transits. Uh.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
Is there a specific landmark or neighborhood or building that
you think is most at risk right now?
Speaker 4 (12:13):
Oh, that's an excellent question. Well, I don't have to
tell you how heartbreaking the fires were in January. But
the stuff that the sort of areas we're tearing down
right now, just in spades, is like Koreatown and Westlake,
that area, like around MacArthur Park, so many incredible buildings
between there and like down towards USC, so many incredible
(12:36):
built like mostly houses built in the turn of the century,
turn of the last entries, like around nineteen oh five,
and I'm just watching them go left and right. They're
being demolished for these you know, six story gray boxes
that have that are absolutely featureless, that are built to
the edge of the property on either every side because
(12:56):
there's no more zoning in Los Angeles. They call it
a density bonus. It's not a density bonus. It's the
zoning variant. And I've probably seen there's probably been a
thousand important houses demolished and commercial structures demolished since I
started tracking them around twenty twenty one.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
So did you marry a librarian?
Speaker 4 (13:18):
I married an archaeologist.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Okay, same kind of thing, and I love like, I.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
Love trust me. I had a very lengthy stretch of
you know, brainy girls with glasses and drinking problems, but
that's what I like, and I like. But but then
I met this too little archaeologist and she's a little
more sane and sober, so I said, okay, you know
you're the one, and we've been together ever since.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Well, you got to know your limits.
Speaker 4 (13:46):
Exactly. You gotta know at some point you've got to
you got to grow up.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
And yeah, oh there is that too.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
By the way, Nathan's going to speak about the book
coming up Los Angeles before the Freeways, part of the
Marine North of lecture series for the La City Historical
Society coming up on Sunday. That's June eighth Sunday afternoon
at the Tape Auditorium at the Central Library.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Rife with librarians. I'm sure and.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
Oh it's like I'm like, it's in a candy store.
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
You can find out more when you go to La
lacityhistory dot org. The events page on there is going
to have more about Nathan and that. That talk coming
up again Los Angeles before the Freeways, the Tape Auditorium
at the Central Library coming up on Sunday afternoon at
two Apart.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Nathan, that was so much fun. Thank you so much
for joining us.
Speaker 4 (14:32):
You guys are the best. Thank you, thanks so much.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
You bet all right, coming up more stuff including I
don't talk about that.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Let's talk about the elderly treehouse when we come back.
Speaker 5 (14:43):
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
FBI and Port Authority police have arrested a guy at
JFK Airport and Queen's overnight in connection with their investigation
into the bombing of that fertility clinic and Palm Springs.
He was a They believe that he may have been
supplying materials for the bomb.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
That was used.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
He was a guy from Washington State, private payrolls increased
far less than expected in May. Adp national employment reports
showed this morning a new potential warning sign for the
direction of the economy and air quality in the Midwest
and the East really bad, but for no reason of ours.
(15:26):
Out of control wildfires in Canada is producing a bunch
of smoke that is pouring to the south, and there's
a plume of dust that originated from the Sahara over
in Africa that's tracking west across the Atlantic Ocean. They're
saying that the dust could collide with the smoke sometime
(15:46):
someplace around the South this week, causing unhealthy air quality
and very hazy, dull skies during the day. But of
course gorgeous sunrises and sunset.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
It is Wednesday, so don't forget. Let us know what
you are watching. I'm a big fan of adults on
Hulu right now. We're also going to be talking to
Justin Worsham. We're going to be talking parenting coming up
in about an hour from now. Research showing that most
consider their dad to be a top life mentor.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
We'll dig into that as well. Well.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
Benito Flores is upset that his home in El Serena
was being taken away from him. He says that the
home was illegally seized after its owner, the Department of Transportation,
left at vacant. He'd been allowed to stay for a
few months, but with Zen told he had to go
(16:41):
to this nearby home owned by the agency. But now
that clock has ticked too far down on that home
as well.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Well.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Over the months, he has Benito sawed wooden two by
fours to use as a brace between the front door
and an anterior wall to make it harder to breach.
He has bolted shut the metal screen door. He has
secured the entrance. He has retreated into a wooden structure
(17:13):
that he has built twenty eight feet high in an
ash tree in the backyard, a treehouse.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
I have a question.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
This goes back to the screwdriver from last week, the
slotted versus flathead. Yeah, what other kind of two by
fours are there besides wooden?
