KFI AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. It's later with Mo Kelly, except tonight, it's not later with Mo Kelly. It's later with Mark Ronner, who's sitting across from me.
Hi, Mark, it's not a mistake. We're actually meant to be here. And Tiffany Hobbes, my pal. We are sitting in for Mo. We are We all just kind of moved over a chair. MO filled in for Conway. We're filling in for Mo. And we're going to try not to burn the joint down again. We've already done it.
Twice well, you know, and so far, so good, relatively unscathed. We're trying also not to cruise the or excuse me, not to crash the proverbial cruise ship, as we talked about in the last few segments with Mo. But with all of that said, there is a really monumental kind of passing of the torch and ways as well. This is the last mo Kelly show of the summer. Did you know that, Mark?
No, I didn't know that.
I almost scared you there for a second. Right, last mo Kelly show of the summer. The first day of fall is this Sunday. And as the seasons change, as the air becomes more clear and crisp, the days are shorter,
you're not running your ac twenty four to seven. Some things, Mark are staying the same, like crime in the Southland, and like the overwhelming backlash two hour not so beloved Prop forty seven, that familiar initiative that reduced felonies to misdemeanors and up the shoplifting threshold to nine hundred and fifty dollars.
Have you heard of that, Mark?
I have. But the important question here is if it's the last day of summer, can I still wear cargo shorts?
You can still wear your white cargo shorts if you want to be adventures.
I don't want to get too far off track here, but why do women hate cargo shorts?
I think it's the fact that they're called cargo shorts. We don't want an as necessarily carry more on our bodies.
We are carried like.
Having a Batman utility belt.
And before we get started with your items, we got fush here, fush you.
Ready to roll?
You got us, let's do it. Man tawalas here, Heather, You're good. We're gonna call on you the team, She's there. Okay, there we go. I think we got this. Let's roll, let's do it well.
The excrement has hit the proverbial fan mark with the shoplifting that we have all been witnessing, either directly or indirectly, and there's a new proposition that could very well be in stated in the wake of all of this crime. That proposition is called Prop thirty six, and it would roll back aspects of Prop forty seven, which then would increase penalties for shoplifting, smash and grabs, as well as
low level offenses for drug possession. And polls that have been taken most recently just last week are showing that if put to vote today, this new prop Prop thirty six would surely pass and it would affect everyone mark. It would affect me, It would affect you as shop as both of us as customers. It would affect shop
owners and whether you are shop owner or patron. This is a proposition that you probably will want to get behind when you hear this next thing that's happening in the city of Compton, And unfortunately it's not unique unto Compton, but this story, this specific place is making its rounds because of how bombastic all of this is.
And what am I talking about?
Well, in Compton, there is a Rite Aid on Long Beach Boulevard. You might have passed by it on your way somewhere else.
You might have.
Stopped to shop there. You might have your own Rite Aid in your neighborhood. Many of them have since closed down. This one is still very much alive, but it is practically encased in plexi glass mark. When you go shopping, when you go to Right Aids and CBS's or wherever you might go your local drug store, are you noticing that more and more items are behind these plexi glass cases now?
Because I'm ordering everything off of Amazon now because I don't want to interact with human beings in a situation like that or get shot in the face.
But this is what I hear.
Yeah, And the thing about interacting with human beings is like, at this right Aid you have to then request that an employee comes to you and opens this glass case. And if you were to patronize this specific right Aid, you would find that mostly everything in this store is now behind this plexi glass casing, whether it's your toilet trees, whether there are certain items of food, whether it's medicine,
it is behind plexiglass. And this right aid has of course installed these locked glass cases because of theft.
That seems like it could be embarrassing. It should be imbuing, like not everybody's going to be going up to the counter and saying, pardon me, sir, would you help me acquire a box of magnums from the case.
It's all going to be gross stuff.
It's everything you need that you don't want to ever involve another human being in retrieving for you. But when you think about again patronizing these stores, you think about going into places where you need some sort of whatever, it may be a personal item or otherwise. Now you're being forced to reckon with the consequences of all of this shoplifting, and stores, as we've seen, are doing this
using this strategy more and more. And this particular store in Compton is really popular now on social media because it's become kind of a tourist destination. People are flocking to it just so they can get footage of all of these cases. It's so abnormal, and it should be because we shouldn't have to wait ten minutes to get you you're deodorant.
