December 10, 2025 • 36 mins
A temporary Olympic village has been set up about an hour from the village of Cortina in Northern Italy near the Austrian border for the Winter Olympic Games XXV. To more on the relaunched search for missing passenger plane Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. The search and rescue company from Texas, Ocean Infinity, will only be paid $70 million if they locate the missing plane. These days, everybody orders things off Amazon, so how do you keep your purchases a secret from your family during the holidays? Through Amazon Family, which obscures purchasing history to maintain privacy. Also, ICE is now buying your data from big-tech companies. In Burbank, Pokémon cards worth six figures were stolen from a sports memorabilia store. Also, KFI’s own Fork Report host Neil Saavedra is on the phone to talk with Andy about beloved radio host and former KFI food reporter Melinda Lee, who recently died.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
It is KFI AM six point forty. We're live everywhere
on the iHeartRadio app. I'm Andy Reesmeier. This is the
Andy Reesmeier Show. Just past three o'clock here on this Sunday,
December seventh. Some breaking news there you might have heard
about a little bit ago. Eileen was telling you about
this about an hour ago, that the six year old
boy who was missing went missing overnight in Huntington Beach
was found safe. A spokesperson from the Huntington Police Department
(00:41):
Huntington Beach rather Police Department says that Jackson was found
safe within the complex and there are no suspicious circumstances
surrounding the investigation. And thank you to everyone who helped
search for that six year old boy who was missing overnight.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Huntington Beach.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Coming up in this hour, we're talking to Neil Savadra
about a long time radio personality, Melinda Lee. Might have
known her as Food News with Melinda Lee on kN
X ten seventy back on when it used to be
on AM radio. And she passed away last week after
(01:23):
a storied career, so we will remember her with Neil.
Coming up, at around three thirty. We were also talking
about Cortino, which is Courtina, rather which is the Olympic
village out in Italy where the Winter Olympics are happening.
Winter Olympians are on their way and they are going
(01:46):
to be staying in the Olympic Village area as they
usually do.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
But this is even a little less.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
I wouldn't say this is an apres ski luxury sweet
kind of experience. It's a temporary village that was set
up about an hour walk north of downtown Cortina, ten
minute drive in a humid valley. They say the rooms
simple and spartan. They will be sleeping in three hundred
(02:19):
and seventy seven rented mobile homes arranged in close proximity
to one another on a humid valley floor. The games
will be between February sixth and twenty second, the Milan
Courtina Games. Looking at photos of the village, spartan is
the right way to put it.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
They look like FEMA. Remember when COVID, I think they had.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
A lot of this in China when they would build
these sort of like COVID camps and they made people
go to them. This is exactly what this looks like,
but it is a beautiful valley. There are these large
evergreen trees with snow on the on the fronds in
the distance, and the interior photos look like some nice
sort of scanned name look kind of like an Ikea setup,
(03:05):
perhaps an actual bedframe, not cardboard. But they're saying it's
particularly challenging to find a place to put people because
of the geographically dispersed, which I'm assuming means we have
a lot of things going on all over the place,
very far away from each other. Games in Milan, there
(03:26):
are two main Olympic villages. One is in Courtina and
the other one is in Milan, Norway. Though is said, Nope,
we're not doing it. We're not putting people in these
little trailers. They're putting people in hotels. But other nations
like the United States and Germany, Italy, most countries will
have their people staying at the U the Olympic villages
(03:49):
there near Courtina. They say it's unlikely Lindsay vonn or
Mikaela Schiffrin will stay there.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
Though.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
That's kind of wild right supposed to be on. Though
I know there's a lot of debauchery that goes on there.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
I said that people are already working out in and
around the village, already descending on courtina. Okay, be kind
of fun, kind of fun. All right, where are we
going next? One of the things that was really a surprise. Oh,
(04:25):
we were talking about this is what I wanted to
go back to you.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
Sorry.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
You know when you just like you'd lose your brain,
you lose your train of thought and you're like, who
am I? We were talking about MH three seventy, which
is of course that airplane that went missing more than
eleven years ago, and so now there will be a
search once again for that aircraft.
Speaker 5 (04:44):
Six thousand square miles of seabed off Western Australia. No
wreckage was found, apart from a few fragments that washed
ashore in twenty fifteen and twenty sixteen. The search was
suspended in January twenty seventeen. Theories about what happened range
from hijacking to cabin depressurization to power failure. There was
no distress call, ransom demand, or evidence of either technical
(05:06):
failure or severe weather. Searching for the plane has been
challenging because of the vastness and the depth of the ocean.
Now it's been announced that the American marine robotics company
Ocean Infinity, have been given a contract to resume the
search on the seabed from December thirtieth. The contract is
worth seventy million dollars, but the company will only be
paid if wreckage is discovered.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Seventy million dollars, which they will get if they find
anything within these five thousand square miles from the wreckage
of MH three to seventy, which was like I said,
that seven seven seven that went missing more than a
decade ago, one of the biggest mysteries in aviation. They
(05:49):
got a deal approved with the Malaysian government about a
year ago because this company, Ocean Infinity, said that the
technology that they have now hopes or at least help
them find so they say the wreckage a lot better.
That company is from Texas fifteen hundred square miles to
(06:10):
try to find that aircraft. That is just wild, and.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
I hope they do. It's a really it's the strangest thing.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
I mean, there was something like at the beginning I
think of that mystery that really feels sort of like
normal now that we have all these different opinions about
what reality is and what facts are and what facts
are not. But I remember thinking, like, what do you
mean you can't find this thing. It's never going to
be fair. We're just never going to know. A lot
(06:36):
of planes have gone missing in that area as well
in the past. Here's a completely different thing we'll talk
about coming up. Freddie Freeman not being welcomed by a
children's hospital, the details behind that, plus how to hide
your Amazon ordering history from family members. You know, maybe
you're ordering stuff for the holidays, but you don't want
(06:58):
people to check on your history. This is it's just
about Amazon. I'm not going to help you hide your
browser history for other things. You should be able to
do that at this point in your life. It's IM
six forty.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
By Andy Reesmeyer some of the music today that we're playing.
I have a playlist on Spotify called a gap year,
and that is because what I was in high school,
or at least the year after high school. I didn't
go to college immediately. I took a gap year in
that I worked at the Gap folding sweaters and trying
to get people to sign up for gap credit cards.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
It was a real racket. Let me tell you, I
was terrible at it.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
I didn't feel comfortable pushing people into signing up for
credit cards. But for some reason I was recently sort
of nostalgic for all of this music that they used
to play. So essentially, if you were shopping in the
Gap and this doesn't work for Banana Republic or Gap
Kids or Gap Baby, Gap Gap Body, you would hear
stuff like Heart of Glass, Blondie, the Flaming Lips, a
(08:02):
band called Eily used to play a lot of that,
The Cure Take a Picture. They had a real good,
kind of like a sort of fun San Francisco eighties
thing going on at the Gap back then. But man,
oh man, for all the things that I still remember,
whether it's the different kinds of gene cuts that they
had and what body types that fit them best, it
(08:23):
was how to fold a cable knit sweater without a board. Man,
you should sit my cla Still to this day, I
could fold aboard's sweater like nobody's business.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Eileen, can you can you do that?
Speaker 4 (08:32):
Are you?
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Are you skilled in the sweater folding?
Speaker 6 (08:35):
I am.
Speaker 7 (08:36):
I did have a job in like you at a
clothing store when I was in high school.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Can you shout out the brand?
Speaker 7 (08:42):
They don't exist anymore, learners. Ah, yeah, it's a women's clothing,
you know.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
I didn't.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
I didn't frequent it a lot, being that it was
for ladies. But we did wear this is again, like
two thousand and seven, two thousand and two thousand and nine,
all the punk rock kids would all wear the women's jeans.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
We would get the genes from the gap.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Really, see, look this is it's just all everything is
all the same, just to look through a different lens.