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Why did they write.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
That that is redundant? You're right, Chris Little is somewhere
losing his freaking mind anyway.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Well, I guess you could have a you have a
metal stud I don't know.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Yeah, you're right, it's so redundant wooden two by fours.
You know what, Let's get this author who wrote this
in the La Times, Liam Liam Dylan, Let's get on
the horn.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
No, it turns out that Benito then retreated to that
wooden structure in the backyard. If the police wanted to believe,
they're going to have to go up to his treehouse
and get him.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
He says, I planned to resist as long as I can.
It's six feet tall, three feet wide.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
They say it represents the last stand for Benito and
a larger protest that has captured the national attention. Starting
in March twenty twenty, he and a dozen others occupied
empty homes owned by Caltrans. They were acquired was this
imminent domain acquired by the hundred and a half century
(18:31):
ago for the freeway expansion that never happened, for.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
The original high speed rail plan, the idea of that
something is never going to happen. The agencies have continued
to offer referrals for permanent housing. They've offered financial settlements
of up to twenty thousand dollars if group members would
leave voluntarily. The evictions would have been a last resort,
but they would be required by law. Basically, Tina Booth,
(19:00):
director of Asset Management for the Housing Authority of the
City of La which is operating the program on behalf
of Caltrans, says, we just don't have any authority to
operate outside of that.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
Unfortunately, this is one of those things that you'll find
a lot with people who get older. They don't understand
that there are rules and the hoops that they have
to jump through, and I get it. Caltrans wants to
sell this guy's home and a bunch of other empty
houses in Elserino to public or nonprofit housing providers, which
(19:30):
would make them available to people like Oh, I don't know, Benito,
low income residents for rent or purchase.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
He says.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Evicting him makes no sense because the properties intended to
be used as affordable housing that he qualifies for. Yes,
and you still have to jump through all the hoops.
You still have to do all the paperwork.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
You know.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
It's not as easy as just saying, well, I qualify
for what you want to do here with this, with
this house or this property. It's just not that Unfortunately,
it's not that simple anymore. It may have been at
one point, it's not that way. There's too much red tape.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
The way that Benito says it is they are out
of options, that his treehouse, as much as a form
of protest as it is, is really the only option
before he moves into his and sleeps in his van.
And he wrote he and others wrote an open letter
to Sheriff Robert Luna and said, we're going to live
on the streets for the rest of our lives. So
(20:27):
the idea that this is a this is one of
the hardest parts about it. But it is one of
those things like you move into a neighborhood where the
airport is there before you and then complain about the
air traffic. You know, you complain about the noise from
the airport. This is an awful, awful.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Well, you move into a vacant home that's not yours.
You're gonna have to pay the piper. It's all that's yeah,
I mean you you know, Yes, story's sad. It's very
sad that Benito us to live in a treehouse. But
he moved into a home that wasn't his, and it
was vacant, and they're going to at some point and
get it from you.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
And if it makes sense.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
If it doesn't make sense, it doesn't make sense, Just
like in this case, it doesn't make sense. They're trying
to take the home away from him to give it
to someone just like him. Why isn't it him? Why
can't he just stay put? That's what this stuff is
intended for. Well, you know that's actually best case scenario.
If he's going to get press out of this, they
(21:23):
might make an exception and be like, all right, Benito,
you can move to the front of the line.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
We'll see how it's going. Maybe you can stay in
your home or what have you.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
But you move into a home that's not your home,
chances are it's not going to work.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Out for you.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
This is a pretty gross story out of Long Beach.
An ad who is working with disabled children has been arrested.
We'll tell you why when we come back.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
It is as dark as you could go in your mind.
Gary and Shannon will continue.
Speaker 5 (21:50):
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
I was scrolling through Facebook to find an old image
that had come up, and one of the things that
I'm now being forced in my algorithm is a page
called Los Angeles Relics, and it's pictures of La back
from the forties and fifties and things like this is
the four level Interchange, the first stack interchange in the world,
(22:18):
nineteen fifty four, the Horleywood Harbor, Pasadena and Santa Ana freeways.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
It's it's wild.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
I was off a couple days, stayed at a Weston,
said the word Weston and immediately got an email on
my phone from Weston. I mean, the listening is out
of control, the directed ads, all the things are.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
It's so cute.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
How we worry about sharing passwords and privacy and social
security emit, it's all. It's all done. It's done.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
When we get into swamp Watch at the top of
the hour, one massive figure in the Democratic Party has
given up on the Democratic Party. They just said that
they'll be independent from this point.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
For I have a story about what you need to
do if you want a job in the federal government.