No no, you need deodorant promptly, I find especially now right at the turn of the seasons. But probably not. Are we still talking about the props at thirty six here? Because you know, one thing that I that occurred to me about this was, as much as I understand that there are thefts and smashing grabs and they have to do something, we also know that some of these places have kind of cooked the books. The National Retail Association
admitted to as much not long ago. And when you see the figures on say wage theft, those numbers dwarf these thefts, and so I think you have to keep the big picture in mind.
So we'll talk more about that when we come back. We have a lot to cover, and I would love for Mark to share his thoughts on these smash and grabs and what he's experienced.
You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from KFI AM six forty later.
With Moe Kelly. But we are not Mo Kelly.
We are Mark Ronner and Tiffany Hobbes, that is I. And just to put a pin in our last story, we were talking about smash and grabs, the new answer to the existing prop forty seven and all of the things inteled in the uptick of petty theft, thefts under nine hundred and fifty dollars no longer being taken seriously, so to speak, and causing kind of this cascade of crime in the south Land.
And Mark you had some final thoughts on that.
Well, we're talking about increasing penalties for people who shoplifted and stole from stores, and that's fine. I mean, I'm going to take the bold position that I'm against crimes and I don't care who knows about it. But you know, there's other crime that goes on. I mentioned wage theft. We've seen corporations like Kroger admit to price gouging, and the numbers on that are big. They're bigger than petty theft. And the thing you got to remember is nobody ever goes to jail for that stuff.
They don't.
You don't see a seat, not often anyway.
Yeah, not nearly as often as just somebody who gets busted. Like you know, I think I worked at a grocery store for a little while in high school and I had to we always had to go out with the security guy when there was a shoplifter, just to be a witness. We didn't touch anybody, but it always made me sad because, like, here's an example. The last time I had to do that, and I was what seventeen years old something like that. The guy taps me on the shoulder and he's like, come on, buddy, we got
to go. And it turns out it was a woman walking with a limp, somebody who had obviously fallen on hard times.
She had a piece of meat in her bag.
That's not a euphemism, no, okay, no, it was just a piece of a modest piece of meat she took from the butcher department. And she was like, well, I guess she got me. Sure was a good looking piece of meat.
Oh.
And the guy had no mercy. He wasn't gonna let her go. He was going to throw the book at her. I always have a little compassion because I'm a human
being for people like that. So I think it's important to look at the reason people are doing this, first of all, and like I said, also put it into perspective with the bigger crimes that nobody ever gets punished for, or like say with Walmart and McDonald's, all the money that taxpayers have to pay to make up for what they don't pay their employees who have to go on public assistance. I think everything's connected, and that's all I wanted to say about that.
Speaking of connectivity, and not to say that a piece of meat is the same as say, a pair of trainers or a pair of you know, jeans or something, because they're not they're definitely not equitable.
Well, we did see Charlie Chaplin try to eat a shoe in one of his movies, but that's more of a rare occurrence.
Speaking of a piece of meat, Please tell us what's going on with RFK.
Yeah, that's your segue.
So this might seem like some insider baseball, but it's salacious and it really does affect us all and more importantly, it makes me angry. It turns out the New Yorkers star reporter got herself in a little hot water and may soon be the New Yorker's farmer star reporter because she was reporting and got in a relationship of some sort with someone she was covering. And that person was RFKA Junior, Robert F. Kennedy Junior.
Knew what was he thinking?
Well, first off, as a woman, I ask you who could resist him?
What was she thinking as I said.
Like, ooh, that Andy vax talk could get anybody all hot and bothered, wouldn't it. Here's some of the details, and this is from a Variety New York magazine political correspondent Olivia News. He has been put on leave by leadership after engaging in a quote personal relationship with a former subject relevant to the twenty twenty four campaign while she was reporting on the campaign. And the subject is
allegedly Robert Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy Junior. According to reporter Oliver Darcy, it supposedly the relationship, whatever it was, didn't begin until after she profiled him in November twenty twenty three. But just knowing that much, lady, there's three and a half billion other men on earth. You don't have to pick a guy who you profiled. And this is what happened. These opportunities have come my way over the decades as well, and anybody anybody else the way, I'll.