Speaker 6 (09:08):
Oh yeah, the.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Five O ones I think are still like classic. There's
that whole Boyfriend Jean thing.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
I'll tell you what.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
We had a gene called the long and lean at
the Gap, and can so just picture me as an
eighteen year old twerp roaming around and offering the ladies
of the Gap if they'd like to try on a
long and lean gene.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Would you like the long and lean?
Speaker 2 (09:33):
It was a it was a no win situation because
either way you were saying to them, I think you
need to wear this gene so that you'll look more
long and lean, or you can't wear this gene.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
So I don't know why I'm offering it to you.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
It was a bizarre It was a bizarre time, but
they really pushed us very hard to get people to
sign up for those credit cards, and I just I
would have gotten fired eventually had I not quit, because
I just was terrible at that I could not make
somebody get a credit card.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
I just was not interested a conscience. I don't even
know if it was that.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
It's just like, I don't feel like I want to
put in the effort to try to pressure a mom
into signing up for a credit card. Now that I
look at it, and I think, oh, that was probably
good for me to do that. But the other thing
is then, you know, especially anytime you go into one
of those stores afterwards, you're like, I know what you're doing.
I know you're going to try to be like, oh,
has anybody talked to you about how you can save
(10:29):
twenty percent today? Every first Tuesday of the month, you
could save an additional twenty percent the gap the gap year.
These days, nobody goes to the mall anymore. They're all
ordering stuff on Amazon, and especially gifts. Ordering gifts on
Amazon is like one of the laziest things to do,
but I know everybody does it, one of the big
(10:51):
problems with ordering stuff on Amazon is, especially if you
have a household with other people who might be using
Amazon or using a shared computer, is that there's very
a very good chance that you will spoil the gifts
because Amazon does not obscure what you have ordered or
(11:12):
what you have looked at a lot of times they'll
show you you purchased this October thirtieth. Do you want
to buy it again? It's like, oh no, that's a gift.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
Stop. So they share accounts.
Speaker 7 (11:26):
I guess you share an Amazon account.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
I mean I think families may.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
And so Amazon now is coming out with something called
Amazon Family, which is a free service which allows Prime
members to extend their benefits to other people in the family.
So once you invite your family members to join, every
member will have their own log in credentials. So you
can share an Amazon account with your spouse without you know,
you don't have to pay twice. But then they can't
(11:51):
see all the stuff that you ordered, and that you
can't see all the stuff that they ordered.
Speaker 7 (11:55):
Oh that's smart. See I'm single, so I don't think
about that sort of thing. But yeah, that's a great idea, or.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Even you know, like we had a computer in my
dad's house where it was like in the in the
living room or the kitchen rather, and it was like
off the in the breakfast nook, and it was like
the family computer. And you'd go to Amazon. It's like, oh,
there's all the stuff that my dad bought from my
step mom for Christmas.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
You can see all of it on the on.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
The listed I know, but Amazon doesn't allow you to
archive anything anymore, so you have to do another thing.
You got to go to the browsing history, which is
other under your accounts and list tab, and then you
can prevent specific items from appearing in the homepage section
by selecting removed from view. A lot of things also
(12:37):
like the echo. If you have the echo or an
ale e xa, I can't say it because it'll it'll
trigger it. Sometimes you have to turn off the notifications
on those two because they'll tell you, Hey, Andy, your
order of blank is arriving.
Speaker 6 (12:50):
Now.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Amazon's a snitch man, Yeah they are.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
So.
Speaker 7 (12:54):
I had something the other day they said, do you
want to hide? So I guess that that's related to
what you're saying.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
I think so.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
I think it probably smart enough to know. Now, Oh,
if I'm getting this as a gift. If I'm assuming
you're buying this as a gift because of this time
of the year or because it's not something that you
normally would buy, I kind of imagine that probably are
pretty smart in that way. By the way, if you
are using a mobile phone with your location services turned on,
it's likely that data about where you live and work,
(13:21):
where you're shopping for groceries, what gap you're going to
your doctor even is all that data is up for sale.
You probably always thought that this was a thing, but
did you know that the government is buying some of it?
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Why?
Speaker 2 (13:38):
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is one of the customers
who has bought data recently from big tech companies.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Here's how it works.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
So your phone always is collecting information about where you are.
That's how actually how it works. It knows where you are,
so it uses different cell towers around you to basically
give you the best service that it can. There is
also a law in two thousand and one that mobile
phone carriers have to provide latitude and longitude information for
phones that have been used to call nine one one.
(14:12):
It's to help with faster response times for emergency responders.
But now there's something where when you're scrolling or you're
on a website looking for something and you see an AD.
That ad, because it's sold specifically to you. What the
AD company, or at least the company that serves you
(14:35):
the AD, has to figure out some details about you,
about what you might like, what you're interested in, if
you're a good target for this AD. And in addition
to that, they also are collecting where you are, so
it's a third party service that might be serving you
up an AD for new tires, and then that data
(14:59):
is sold.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
And it can be.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Sold to anybody, police, government agencies. In October of twenty
twenty five, that's this year, it was reported that US
Immigrations and Customs had purchased a location surveillance tool from
a company called PenLink that can track movements of specific
mobile devices over time in a given location. It allows
(15:24):
them to access location data, hundreds and thousands of points
of data about you without a warrant.
Speaker 7 (15:32):
Not surprised, but creepy that.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
While wow, so throw your phone into the ocean. That
is the coolest thing that you can possibly do. Coming up,
we're going to talk to the Fork reporter Neil Sevadra
joining us here on KFI we're going to talk about
Malimba Lee and also just some of the news about
restaurants that are happening here in La and why Trader
Joe's has pulled one of their most popular items. It's
KFIAM six to forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
We are just so so thankful to have the opportunity
to spend a Sunday afternoon with you. I always appreciate
it when people call in, when little notes get sent
to the station KFI AM six forty on the iHeartRadio app.
If you want to look for the little microphone, leave
a message there. If it's nice, great, If it's not,
(16:22):
also fine. We'll play that as evidenced via us a
little bit earlier. We of course also want to talk
about some of the news that's happening here and something
in Burbank. Rarely ever are you doing a story about
break ins in Burbank, And here we are now one
hundred thousand dollars stolen from a local small business.
Speaker 4 (16:41):
Here.
Speaker 8 (16:42):
Take a look at this surveillance video showing a group
of thieves moving in on a sportscard memorabilia business in Burbank.
One guy using a crowbar to probably open the front door,
someone else than cutting through the scissor gate. Within a
minute they're inside, and as you can see from this video,
they didn't waste any time at all.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
This is the way they'll walk through the three two
went over here.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
You'll have to just use all your imagination with this
visual storytelling. But one hundred thousand dollars stolen there, mostly
in Pokemon cards, and I got to think you probably
have to give it up to Jake and Logan Paul,
who have reignited the firestorm of excitement around Pokemon cards.
What a crazy world we live in, one hundred thousand
(17:26):
dollars worth of it. Burbank will catch them, though, for sure.
On the phone, we have kfi's very own Fork reporter,
mister Neil Sevadra.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Thanks for joining us this afternoon.