Yes they're still hiring, but you got to write an
essay to get in. We'll tell you what the subject
needs to be.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Let chech ept do it. There you go.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
There is an aid working for a school in Long Beach,
twenty two years old, arrested on suspicion of possessing and
distributing images of the sexual abuse of children. She was
working with disabled kids. The Longbeach Unified School District. The
LAPDS Harbord Division served a warrant and arrested her just yesterday. Now,
(23:46):
the school district says she was specifically a contractor, not
a direct employee of the district.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Okay, I have a question, but before I get to it,
police also announced that a thirty seven year old kids
so Welker coach was arrested on suspicion of attempting to
meet up with a minor for sex. That was in
Redondo Beach so also Harbor area.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
What kind of.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Checks are we doing before we put people in the
company of our children.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
Listen, I'm amazed. I've said this multiple times. I referred
to the training background check, fingerprinting I had to go
through as a soccer coach.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
For seven year olds.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
I mean, and the specifically the coaches training that you
had to go through, where they'd bring in all the
coaches and then whoever's the for whoever represents the league,
would say here's how you can talk to kids, Here's
what you can't say to kids. Here's how you refer
you know, if you suspect something that your kids. The
kids are being abused or whatever mistreated in some way,
(24:53):
you can always go through the league. We have a
specific phone number that you can call, or email address
that you can or you know references. You can't hug
a kid, you have to hug, you have to side
hug or fist bump a kid. You can't ever give
a kid a ride home alone. You gotta have somebody
else in the car, or other kids in the car.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Whatever. I mean.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
That kind of stuff for a volunteer organization was so
much more aggressive, it seems, than anything that these people
have had to go through. Yeah, and they have much more.
Here's the thing. I saw these kids two times a
week for ninety minutes at a time. These people are
around kids six seven, nine hours a day.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Whatever it is, right.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
I mean, for it to get to the point of
a warrant and arrest has to be pretty blatant. And
I think that the hoops you had to jump through
while a pain in the ass good.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
And I didn't mind it. That was the thing.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
Like I as a parent, was perfectly willing to go
through a two hour welcome mindless seminar, hoping that the
other people that were in the room were the same
way as I was, which was this is a perfectly
acceptable way to scream for coaches.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
All right.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Coming up next, we will get to what kind of
essay you got to write to get into the federal
government these days, as well as.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
What did you say.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
The very high profile democrat that has given up on
the party?
Speaker 2 (26:26):
How do have I not heard about this? I don't know.
I think you'll be surprised. I was surprised when I
saw it.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
I love it when news breaks on this show. It
happens all the time. I think that that eagle is
going to take flight again.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Gary and Shannon will continue.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
If you miss any part of our show, just go
back and check out the podcast. It's posted every day
right after the show airs. And all you have to
do is wherever you find podcasts, just type in Gary
and Shannon.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
You'll see our faces there. Hey, oh, if you do that.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
If you do that, you'll get the special Weekend and
it doesn't even make air. It's all fresh stuff for
the weekend, and it's dirty.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Sometimes it's dirty, it's less.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Is there a disclaimer on that, though, because like if
people are listening with their children and then they just
pull it up the way my mother pulled it up
like she would our weekday podcast.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Wonder if it does tell you that, it should.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Tell you that there's I don't want to I don't
want to teach kids new words.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
I'm not in the business of that. I have to
look at that.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
So type in Gary and Shannon, find the podcast, subscribe
to it, rate it, comment on it.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Most importantly, share it with people.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Your kids should know the basics at this point, right
my kids, No, my kids teach kids are kids, they're
grown adults.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
They're not there kids.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Well, there are always kids in your heart. They'll always
need you.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
No, they will not. It does say E for explicit
on Apple podcasts.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Oh my god, that's awesome an E rating more like
a rap album, very similar, very similar.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
Gary Shannon will continue right after this. You've been listening
to The Gary and Shannon Show. You can always hear
us live on KFI AM six forty nine am to
one pm every Monday through Friday, and anytime on demand
on the iHeartRadio ap
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