Get to that.
Anybody knows you just don't do that. It's one of the cardinal rules of journalism. And so the magazine said that she violated their standards around conflicts of interest. An internal review of her published work allegedly found no inaccuracies or evidence of bias. But if you look at this stuff on Twitter, people are going back through all her work now, Olivia Newsy. Because the thing is, we shouldn't have to wonder about this, Okay, we need to keep
our noses clean. The magazine says, we regret this violation of our readers trust. And here's the statement from Newsy yourself earlier this year. The nature of some communication between myself and a former reporting subject turned personal. During that time, I did not directly report on the subject nor use them as a source. Relationship was never physical, should have been disclosed to prevent the appearance of conflict. Blob blah blah, you're out of line. We shouldn't have to wonder.
I find it very entertaining that miss Newzy would include in that that the relationship was never physical.
We didn't ask you if that's what it was.
But I find it interesting that she would want to distance herself from the idea.
That she might have.
You know, yeah, well, we got to take her choy Forrrett, and we got to take his word for it. But you don't get the benefit of the doubt anymore. After you do that. Darcy's report, according to Variety, stated Kennedy would boast about his relationship with Newsy. Then Kennedy comes out with a statement that says, mister Kennedy only met Olivia Newsy once in his life for an interview she requested, which yielded a hit piece.
Okay, well, I guess I got to take your word for that.
If you were trustworthy on most other things, maybe I would. But you tend not to be so Olivia Newsy if you're not familiar with her, she's become a pretty familiar face on TV. Definitely one of those journals who wants to be a celebrity, and you would think not getting in any of a relationship with somebody you cover would be a no brainer. But let's be honest here, a
little behind the scenes baseball here. There are different standards in journalism for newspapers, for radio, for entertainment journalism.
It's an inexact science.
I think that she and he are both wanting to unring the bell.
You can't do that.
It's already been done, it's already been said, it's out there. Just move forward from it. I think the more they try and explain it the deeper the hole they dig becomes well.
Yeah, and it's not clear that they're telling the truth. And the reason that you got to keep your nose clean. It should be obvious for anyone with the functioning brain. People have to be able to trust us.
We're in a.
Time when more than ever, people go to news sources they like and they avoid the ones they don't that don't line up with their political beliefs. We've had journalists called the enemy of the American people, which isn't ideal. In the United States, where journalism is specifically mentioned in the Constitution and one of its functions is to a watchdog for democracy. We got to keep our noses clean.
If I did let's just an example. If I did a lot of reporting on say Tesla, and that reporting was overwhelmingly positive, then it came out that I had a bunch of Tesla stock, you might rightly be like, Hey, that don't seem right, or okay, maybe you wouldn't say it like that. Well, most journalists are not celebrities lack and Newsey. I think for most of us, journalism is a real calling, and I can tell you from years of experience that the people in it largely consider it
a calling. They don't make a lot of money compared to other people with similar experience or.
Education or skills.
Most of it take it seriously, just like doctors who take a hippocratic oath or lawyers. On the other hand, I've known reporters who have gone off the reservation in both directions. Cops beat reporters who slept with cops can't have that. You cannot do that. When I took over as a cops beat reporter from this person, the cops hated me because A reported on what they said and what they did, and they were used to slightly different treatment.
And I got word they were at to get me.
They were looking to pull me over for so much as a hint of booze on my breath, because I wasn't sleeping with any of them and I wasn't writing puff pieces about them. Other reporters they get to be way too much of a hall monitor. Like I covered the wto thing in Seattle as well as the riots, and I was told the gift bags every single person who registered got not.
A euphemism either, right, no, no, no, no.