Speaker 4 (17:37):
Hey buddy, how are you.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
I'm so good.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
I'm always glad to talk to you or listen to
you rather, and I'm glad that you gave a little
bit of your time here this weekend to talk about
your friend, who I think really changed so much about
southern California Media insomuch that Melinda Lee and her food
news opened up a lot of opportunities for people like
(18:00):
you and me to talk about food all the time
and think about food all the time. She passed away recently,
which I was really sad to hear, but I heard
yesterday on your show and I would really encourage everybody
to go listen to it on the podcast. But really
beautiful tribute there too, Melinda Lee.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
Thanks buddy. It was one of those things that producer
Michelle Q of our executive producer Extordanaire, she hit me
up and she was contact I think by a family
member and just said, we wanted to let you folks
know that Melinda passed away. Now most of us have
(18:42):
not connected with her well over a decade, and there
was she had left radio to just do what everybody
wants to do, spend more time with their family, and
so she had whizzled down from two days to one
day and all those things. But she had been on Canex,
she'd been on k and she's just been around for
a long time and really brought that accessibility and that
(19:07):
kind of connection that we all want in radio. I mean,
you do a wonderful television. You're doing a wonderful job here.
But you know, the difference between you know, the TV
stuff and radio, you connect with people different. There's just
an intimacy that's a little different than any other medium.
And she mastered that, you know, that wonderful, all knowing,
(19:32):
wismatic aunt that you could never tell her age. Her
wisdom made her sound like she was four thousand years old.
She just knew everything. And then her personality, attitude, and
physically she was young and vibrant and all of these things.
I was saying yesterday that the funniest thing is she
(19:54):
just had the sweetest way about her. But man, could
you get her to lap with you know, some pretty
runch things.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
Yeah, I.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
You know, have never ever told anybody otherwise that I
have a foul mouth and crest humor. There's just a
lot of craziness in this world that makes me laugh.
And she would get a kick out of that. And
you know, from Handel's mouth, from my mouth or whatever.
And she just there was a way about her. And
what she did is incomparable. No one has done it before,
(20:29):
no one has done it since on radio in the
way that she did it really was that, you know,
ultimate reaching out to people and saying to do this,
you got it, just cheering people on there wasn't going
to be fine.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Yeah, there was a sense of positivity and optimism and
you could hear it through her voice.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
I want to play a clip from.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
I don't know this was published in twenty eleven, and
I think it was from many years before that, but
it's from something a montage from Dennis Daly who was
interviewing Melinda Le about her experience getting started in the kitchen.
So let's just take a quick listen and then we'll
be back with Nil Savager here.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Oh, I was a little girl.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
I used to.
Speaker 9 (21:13):
You know what I used to do when I was
really little was I would make mud pies in all
kinds of little doll dishes, different shapes, different sizes, and
I put berries in them so they all looked different.
And then I would put them all down a long
picnic table, and I was.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
Catering a party. Wow.
Speaker 9 (21:35):
And I only thought of that years later when I
in fact became a cater and I looked back and
thought how odd that was. It was almost like a precursory.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
So one of the things I think that we've talked
about a lot, or at least that I think about
a lot, is that some people just have it. And
whether or not you say it's a perfect combination of
the alchemy of it, if it can be learned, I
don't know. But when I hear a story like that with,
like you said, just such an iconic voice, an iconic presence,
(22:09):
and it goes all the way back to her sharing
this love for food and for cooking, way back to
when she was a young girl.
Speaker 4 (22:19):
And then you think, yeah, let's be honest, her mudpie
probably tasted like crap their mudpod. However, yes, there's a spark.
There's a spark there. Oh. I got to tell you.
The second you put that on, I got glassy eyed
hearing her voice and that kind of folk fee, you know,
(22:39):
when she would tell a story, she just yeah, it
was that accessibility. I think it is is the magic.
And she would joke, and I mentioned this yesterday, she
would joke, a monkey can do what we do. You
can teach a monkey to do the actual mechanics. But
it's about the personality and the connection with people that
(23:03):
is going to separate you. And you're right, You're right.
You know what and and quite honestly, people have have
hit me up on social media or things like that
about you for the same reason you have to. I
get it, but it actually triggered that thought that people
have had that response to who you are to being accessible.
(23:26):
Andy is is the masterclass that Melinda Lee gave us
that every bit of she there's no potholes, she didn't
run over as a professional caterer and that and I
(23:46):
say this on the FORKFOD all the time. Caterers are
the frontline man. They are the grunts. They are the
ones that take on the weight of the war because
their kitchen moves, their tools change there, the setting changes,
and it's never for Hey, you know what, I just
wanted to snack and you come make it my wedding
(24:07):
bar mitzvah. You know it's something of Matt's import and
she's got to be there to do it. And you
just put all those things together in the tips and
the you know, the pit the pitfalls that she pulled
many of us out of before a big meal that
we were doing, before a holiday meal or whatever. I
(24:30):
heard from so many people yesterday that were moved by
just searing her name again. Yeah, I tell you played
her voice, and it just takes me that back to well,
they would just you know.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
She would do these little inserts or these little drop
ins on KNX where they would just be like a
minute of food news and it would just be a
little update.
Speaker 4 (24:54):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
And then of course, you know around around Thanksgiving and
stuff like that was the expert at fixing and helping
you figure out how to fix what horrible disaster you
had gotten yourself into as far as the kitchen goes.
And you were talking yesterday about how she always would
just drop this little bit of wisdom that would stick
with you forever. And I think you shared a story
about egg rolls, but I wondered if you had any
(25:15):
other little pieces of wisdom or nuggets that you still
hang on to in the kitchen that you can attribute
there to Melindaly.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
A lot of things that were like that that would
just take you to a point of Oh, I never
thought about that, but that makes sense from like caterer
tips about wrapping, wrapping your once she puts something and
you've got to go take it someone else's house. And
I think about this during Thanksgiving and Christmas and the holidays.
(25:45):
Life is the caterer's trick of just over wrapping it
in plastic wrap. So you get your container, you put
the lid on it, and then you wrap that in
plastic wrap for a couple of reasons. One it feels
in the heat, uh and two keeps moisture, you know,
coming out, and you're not worried about it tipping over
(26:07):
in the same Yeah. So like things that just were
just come from years of experience and the like. And
I got to tell you right now, you look to
your right of the microphone and you'll see the Aldck
Home Christmas tree right.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
Oh yeah, it's beautiful.
Speaker 4 (26:24):
You hear you hear Dean talking about Aldcolm. You hear
Dean talking about the kitchen store. Those were original clients
of hers. She was the first person that ever told
me about the kitchen store. She was the first person
that ever told me about Aldcombe. She has been around
and been a part of the LA radio market and
(26:45):
writing and all these things for so long. So you're
Andy Harris's chef, Jamie Gwynn, me, anybody who's out there
that touches the stuff. You know, we have to order.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
We owe a large, indeed a large debt of gratitude
to her. And I think she did so much that
even if you were not interested in food in the
very least when she talked, you were interested because of her.
And I'll never forget how her packages or her pieces
would break up the monotony of a newscast, of a
(27:22):
just sort of standard rip and read newscast, and all
of a sudden you heard that voice and you thought, oh,
that's something interesting there.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Let me pay attention to that.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
And I think that what you said about her being
an authentic, real person who connected with people is so right,
and and.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
We remember her.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Through everything that we do, I think, and with so
much respect for what she was able to do at
a time when there wasn't a lot of cool, weird,
different things happening. Nowadays, I think there's more acceptance of strange,
different ideas, but I think back then that was kind
of a unique thing.
Speaker 4 (27:58):
You're right, and you know what you and I fit
from it today, because even if you're doing general talk
or whatever, she made weekends on radio appointment listening. Yeah,
and I got people minded people that did. We doesn't
stop on Friday when you're listening to talk radio. And
we all.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Think her for that Neil savedra. Thank you so much
for calling in. And I was sadden to hear about
her passing away. But she really gave us so much
life while she was here, Melinda le matt Uh and
we will of course remember her. I think, you know,
if you have a chance today, Neil, I'll tell you this,
I will continue doing this. I looked up this Melinda
(28:38):
Lee American Montage. It was an episode that she did.