The gift bags with like a bottle of wine and some crackers in them. Everybody who registered got and I was told we shouldn't take those because of the appearance of impropriety and all that, And I was like, get real, If you think I can be bought for a bottle of wine and some crackers, you can go soak your head. But when a prominent journalist like Newsy messes up like this, I'm okay with getting their excommunicated. Go work in PR
lots of other things you could do. I profiled the different Kennedy once, the Kennedy who was on MTV and I think is on Fox now it's Fox. Right after the profile ran a couple days later, she called me up at the newsroom, just wanted to talk and I'm like, uh, hello, can I help you? Because it's just inappropriate. Pretty sure John Waters was hitting on me in a hotel room too. I know where you got to go. But the point is none of that's cool. If you don't like the rules,
go do something else. If you're a journalist, that's it. And this opens up the whole issue of access journalism that you hear about. We now know that, say Maggie Haberman at the New York Times was one of the people the Trump campaign said they could count on for positive coverage if they wanted to get something out to the public. This stuff makes us all look bad, and we got to get them out, just like like antibodies removing an infection from a body. I always pay attention
to who I'm reading, what they're doing. Got to be a smart journalist consumer, especially with all the propaganda masquerading his journalism. Right now, what are we gonna do when we come back?
What a lovely Lynchpinton. So we're going to talk about super thrifting. What's going on at this beautiful facility.
It's huge. I've been there.
You have to have a lot of gumption to stay there if you're looking for some clothes or any other goods at this specific goodwill.
We'll come back with that story.
It's KFI AM six forty Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from KFI AM six forty.
We are going to talk about popping tags and that is a slang term for shopping. When you shop you take the tags off instead of taking expensive tags off. We're going to talk about thrifting and of course at certain thrift stores. You might find a jewel, you might find something that is something that you could resell.
Let's say, but at.
One southern California thrift store in the valley, not only are they looking for surprising goods or unique wares, this is another gladiator type sport.
It is a bloodbath.
And this particular store, this Goodwill on San Fernando Road, is known to be one of the biggest, most competitive shopping experiences you might ever engage in mark What say you?
Are you a thrifter?
Do you like perusing those shelves at Goodwill or Salvation Army or something smaller?
What do you do?
I do?
And it causes some conflict with the human I live with, who absolutely hates that souff. By the way, we started off playing my homie Macklemore from Seattle.
Oh look at you, knowing the jam.
I love old stuff, I love vintage stuff. I love old gadgets.
Wait, are you considering Mackelmore old and vintage? Is that what you're saying?
No, I switch gears. Now we're talking about the stuff you buy.
Because if he's old in vintage, I'm decrepit in one foot.
In Well, we're not even going to talk about me. I cannot afford to buy mackelmore. But we're all poor, so we're all thrifting more lately, because I mean, look, the economy is booming by every single metric you can name, but we're still getting squeezed to death by price gouging from groceries, landlords, healthcare. Like I bought a couple of things used on Craigslist, a couple pieces of furniture on Craigslist, and by the way, that opens up a whole new universe of humanity for you.
It is.
It is a crapshoot. It's a crapshoot.
But it was a day after I had to spend one thousand dollars on a car repair. So if you wonder why a lot of us are thrifting, look no further. But yeah, I do. I love that stuff because you find some treasures there.
You go.
Well, at this Goodwill again on San Fernando Road, they charged not by the parcel, as far as this shirt is three dollars or these pants or seven.
No, they charged you by the pound.
And I said, I actually have visited this particular store. There's a Starbucks nearby, there's some other places nearby. It's kind of tucked away off San Fernando Road. It's easy to miss except for those who know what they're going there for. And trust me when I say this place gets crowded and busy. It looks like a warehouse and it operates like one too.
Is this like one of those things where they pass around the viral videos of people crowding the doorway like zombies at a Walmart before Black Friday, and they just burst in and it's like elbows thrown.
No judgment, but yes, that's exactly what it is. This is what these these these shoppers are doing. So again, they charged by the pound, anywhere from three nineteen per pound or one nineteen per pound for home goods, and it's regardless of what you might find. It is highly competitive. And when I went, I noticed that I was out of my element.
Did you wear a mouth guard?
I did wear a shin guard?
You literally, you do, honestly need some sort of protective covering because people in there are just there to get what they want and they don't care what or who's in their way. When you're there, there are these blue bins, and this particular store is known for their blue bins like many good wills, and these blue bins are filled to five feet tall of clothing and other things, and you are expected to sift through with your hands. And you see people who make this into their common, their
common Saturday or Sunday activity. They're there, they're shopping and they are going completely crazy. The goodwill site itself has a disclaimer. It says, when preparing to visit the blue bins, brace yourself for a rough experience, including shoving and aggressive resellers and vintage hunters. And that is an understatement mark because aggressive is generous and kind. These people are out for blood and jeans and shirts and they don't again,
they don't care who's in their way. And it's because, like you said, the economy is not necessarily trickling down to all, and not only are people looking to thrifting for saving money, but they're looking for the possibility of resale items.