We were just listening to a snippet there, and it's
a wonderful story.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
It's the story of.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Her life, and I think it's really wonderful to listen
to her talk about her mom and about how how
her he asked about her iconic sort of voice, and
why people think that maybe she's from the South, and
it's really just I think more about her warmth and
about her story. And it's a great listen and I
recommend you look for it. It's on YouTube. American Montage
Melinda Lee, West Coast Food Guru.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
So Neil, thank you so much, buddy.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
We'll see you in person here, I hope soon, and
listening as always. Thanks for making time for us today,
of course my pleasure.
Speaker 4 (29:18):
I appreciate the indie pud there he goes.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Nil Savadra from the Fork Report and so many other
things here on KFI. Can I tell you the nicest thing,
the nicest man. I'm almost like, I don't even know
what to do when he says things like that. I
gotta venmo him now like twenty bucks as a tip
for being so nice. Coming up, we're checking with Chris
Marlan what's going on his show, and Trader Joe's pulling
it's very popular holiday treat. I'll tell you why. It's
(29:45):
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Just reliving the glory days back in the late two
thousand I worked for about a year at the Gap
and that's where those songs are coming from from today.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
I don't know why we're.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Doing a themed episode of the music you would hear
if you were shopping at the Gap in two thousand
and eight. This is the ultimate anti algorithm show. There
is no one who asked for that. It is not
a vibe that anyone has any cultural appreciation for no
touchstone except for maybe a handful of people who worked
at the Gap during that era. It was always really fun.
This time of year because there was something to look
(30:27):
forward to. Black Friday was like our Normandy or we'd
all just hang out and just take turns at the
register and being like, oh man, tap me in, I'm ready,
let's do this. Then by the time February roll along.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
Oh boy, that was boring.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
After all the returns had been made in January and
then there was just nothing to do standing there. Couldn't
stand to hear one of those songs. If I hear
take my picture one more time, take up picture by
filter one more time, I swear, But now I like it.
By the way, last thing I'll say here is that
we did have some shoplifters back then, as it's probably
(31:04):
no surprise anybody's worked in retail. And I don't know
if I'm probably not supposed to say this, but they
didn't want us to intervene because somebody in the corporate
I'm assuming department of Gap company found that it was
probably more risky and more expensive to them if one
of us employees who was making minimum wage tried to
(31:27):
intervene with someone shoplifting than it was to just let
the merchandise go. So when someone would shoplift, we could
do nothing. I don't know if the rule is still
the rule, but I'm it's probably. We just stood there
and the manager would get on we had those little headsets,
would get on the headset and say, oh, over by
the cable nets, we have some friendly shoppers. And that's
(31:50):
what you knew you heard in your years, you said, oh,
friendly shoppers, those are shoplifters. And then they'd call mall security,
and the mall security would show up ten minutes after
they were gone, And thus the great gears of late
stage capitalism continued. Chris Merril joins us to talk about
old times. Mmm, yeah, did you ever shoplift?
Speaker 3 (32:14):
You were doing a shoplifting back then?
Speaker 6 (32:15):
I did way worse.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Yeah, shoplifting is kind of low. It's kind of a
weak crime.
Speaker 6 (32:23):
Yeah, I did way worse.
Speaker 10 (32:24):
Yeah it's not my best, my best in your best
years of my life, in your high school days.
Speaker 6 (32:31):
Yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
Can't say I'm real proud of those days. But like
I want to ask, but I don't want to, like pry. No,
you don't ask, Okay, you don't want to ask.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
We would sometimes take up what I did.
Speaker 6 (32:43):
I did.
Speaker 10 (32:43):
I jammed out a lot, though, Okay, I used to
just jam out of Yeah. Oh my gosh, oh, I
crank it up in my eighty seven Chevy Spectrum.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
This is a cool song.
Speaker 6 (32:57):
It's a coolist man. Uh huh uh huh. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
Did you awake on your airplane? I did awake on
your airplane.
Speaker 6 (33:06):
Your skin was on my airplane. Awake on my airplane?
Speaker 4 (33:09):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (33:10):
Yeah, yeah, my skin is bare.
Speaker 3 (33:12):
My skin is theirs? Is the next thing. He says, No,
you're right, you're right, you're right, you're right.
Speaker 6 (33:16):
You're screaming it along. It doesn't matter.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
You don't want to take my picture because I won't remember.
Speaker 6 (33:21):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
I believe that's a story that the It doesn't seem
like it makes sense, but it's about him, the lead
singer of Filter, waking up in some kind of hungover
stupor and taking his clothes off on an airplane.
Speaker 6 (33:33):
I'd done way worse. That's you know, that's just let's
just starter stuff. Now.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Yeah, that's the beginning of it for you. But I
will say the last story about the gap. We had
fifteen minute breaks, and the plate, the where, the where
and the how matters not much on this, but in
our breaks, you know, obviously you would want to go
down to the food court, but it would take you
seven minutes to walk to the food and going to
(34:04):
the bathroom, right, and you'd stand in line and get
like a charioci chicken or whatever and have to like
hoof it back to the Gap and just wolf down
your chariocy chicken.
Speaker 6 (34:15):
Man, those are those are some white people problems right there.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
Doesn't it sound like it's really hard for to be me?
Speaker 6 (34:21):
It really does.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
It was a really tough life.
Speaker 6 (34:23):
I gotta tell you. Kind of pissed me off again again. Yeah, yeah,
I was listening to you talking to Neil. Oh, yeah, yeah.
Neil never says anything nice about me.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
Wasn't that so kind?
Speaker 6 (34:33):
But he was like, oh, people just love that.
Speaker 10 (34:35):
I get a lot of comments about how you just
naturally connect with people.
Speaker 6 (34:38):
I don't like.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
I was like, Neil, I already have you on the show, buddy,
you don't have to say anything.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
I was upset too.
Speaker 10 (34:45):
It felt at this for so long, just trying to
be sound like a normal person, and I still don't.
And here you waltz in, that's right with your perfectly
quaffed hair. My my antidotes about being at the Gap, Yeah,
and you just crush it. Well, that that's kind of you.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
I don't know that. I always feel that that.
Speaker 10 (35:02):
Kind is Just listen, I'm gonna meet you in the
parking lot, home boy. I'm gonna take your picture.
Speaker 6 (35:11):
That's what I'm doing. What's coming on me, buddy?
Speaker 3 (35:13):
What's coming up on your show?
Speaker 6 (35:14):
And a polaroid, That's what we're doing. We've got a
Pearl Harbor anniversary. You heard Ilean talking about that, so, yeah,
that's a good one. Pay a little tribute to that.
Speaker 4 (35:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 10 (35:24):
And then the FIFA matchups are are announced, so we
have an idea of who's coming to southern California and
then who's going to go to Kansas City and Houston
and all those other things. And we've got to report
on just how much the Olympics are going to boost
the economy. So we're looking forward to that. We've got
that going on. We'll open up the talk back as well.
If you're listening on the iHeartRadio app, hit that talkback button.
I answer this question. If the housing market crashes, as
(35:47):
one economist says is going to happen, it's gonna make
two thousand and eight look like a look tame. The
housing market crashes, where would you go buy your dream
home because now you can afford it?
Speaker 3 (35:58):
On what planet? What am I gonna do with my house?
Speaker 6 (36:02):
Yeah? You're gonna sell it for nothing? A yeah, you're hosed.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
I'm host.
Speaker 6 (36:06):
Yeah, you're totally host.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
I just I bought last year also, so I'm doubly hosed.
Speaker 6 (36:11):
Oh my gosh. I feel better about Neil saying nice
things about you.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
See, And I was gonna say my last financial ruin
is on the way. I will say this. I think
that you are great, and I was gonna end. I
was gonna end with I think that you are You
have a great, warm, approachable, friendly way about you. But
you also seem like you know a lot of what
you're talking about.
Speaker 6 (36:31):
I have no idea.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
No, Well, but that's what you've seen, Like that's what
you're seeing. Yeah, yeah, that's what I mean. So you
do a good job of that.
Speaker 10 (36:37):
So basically, like a woman in bed only on the radio,
that's what I am. Like, how to fake it? I
convinced this so much, so funny.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
Christmarell's coming up six live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
You're the Best kf I Am sixty on demand
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
It is KFI AM six point forty. We're live everywhere
on the iHeartRadio app. I'm Andy Reesmeier. This is the
Andy Reesmeier Show. Just past three o'clock here on this Sunday,
December seventh. Some breaking news there you might have heard
about a little bit ago. Eileen was telling you about
this about an hour ago, that the six year old
boy who was missing went missing overnight in Huntington Beach
was found safe. A spokesperson from the Huntington Police Department
(00:41):
Huntington Beach rather Police Department says that Jackson was found
safe within the complex and there are no suspicious circumstances
surrounding the investigation. And thank you to everyone who helped
search for that six year old boy who was missing overnight.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Huntington Beach.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Coming up in this hour, we're talking to Neil Savadra
about a long time radio personality, Melinda Lee. Might have
known her as Food News with Melinda Lee on kN
X ten seventy back on when it used to be
on AM radio. And she passed away last week after
(01:23):
a storied career, so we will remember her with Neil.
Coming up, at around three thirty. We were also talking
about Cortino, which is Courtina, rather which is the Olympic
village out in Italy where the Winter Olympics are happening.
Winter Olympians are on their way and they are going
(01:46):
to be staying in the Olympic Village area as they
usually do.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
But this is even a little less.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
I wouldn't say this is an apres ski luxury sweet
kind of experience. It's a temporary village that was set
up about an hour walk north of downtown Cortina, ten
minute drive in a humid valley. They say the rooms
simple and spartan. They will be sleeping in three hundred
(02:19):
and seventy seven rented mobile homes arranged in close proximity
to one another on a humid valley floor. The games
will be between February sixth and twenty second, the Milan
Courtina Games. Looking at photos of the village, spartan is
the right way to put it.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
They look like FEMA. Remember when COVID, I think they had.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
A lot of this in China when they would build
these sort of like COVID camps and they made people
go to them. This is exactly what this looks like,
but it is a beautiful valley. There are these large
evergreen trees with snow on the on the fronds in
the distance, and the interior photos look like some nice
sort of scanned name look kind of like an Ikea setup,
(03:05):
perhaps an actual bedframe, not cardboard. But they're saying it's
particularly challenging to find a place to put people because
of the geographically dispersed, which I'm assuming means we have
a lot of things going on all over the place,
very far away from each other. Games in Milan, there
(03:26):
are two main Olympic villages. One is in Courtina and
the other one is in Milan, Norway. Though is said, Nope,
we're not doing it. We're not putting people in these
little trailers. They're putting people in hotels. But other nations
like the United States and Germany, Italy, most countries will
have their people staying at the U the Olympic villages
(03:49):
there near Courtina. They say it's unlikely Lindsay vonn or
Mikaela Schiffrin will stay there.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
Though.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
That's kind of wild right supposed to be on. Though
I know there's a lot of debauchery that goes on there.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
I said that people are already working out in and
around the village, already descending on courtina. Okay, be kind
of fun, kind of fun. All right, where are we
going next? One of the things that was really a surprise. Oh,
(04:25):
we were talking about this is what I wanted to
go back to you.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
Sorry.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
You know when you just like you'd lose your brain,
you lose your train of thought and you're like, who
am I? We were talking about MH three seventy, which
is of course that airplane that went missing more than
eleven years ago, and so now there will be a
search once again for that aircraft.
Speaker 5 (04:44):
Six thousand square miles of seabed off Western Australia. No
wreckage was found, apart from a few fragments that washed
ashore in twenty fifteen and twenty sixteen. The search was
suspended in January twenty seventeen. Theories about what happened range
from hijacking to cabin depressurization to power failure. There was
no distress call, ransom demand, or evidence of either technical
(05:06):
failure or severe weather. Searching for the plane has been
challenging because of the vastness and the depth of the ocean.
Now it's been announced that the American marine robotics company
Ocean Infinity, have been given a contract to resume the
search on the seabed from December thirtieth. The contract is
worth seventy million dollars, but the company will only be
paid if wreckage is discovered.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Seventy million dollars, which they will get if they find
anything within these five thousand square miles from the wreckage
of MH three to seventy, which was like I said,
that seven seven seven that went missing more than a
decade ago, one of the biggest mysteries in aviation. They
(05:49):
got a deal approved with the Malaysian government about a
year ago because this company, Ocean Infinity, said that the
technology that they have now hopes or at least help
them find so they say the wreckage a lot better.
That company is from Texas fifteen hundred square miles to
(06:10):
try to find that aircraft. That is just wild, and.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
I hope they do. It's a really it's the strangest thing.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
I mean, there was something like at the beginning I
think of that mystery that really feels sort of like
normal now that we have all these different opinions about
what reality is and what facts are and what facts
are not. But I remember thinking, like, what do you
mean you can't find this thing. It's never going to
be fair. We're just never going to know. A lot
(06:36):
of planes have gone missing in that area as well
in the past. Here's a completely different thing we'll talk
about coming up. Freddie Freeman not being welcomed by a
children's hospital, the details behind that, plus how to hide
your Amazon ordering history from family members. You know, maybe
you're ordering stuff for the holidays, but you don't want
(06:58):
people to check on your history. This is it's just
about Amazon. I'm not going to help you hide your
browser history for other things. You should be able to
do that at this point in your life. It's IM
six forty.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
By Andy Reesmeyer some of the music today that we're playing.
I have a playlist on Spotify called a gap year,
and that is because what I was in high school,
or at least the year after high school. I didn't
go to college immediately. I took a gap year in
that I worked at the Gap folding sweaters and trying
to get people to sign up for gap credit cards.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
It was a real racket. Let me tell you, I
was terrible at it.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
I didn't feel comfortable pushing people into signing up for
credit cards. But for some reason I was recently sort
of nostalgic for all of this music that they used
to play. So essentially, if you were shopping in the
Gap and this doesn't work for Banana Republic or Gap
Kids or Gap Baby, Gap Gap Body, you would hear
stuff like Heart of Glass, Blondie, the Flaming Lips, a
(08:02):
band called Eily used to play a lot of that,
The Cure Take a Picture. They had a real good,
kind of like a sort of fun San Francisco eighties
thing going on at the Gap back then. But man,
oh man, for all the things that I still remember,
whether it's the different kinds of gene cuts that they
had and what body types that fit them best, it
(08:23):
was how to fold a cable knit sweater without a board. Man,
you should sit my cla Still to this day, I
could fold aboard's sweater like nobody's business.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Eileen, can you can you do that?
Speaker 4 (08:32):
Are you?
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Are you skilled in the sweater folding?
Speaker 6 (08:35):
I am.
Speaker 7 (08:36):
I did have a job in like you at a
clothing store when I was in high school.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Can you shout out the brand?
Speaker 7 (08:42):
They don't exist anymore, learners. Ah, yeah, it's a women's clothing,
you know.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
I didn't.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
I didn't frequent it a lot, being that it was
for ladies. But we did wear this is again, like
two thousand and seven, two thousand and two thousand and nine,
all the punk rock kids would all wear the women's jeans.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
We would get the genes from the gap.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Really, see, look this is it's just all everything is
all the same, just to look through a different lens.
Speaker 6 (09:08):
Oh yeah, the.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Five O ones I think are still like classic. There's
that whole Boyfriend Jean thing.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
I'll tell you what.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
We had a gene called the long and lean at
the Gap, and can so just picture me as an
eighteen year old twerp roaming around and offering the ladies
of the Gap if they'd like to try on a
long and lean gene.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Would you like the long and lean?