I used to really think those videos were funny, but then I realized I had a moment of epiphany where I thought, wait, am I just poor shaming people because they're not there because they enjoy this sport. They're there because they need to be there. They're there because they need to be there.
They're there because it is yet another experience that if you're into thrifting, people want to engage in kind of.
For the lore of it all.
At any rate, this store, if you're interested in thrifting, if you're interested in being competitive and going elbow to elbow with other shoppers, is at three one five zero or thirty one fifty North Fernando Road nine double six ' five. Again, it's right there, just past Griffith Park and all these places. It's easy to find once you get into the area. And again, Star Books and other places are there, but it is not easy to navigate.
I wish you well if you should go.
How about those football helmets with the extra padding on them that makes you look like a giant mushroom?
You need it. These people are serious.
Well what do you get when you go?
Because I look for books and if you're selling those by the pound, I'm screwed.
Everything.
They have everything and then some and Mark, they may even have transformers there, don't They might even have transformers your favorite series, your favorite brand, And I know you're going to talk about that when we come back. And again when we come back, Mark's going to get into something called Hostile Witness.
We're going to have Tawala come in here and defend the Transformers while I ask him a series of questions that he's not going to.
Like, finger of shame, Finger of shame, Cone of shame around your neck.
I might learn something.
It's Later with Mo Kelly. I'm Tiffany Hobbs. That's Mark Ronert.
You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from KFI AM six forty.
Mark Ronner and from rotating in from the news booth with my pal Tiffany Hobbs tonight as well as Tawalla Sharp and he's in here for a segment, a new segment that I'm calling Hostile Witness.
I need to listen.
Transformers one is opening this weekend and it's projected to take first place debuting in theaters, making up to forty million bucks in its first weekend. That's going to be enough to knock down Beetlejuice out a first place to second. And I don't get it. I Never let Go is opening up that's supposed to make.
Like six million bucks.
The halle Berry horror film and I need to be tutored on this.
But we're going to do.
Look I what I'm hearing already, disdain and your hate for all things that are good. I am contributing to the forty million dollar boon for Transformers one. I'm seeing it tomorrow with my son.
I've hardy got my tickets there, okay, And I have never seen a single Transformers movie.
Sh Do you know why?
Shame?
Because I'm an adult. Now, hey, hey, what in the name of Sam Hill? These films are four adults. This is taking a child's franchise something that many grew up with, many true nerds, true comic collectors, true fans of all things robots, and now the robots were brought here to America in the form of Tarka and then they became
Transformers and all that, and we bonded with it. To see that on the big screen, to actually see cars transforming into robots the first time with young Chia Labouf, it was fantastic.
Well, I don't I have.
My hand up like I'm in class. I have something I need about this.
I remember being three or four playing with Transformers.
And here's the thing.
It probably wasn't the branded Transformers, but an off brand that you could get from some other little store.
But as brand here you get it. But either way, the thing trans transformed. It was the transform like.
The Lee Jeans of Transformers.
Absolutely I loved it, and I grew up loving that this thing could transform into other things.
It was like alchemy.
And then the movies came, Like you said, Shia Lebuff or Labouf, whatever we call them, were disgraced at this at this time.
But Shia, Megan Fox.
That whole trilogy, that whole series was just so exciting and well done, and you had all the cinematic appeal of it. How could you not have at least seen the first one or two? All right, listen, how do I how you watch every movie? How did you bypass that?
I have nerd cred coming out of my ears? Look at my wallet? Even what is this wallet? It's an evil dead wallet with a face like the like the Necronomicon and human flesh. Okay, only a nerd would carry such a thing. So there's some a list talent in this new Transformers. And there have been seven of them, seven of these things, okay. Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Keegan, Michael Key, Steve bushmy Laurence Fishburn.
Is in this thing.
It wasn't worth it. These I hope they're getting a lot of money for this.
I just hope.
Mart I want you to make sure that you are really, really clear on what it is that you are blaspheming.
Okay, there was the.
Original Michael Bay Transformers franchise of films. Yeah, did three with Shia, and then he did two with Mark Wahlberg. And then they decided to relaunch the Transformers brand when Hasbro decided to launch its film universe. And then they gave us the Bubblebee movie, which was loosely connected to the Snake Eyes movie. And now there will be a g I. Joe Transformers film, as we saw from Transformers Beast War. They already allude to this. Transformers One is
an animated or just story standalone all to itself. It is not connected to the original French which after a while turned to trash. Okay, turn to trash Formers.
I will give you that. I will give you that. Okay, the Bumblebee movie? Did that involve an alien robot who could turn into a can of tuna?
Don't you diss bumble you do that?
That is the most disrespectful thing I've heard Okay, I hears some facts. It is the fourth highest grossing film series with a total of five point two eight billion dollars grossed over seven films. And these things are incredibly popular. So I can go one of two ways on this. I can take their popularity as a sign that we're a civilization in decline and soon will be roaming the desert wasteland fighting for gas and get the cannibalism. Or maybe I'm missing something and that's why the two of
you are here. Now. Look, here's another example to put this in perspective. When I was a newspaper critic, I always reviewed the horror movies because the other critics didn't get them, look down their nose at them, considered them trash. My question to you two is have I just become what I have always mocked?
Absolutely?
Yeah.
Because if if Martin scoor Sessey had directed a movie about an artistic robot that transformed into a paint brush and then sat with an incessant psychopath on a beach trying to get inspiration, you may like that.
Now we would hate it so far.
There you go, Well, now you're just needling me. I've had cars that transformed but they transformed into non moving cars, and generally when you see a car transform it it's into living quarters for somebody who can't afford rent.
So there's there's a deeper anger, that there's something deep inside with you that is coming out now.
So this is an elemental question, though, I need to know what you enjoy about these movies because they look just unutterably dumb to me, and I like I like Beavis and butt heead, what do you like about these I don't.
Whoa you Beavis and butt Head spill out your mouth. I then try to disrespect Transformers. I think that's the end of your argument. The question is what am I missing? I like other dumb stuff that there is a level of adventure and just the amazement of seeing these special
effects wonders and these things happen on screen. If you grew up playing with these things, if you grew up, you know, spending all your time figuring out how to make these things go from car to roll by mode, and then you see that happen on the big screen.
It's magnificent. Now here's the thing. I challenge you, though, I challenge you to go and see Transformers one because it is being heralded by several critics, and you know this to be true, has been the godfather of Transformers films and one of the best origin films ever made ever, not just animated. I challenge you to see it and then review it on Monday when we come in and discuss films.
Okay, I decline your challenge. The director of this Transformers movie is Josh Cooley, and I've never heard of him. He did a toy story movie and you know what they William Faulkner once said, the only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself or in conflict with the student loan people. Is there anything deeper in these movies than just big robot cars hitting each other?
Well, Bumblebee's kind of hot. What's that means? He's a looker, He's kind of hot, He's super charismatic. The robots are just full of personality, and you really they're so personified. You relate and you start to form these relationships with them as well, and you want to follow their story.
And Bumblebee's hot.
There's a clinical world for people who feel an erotic attraction to cars and inanimate objects.
I'll wave that flag I think.
I'm all become pretty good friends over the last three three and a half years, and I'd go as far as to say family, not a lot I wouldn't do for either one of you. But I'm not going to go see a Transformers movie. I feel like the Green Eggs and Ham guy, So.
I'm going to leave. And he tried it and he liked it. What are you talking about?
Well, if you're if that's your analogy, and then let's go with that. He tried it and he liked it.
I read that, then you didn't know how it ended, so maybe I haven't read it.
Okay, you're a psychopath.
How would I not have red, Green Eggs and hand I want you to imagine a Transformers movie directed by like David Lean, the Lawrence of Arabia guy, or you mentioned Scorsese.
It just doesn't compute with me.
But we're gonna leave it there, and you tuwala are gonna go see it without me, and you're gonna let me know how ridiculous it is. KF I am six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
I don't know what you're thinking, and I kind of like that keeps it fun.
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