Speaker 2 (09:33):
It was a it was a no win situation because
either way you were saying to them, I think you
need to wear this gene so that you'll look more
long and lean, or you can't wear this gene.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
So I don't know why I'm offering it to you.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
It was a bizarre It was a bizarre time, but
they really pushed us very hard to get people to
sign up for those credit cards, and I just I
would have gotten fired eventually had I not quit, because
I just was terrible at that I could not make
somebody get a credit card.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
I just was not interested a conscience. I don't even
know if it was that.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
It's just like, I don't feel like I want to
put in the effort to try to pressure a mom
into signing up for a credit card. Now that I
look at it, and I think, oh, that was probably
good for me to do that. But the other thing
is then, you know, especially anytime you go into one
of those stores afterwards, you're like, I know what you're doing.
I know you're going to try to be like, oh,
has anybody talked to you about how you can save
(10:29):
twenty percent today? Every first Tuesday of the month, you
could save an additional twenty percent the gap the gap year.
These days, nobody goes to the mall anymore. They're all
ordering stuff on Amazon, and especially gifts. Ordering gifts on
Amazon is like one of the laziest things to do,
but I know everybody does it, one of the big
(10:51):
problems with ordering stuff on Amazon is, especially if you
have a household with other people who might be using
Amazon or using a shared computer, is that there's very
a very good chance that you will spoil the gifts
because Amazon does not obscure what you have ordered or
(11:12):
what you have looked at a lot of times they'll
show you you purchased this October thirtieth. Do you want
to buy it again? It's like, oh no, that's a gift.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
Stop. So they share accounts.
Speaker 7 (11:26):
I guess you share an Amazon account.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
I mean I think families may.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
And so Amazon now is coming out with something called
Amazon Family, which is a free service which allows Prime
members to extend their benefits to other people in the family.
So once you invite your family members to join, every
member will have their own log in credentials. So you
can share an Amazon account with your spouse without you know,
you don't have to pay twice. But then they can't
(11:51):
see all the stuff that you ordered, and that you
can't see all the stuff that they ordered.
Speaker 7 (11:55):
Oh that's smart. See I'm single, so I don't think
about that sort of thing. But yeah, that's a great idea, or.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Even you know, like we had a computer in my
dad's house where it was like in the in the
living room or the kitchen rather, and it was like
off the in the breakfast nook, and it was like
the family computer. And you'd go to Amazon. It's like, oh,
there's all the stuff that my dad bought from my
step mom for Christmas.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
You can see all of it on the on.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
The listed I know, but Amazon doesn't allow you to
archive anything anymore, so you have to do another thing.
You got to go to the browsing history, which is
other under your accounts and list tab, and then you
can prevent specific items from appearing in the homepage section
by selecting removed from view. A lot of things also
(12:37):
like the echo. If you have the echo or an
ale e xa, I can't say it because it'll it'll
trigger it. Sometimes you have to turn off the notifications
on those two because they'll tell you, Hey, Andy, your
order of blank is arriving.
Speaker 6 (12:50):
Now.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Amazon's a snitch man, Yeah they are.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
So.
Speaker 7 (12:54):
I had something the other day they said, do you
want to hide? So I guess that that's related to
what you're saying.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
I think so.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
I think it probably smart enough to know. Now, Oh,
if I'm getting this as a gift. If I'm assuming
you're buying this as a gift because of this time
of the year or because it's not something that you
normally would buy, I kind of imagine that probably are
pretty smart in that way. By the way, if you
are using a mobile phone with your location services turned on,
it's likely that data about where you live and work,
(13:21):
where you're shopping for groceries, what gap you're going to
your doctor even is all that data is up for sale.
You probably always thought that this was a thing, but
did you know that the government is buying some of it?
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Why?
Speaker 2 (13:38):
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is one of the customers
who has bought data recently from big tech companies.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Here's how it works.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
So your phone always is collecting information about where you are.
That's how actually how it works. It knows where you are,
so it uses different cell towers around you to basically
give you the best service that it can. There is
also a law in two thousand and one that mobile
phone carriers have to provide latitude and longitude information for
phones that have been used to call nine one one.
(14:12):
It's to help with faster response times for emergency responders.
But now there's something where when you're scrolling or you're
on a website looking for something and you see an AD.
That ad, because it's sold specifically to you. What the
AD company, or at least the company that serves you
(14:35):
the AD, has to figure out some details about you,
about what you might like, what you're interested in, if
you're a good target for this AD. And in addition
to that, they also are collecting where you are, so
it's a third party service that might be serving you
up an AD for new tires, and then that data
(14:59):
is sold.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
And it can be.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Sold to anybody, police, government agencies. In October of twenty
twenty five, that's this year, it was reported that US
Immigrations and Customs had purchased a location surveillance tool from
a company called PenLink that can track movements of specific
mobile devices over time in a given location. It allows
(15:24):
them to access location data, hundreds and thousands of points
of data about you without a warrant.
Speaker 7 (15:32):
Not surprised, but creepy that.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
While wow, so throw your phone into the ocean. That
is the coolest thing that you can possibly do. Coming up,
we're going to talk to the Fork reporter Neil Sevadra
joining us here on KFI we're going to talk about
Malimba Lee and also just some of the news about
restaurants that are happening here in La and why Trader
Joe's has pulled one of their most popular items. It's
KFIAM six to forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
We are just so so thankful to have the opportunity
to spend a Sunday afternoon with you. I always appreciate
it when people call in, when little notes get sent
to the station KFI AM six forty on the iHeartRadio app.
If you want to look for the little microphone, leave
a message there. If it's nice, great, If it's not,
(16:22):
also fine. We'll play that as evidenced via us a
little bit earlier. We of course also want to talk
about some of the news that's happening here and something
in Burbank. Rarely ever are you doing a story about
break ins in Burbank, And here we are now one
hundred thousand dollars stolen from a local small business.
Speaker 4 (16:41):
Here.
Speaker 8 (16:42):
Take a look at this surveillance video showing a group
of thieves moving in on a sportscard memorabilia business in Burbank.
One guy using a crowbar to probably open the front door,
someone else than cutting through the scissor gate. Within a
minute they're inside, and as you can see from this video,
they didn't waste any time at all.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
This is the way they'll walk through the three two
went over here.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
You'll have to just use all your imagination with this
visual storytelling. But one hundred thousand dollars stolen there, mostly
in Pokemon cards, and I got to think you probably
have to give it up to Jake and Logan Paul,
who have reignited the firestorm of excitement around Pokemon cards.
What a crazy world we live in, one hundred thousand
(17:26):
dollars worth of it. Burbank will catch them, though, for sure.
On the phone, we have kfi's very own Fork reporter,
mister Neil Sevadra.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Thanks for joining us this afternoon.
Speaker 4 (17:37):
Hey buddy, how are you.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
I'm so good.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
I'm always glad to talk to you or listen to
you rather, and I'm glad that you gave a little
bit of your time here this weekend to talk about
your friend, who I think really changed so much about
southern California Media insomuch that Melinda Lee and her food
news opened up a lot of opportunities for people like
(18:00):
you and me to talk about food all the time
and think about food all the time. She passed away recently,
which I was really sad to hear, but I heard
yesterday on your show and I would really encourage everybody
to go listen to it on the podcast. But really
beautiful tribute there too, Melinda Lee.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
Thanks buddy. It was one of those things that producer
Michelle Q of our executive producer Extordanaire, she hit me
up and she was contact I think by a family
member and just said, we wanted to let you folks
know that Melinda passed away. Now most of us have
(18:42):
not connected with her well over a decade, and there
was she had left radio to just do what everybody
wants to do, spend more time with their family, and
so she had whizzled down from two days to one
day and all those things. But she had been on Canex,
she'd been on k and she's just been around for
a long time and really brought that accessibility and that
(19:07):
kind of connection that we all want in radio. I mean,
you do a wonderful television. You're doing a wonderful job here.
But you know, the difference between you know, the TV
stuff and radio, you connect with people different. There's just
an intimacy that's a little different than any other medium.
And she mastered that, you know, that wonderful, all knowing,
(19:32):
wismatic aunt that you could never tell her age. Her
wisdom made her sound like she was four thousand years old.
She just knew everything. And then her personality, attitude, and
physically she was young and vibrant and all of these things.
I was saying yesterday that the funniest thing is she
(19:54):
just had the sweetest way about her. But man, could
you get her to lap with you know, some pretty
runch things.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
Yeah, I.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
You know, have never ever told anybody otherwise that I
have a foul mouth and crest humor. There's just a
lot of craziness in this world that makes me laugh.
And she would get a kick out of that. And
you know, from Handel's mouth, from my mouth or whatever.
And she just there was a way about her. And
what she did is incomparable. No one has done it before,
(20:29):
no one has done it since on radio in the
way that she did it really was that, you know,
ultimate reaching out to people and saying to do this,
you got it, just cheering people on there wasn't going
to be fine.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Yeah, there was a sense of positivity and optimism and
you could hear it through her voice.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
I want to play a clip from.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
I don't know this was published in twenty eleven, and
I think it was from many years before that, but
it's from something a montage from Dennis Daly who was
interviewing Melinda Le about her experience getting started in the kitchen.
So let's just take a quick listen and then we'll
be back with Nil Savager here.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Oh, I was a little girl.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
I used to.
Speaker 9 (21:13):
You know what I used to do when I was
really little was I would make mud pies in all
kinds of little doll dishes, different shapes, different sizes, and
I put berries in them so they all looked different.
And then I would put them all down a long
picnic table, and I was.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
Catering a party. Wow.
Speaker 9 (21:35):
And I only thought of that years later when I
in fact became a cater and I looked back and
thought how odd that was. It was almost like a precursory.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
So one of the things I think that we've talked
about a lot, or at least that I think about
a lot, is that some people just have it. And
whether or not you say it's a perfect combination of
the alchemy of it, if it can be learned, I
don't know. But when I hear a story like that with,
like you said, just such an iconic voice, an iconic presence,
(22:09):
and it goes all the way back to her sharing
this love for food and for cooking, way back to
when she was a young girl.
Speaker 4 (22:19):
And then you think, yeah, let's be honest, her mudpie
probably tasted like crap their mudpod. However, yes, there's a spark.
There's a spark there. Oh. I got to tell you.
The second you put that on, I got glassy eyed
hearing her voice and that kind of folk fee, you know,
(22:39):
when she would tell a story, she just yeah, it
was that accessibility. I think it is is the magic.
And she would joke, and I mentioned this yesterday, she
would joke, a monkey can do what we do. You
can teach a monkey to do the actual mechanics. But
it's about the personality and the connection with people that
(23:03):
is going to separate you. And you're right, You're right.
You know what and and quite honestly, people have have
hit me up on social media or things like that
about you for the same reason you have to. I
get it, but it actually triggered that thought that people
have had that response to who you are to being accessible.
(23:26):
Andy is is the masterclass that Melinda Lee gave us
that every bit of she there's no potholes, she didn't
run over as a professional caterer and that and I
(23:46):
say this on the FORKFOD all the time. Caterers are
the frontline man. They are the grunts. They are the
ones that take on the weight of the war because
their kitchen moves, their tools change there, the setting changes,
and it's never for Hey, you know what, I just
wanted to snack and you come make it my wedding
(24:07):
bar mitzvah. You know it's something of Matt's import and
she's got to be there to do it. And you
just put all those things together in the tips and
the you know, the pit the pitfalls that she pulled
many of us out of before a big meal that
we were doing, before a holiday meal or whatever. I
(24:30):
heard from so many people yesterday that were moved by
just searing her name again. Yeah, I tell you played
her voice, and it just takes me that back to well,
they would just you know.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
She would do these little inserts or these little drop
ins on KNX where they would just be like a
minute of food news and it would just be a
little update.
Speaker 4 (24:54):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
And then of course, you know around around Thanksgiving and
stuff like that was the expert at fixing and helping
you figure out how to fix what horrible disaster you
had gotten yourself into as far as the kitchen goes.
And you were talking yesterday about how she always would
just drop this little bit of wisdom that would stick
with you forever. And I think you shared a story
about egg rolls, but I wondered if you had any
(25:15):
other little pieces of wisdom or nuggets that you still
hang on to in the kitchen that you can attribute
there to Melindaly.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
A lot of things that were like that that would
just take you to a point of Oh, I never
thought about that, but that makes sense from like caterer
tips about wrapping, wrapping your once she puts something and
you've got to go take it someone else's house. And
I think about this during Thanksgiving and Christmas and the holidays.
(25:45):
Life is the caterer's trick of just over wrapping it
in plastic wrap. So you get your container, you put
the lid on it, and then you wrap that in
plastic wrap for a couple of reasons. One it feels
in the heat, uh and two keeps moisture, you know,
coming out, and you're not worried about it tipping over
(26:07):
in the same Yeah. So like things that just were
just come from years of experience and the like. And
I got to tell you right now, you look to
your right of the microphone and you'll see the Aldck
Home Christmas tree right.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
Oh yeah, it's beautiful.
Speaker 4 (26:24):
You hear you hear Dean talking about Aldcolm. You hear
Dean talking about the kitchen store. Those were original clients
of hers. She was the first person that ever told
me about the kitchen store. She was the first person
that ever told me about Aldcombe. She has been around
and been a part of the LA radio market and
(26:45):
writing and all these things for so long. So you're
Andy Harris's chef, Jamie Gwynn, me, anybody who's out there
that touches the stuff. You know, we have to order.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
We owe a large, indeed a large debt of gratitude
to her. And I think she did so much that
even if you were not interested in food in the
very least when she talked, you were interested because of her.
And I'll never forget how her packages or her pieces
would break up the monotony of a newscast, of a
(27:22):
just sort of standard rip and read newscast, and all
of a sudden you heard that voice and you thought, oh,
that's something interesting there.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Let me pay attention to that.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
And I think that what you said about her being
an authentic, real person who connected with people is so right,
and and.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
We remember her.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Through everything that we do, I think, and with so
much respect for what she was able to do at
a time when there wasn't a lot of cool, weird,
different things happening. Nowadays, I think there's more acceptance of strange,
different ideas, but I think back then that was kind
of a unique thing.
Speaker 4 (27:58):
You're right, and you know what you and I fit
from it today, because even if you're doing general talk
or whatever, she made weekends on radio appointment listening. Yeah,
and I got people minded people that did. We doesn't
stop on Friday when you're listening to talk radio. And
we all.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Think her for that Neil savedra. Thank you so much
for calling in. And I was sadden to hear about
her passing away. But she really gave us so much
life while she was here, Melinda le matt Uh and
we will of course remember her. I think, you know,
if you have a chance today, Neil, I'll tell you this,
I will continue doing this. I looked up this Melinda
(28:38):
Lee American Montage. It was an episode that she did.
We were just listening to a snippet there, and it's
a wonderful story.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
It's the story of.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Her life, and I think it's really wonderful to listen
to her talk about her mom and about how how
her he asked about her iconic sort of voice, and
why people think that maybe she's from the South, and
it's really just I think more about her warmth and
about her story. And it's a great listen and I
recommend you look for it. It's on YouTube. American Montage
Melinda Lee, West Coast Food Guru.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
So Neil, thank you so much, buddy.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
We'll see you in person here, I hope soon, and
listening as always. Thanks for making time for us today,
of course my pleasure.
Speaker 4 (29:18):
I appreciate the indie pud there he goes.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Nil Savadra from the Fork Report and so many other
things here on KFI. Can I tell you the nicest thing,
the nicest man. I'm almost like, I don't even know
what to do when he says things like that. I
gotta venmo him now like twenty bucks as a tip
for being so nice. Coming up, we're checking with Chris
Marlan what's going on his show, and Trader Joe's pulling
it's very popular holiday treat. I'll tell you why. It's
(29:45):
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Just reliving the glory days back in the late two
thousand I worked for about a year at the Gap
and that's where those songs are coming from from today.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
I don't know why we're.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Doing a themed episode of the music you would hear
if you were shopping at the Gap in two thousand
and eight. This is the ultimate anti algorithm show. There
is no one who asked for that. It is not
a vibe that anyone has any cultural appreciation for no
touchstone except for maybe a handful of people who worked
at the Gap during that era. It was always really fun.
This time of year because there was something to look
(30:27):
forward to. Black Friday was like our Normandy or we'd
all just hang out and just take turns at the
register and being like, oh man, tap me in, I'm ready,
let's do this. Then by the time February roll along.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
Oh boy, that was boring.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
After all the returns had been made in January and
then there was just nothing to do standing there. Couldn't
stand to hear one of those songs. If I hear
take my picture one more time, take up picture by
filter one more time, I swear, But now I like it.
By the way, last thing I'll say here is that
we did have some shoplifters back then, as it's probably
(31:04):
no surprise anybody's worked in retail. And I don't know
if I'm probably not supposed to say this, but they
didn't want us to intervene because somebody in the corporate
I'm assuming department of Gap company found that it was
probably more risky and more expensive to them if one
of us employees who was making minimum wage tried to
(31:27):
intervene with someone shoplifting than it was to just let
the merchandise go. So when someone would shoplift, we could
do nothing. I don't know if the rule is still
the rule, but I'm it's probably. We just stood there
and the manager would get on we had those little headsets,
would get on the headset and say, oh, over by
the cable nets, we have some friendly shoppers. And that's
(31:50):
what you knew you heard in your years, you said, oh,
friendly shoppers, those are shoplifters. And then they'd call mall security,
and the mall security would show up ten minutes after
they were gone, And thus the great gears of late
stage capitalism continued. Chris Merril joins us to talk about
old times. Mmm, yeah, did you ever shoplift?
Speaker 3 (32:14):
You were doing a shoplifting back then?
Speaker 6 (32:15):
I did way worse.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Yeah, shoplifting is kind of low. It's kind of a
weak crime.
Speaker 6 (32:23):
Yeah, I did way worse.
Speaker 10 (32:24):
Yeah it's not my best, my best in your best
years of my life, in your high school days.
Speaker 6 (32:31):
Yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
Can't say I'm real proud of those days. But like
I want to ask, but I don't want to, like pry. No,
you don't ask, Okay, you don't want to ask.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
We would sometimes take up what I did.
Speaker 6 (32:43):
I did.
Speaker 10 (32:43):
I jammed out a lot, though, Okay, I used to
just jam out of Yeah. Oh my gosh, oh, I
crank it up in my eighty seven Chevy Spectrum.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
This is a cool song.
Speaker 6 (32:57):
It's a coolist man. Uh huh uh huh. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
Did you awake on your airplane? I did awake on
your airplane.
Speaker 6 (33:06):
Your skin was on my airplane. Awake on my airplane?
Speaker 4 (33:09):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (33:10):
Yeah, yeah, my skin is bare.
Speaker 3 (33:12):
My skin is theirs? Is the next thing. He says, No,
you're right, you're right, you're right, you're right.
Speaker 6 (33:16):
You're screaming it along. It doesn't matter.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
You don't want to take my picture because I won't remember.
Speaker 6 (33:21):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
I believe that's a story that the It doesn't seem
like it makes sense, but it's about him, the lead
singer of Filter, waking up in some kind of hungover
stupor and taking his clothes off on an airplane.
Speaker 6 (33:33):
I'd done way worse. That's you know, that's just let's
just starter stuff. Now.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Yeah, that's the beginning of it for you. But I
will say the last story about the gap. We had
fifteen minute breaks, and the plate, the where, the where
and the how matters not much on this, but in
our breaks, you know, obviously you would want to go
down to the food court, but it would take you
seven minutes to walk to the food and going to
(34:04):
the bathroom, right, and you'd stand in line and get
like a charioci chicken or whatever and have to like
hoof it back to the Gap and just wolf down
your chariocy chicken.
Speaker 6 (34:15):
Man, those are those are some white people problems right there.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
Doesn't it sound like it's really hard for to be me?
Speaker 6 (34:21):
It really does.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
It was a really tough life.
Speaker 6 (34:23):
I gotta tell you. Kind of pissed me off again again. Yeah, yeah,
I was listening to you talking to Neil. Oh, yeah, yeah.
Neil never says anything nice about me.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
Wasn't that so kind?
Speaker 6 (34:33):
But he was like, oh, people just love that.
Speaker 10 (34:35):
I get a lot of comments about how you just
naturally connect with people.
Speaker 6 (34:38):
I don't like.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
I was like, Neil, I already have you on the show, buddy,
you don't have to say anything.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
I was upset too.
Speaker 10 (34:45):
It felt at this for so long, just trying to
be sound like a normal person, and I still don't.
And here you waltz in, that's right with your perfectly
quaffed hair. My my antidotes about being at the Gap, Yeah,
and you just crush it. Well, that that's kind of you.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
I don't know that. I always feel that that.
Speaker 10 (35:02):
Kind is Just listen, I'm gonna meet you in the
parking lot, home boy. I'm gonna take your picture.
Speaker 6 (35:11):
That's what I'm doing. What's coming on me, buddy?
Speaker 3 (35:13):
What's coming up on your show?
Speaker 6 (35:14):
And a polaroid, That's what we're doing. We've got a
Pearl Harbor anniversary. You heard Ilean talking about that, so, yeah,
that's a good one. Pay a little tribute to that.
Speaker 4 (35:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 10 (35:24):
And then the FIFA matchups are are announced, so we
have an idea of who's coming to southern California and
then who's going to go to Kansas City and Houston
and all those other things. And we've got to report
on just how much the Olympics are going to boost
the economy. So we're looking forward to that. We've got
that going on. We'll open up the talk back as well.
If you're listening on the iHeartRadio app, hit that talkback button.
I answer this question. If the housing market crashes, as
(35:47):
one economist says is going to happen, it's gonna make
two thousand and eight look like a look tame. The
housing market crashes, where would you go buy your dream
home because now you can afford it?
Speaker 3 (35:58):
On what planet? What am I gonna do with my house?
Speaker 6 (36:02):
Yeah? You're gonna sell it for nothing? A yeah, you're hosed.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
I'm host.
Speaker 6 (36:06):
Yeah, you're totally host.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
I just I bought last year also, so I'm doubly hosed.
Speaker 6 (36:11):
Oh my gosh. I feel better about Neil saying nice
things about you.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
See, And I was gonna say my last financial ruin
is on the way. I will say this. I think
that you are great, and I was gonna end. I
was gonna end with I think that you are You
have a great, warm, approachable, friendly way about you. But
you also seem like you know a lot of what
you're talking about.
Speaker 6 (36:31):
I have no idea.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
No, Well, but that's what you've seen, Like that's what
you're seeing. Yeah, yeah, that's what I mean. So you
do a good job of that.
Speaker 10 (36:37):
So basically, like a woman in bed only on the radio,
that's what I am. Like, how to fake it? I
convinced this so much, so funny.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
Christmarell's coming up six live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
You're the Best kf I Am sixty on demand
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