77: Where There’s A Callowill There’s A Calloway

me are Molly Lambert and Tess Lynch. Hello. We've got a great show today, a hot show, a hot pod. Um. We've got two guests coming on later in the show, Jed Pariot and Theo Anderson from Street Watch l A to talk um a little bit about the homelessness crisis in l A and recent violence against unhoused people. UM, so stay tuned for that. It's a really good conversation. We were really glad to have them on. Uh. First

things first, though, we got to talk about fashion. Blasting fashion, blast fashion, I mean, I even I mean, I do you should blast the fashion? We stand by, but this was an email that came to us after I guess it was sort of inspired by talking about my my face massage, which I have to say, like in the time since that, since I was into face massage, I did end up kind of bruising, right, So you went too far and not not visibly, but just enough where

it was like sort of tender and uncomfortable. Also and you're like, my skull is right under my face and you can also make yourself like, um no, we we we've we we've established this, We've said every time we talk about it. I just like I want to leave my body. A skull is under a face, under a face, Like if you go in the crevices of your skull, it doesn't feel good, but it also feels like you're not and sometimes you can flame it and you can also just get like break out because you love touching

your face will make you break out. Anyway, Um I still enjoyed my time doing the face massage, but anyway, uh. In response to that, we got an email from Amanda who says, um, re your facial massage discussion, I guess Ray, it's Ray, it's Ray guarding guard. Well, it's Latin. Did you know that Ray is Latin? What? Okay, we can discuss this later mind blowing facts on short for re artgard. I think that's that's that's a common misconception. Find out.

Let's never leave it to chance. It is anyway. Um. I perform a very effective, albeit terribly named method of myofascial release called fashion Lasting. It uses a tool parentheses blaster to essentially comb and remodel the connective tissue in your body. It increases blood flow, encourages lymphatic drainage, increases your ability to recover from muscle fatigue. It got popular because it also produces a reduction in cellulight appearance and

improve skin tone. If you haven't looked into it yet, I highly recommend it. It's improved my quality of life, my posture, my skin and energy level. Thanks for reading. Not an ad. I just love this tool. Um. I think this might be an ad, but it's okay. You're cool, Amanda. Um So, Emily was right. I just looked it up. Thank you. I can't prove it's rain, but it says Latin in re Latin for in the matter of yep. Wow, it's Latin. Um So okay, Amanda. Hashtag it's Latin, hash jack,

it's Latin um. Oh God, that reminds me of that horrible tweet about how they shouldn't speak uh languages other than English at the debate and then like SETTI floor baunam in the same tweet. Anyway, that's hopefully old news by now. I think I missed that one. I never look at Twitter, and you guys are just avoiding the really important stuff, which is talking about fashion. Okay, okay, so Amanda with the fashion blaster, Um, I just had to look this up. So I think you're being a

little disingenuous, no offense. But the reason it became popular was, yes, it can you know, some people report a reduction in stelly light, but also the Kardashians endors It was a Kardashiana, it was Chloe Gwyneth, also in Dorset. I'm sure it seemed like a thing where they sent out a bunch of product to influencers and rich people to be like, check out this new thing, and then everybody promoted it. But if you look into the woman who invented it,

Ashley Black. Ashley Black, not to be confused with the TV writer, Um, it is a scam. Seemingly well first thing I did because I had never really heard a flash of blasting before was I went to as always my resource for all things um possibly scams that have to do with the body and face real self dot com. Oh, I looked on Reddit, Um I look at real self.

Look at skincare addiction on Reddit skincare addiction. Real self tends to be as much as it is sort of like a way for um plastic surgeons and um like dermatologists to advertise. It also tends to eventually kind of weed out some kind of truth about all these procedures, and like there's there's a percentage of like because people report their experiences and say whether or not they had a good experience or not. So it's a it's worth it right now. Um, that's a little on the low side.

It's not on the it's on the damning end of things. UM like cool sculpting I think has a lower um worth it right is just like they gave a new name to liposuction, right, No, it's not come on Verez, but it's the same LPO section sucks the fat out actually work, Yeah, and it's like an actual way to treat like if you want to actually remove fat from your body. That's the only doesn't actually work. No, you like to out some like you lose some water way.

I think there's also that one for your chin. Then I forget what um kibella kibella, and it's like the kind of that's it's supposedly freeze off your skin. No, they don't freeze off your skin. You want your skin. They freeze your fat that you suppose the we don't want. And then it's it is like expelled by your body anything like that where it's like and then your body will either reabsorb it, because I've seen that a lot about lip injections too. It does well, that's just tire

high lauronic acid, but apparently that yellowronic. I guess how people respond to lip injections totally just depends on random stuff having to do with themselves. Well, and some people reabsorb it like immediately. Yeah, no, everybody metabolizes it differently. Anyway, back to fashion blasting. The fashion blaster looks like um, like five baby octopus is a stick and apparently you have to use it hard. But I mean that's the thing.

It looks like a green thresher for your leg. I had a thing that was not this, but it was sort of like this that was just like such a pain to use. I never did that was supposed to reduce silly light or whatever. I don't. I think I got it for free and it was just but it was like the same kind of concept. It was these like it was hard plastic, but the nubs on it

were soft so you could just kind of rush. Okay, Yeah, I was saying, I know from personal experience, this does not work for me, because I did it once accidentally with like a back massager tool, where I just was like, oh, my hip feels tight. I'm just gonna like dig on this pressure point until it makes a bruise. Um. And then I realized that I probably what I really needed was probably the stretch. Stretching is good, like even starry

brushing is good. Dry rushing, improved circulation doesn't like leave you bruise. The problem with fashion lasting is that it if you're doing it as in as directed, you get these huge bruises. And then I was talking with like a bunch of my friends who are real deep into the self care and a lot of them were doing fashion blasting, and they said that it made them after they started, it made them feel sick like they had like a virus, and then they thought it was the

talks sins that were being stored somehow. I mean it just like I didn't actually like sweat that. I think you need to like go in a sauna then, and it's doing something like even with that, there's so little that we know about what's actually happening that it seems to me a little buck and made me to be like, I'm going to rub this thing all over my thighs, get bruises, and then I'm gonna like sweat out whatever

was in there. And I believe in this stuff. I have to say, if you believe in it, it feels like you probably get a little of the effects. If

you think it's working, it's gonna work. But I think the thing with stuff like this, where you're you know, actually possibly doing damage to like tendons and muscles and stuff like that, well, I mean, there was there was a period of time during our tenure at Grantland, uh, during a certain story that I was working on where I was working so hard on it that I ended up having to go to the hospital because I couldn't

move the right side of my body. And apparently this was all just from an I had dislocated my right shoulder at one point. Um no, I mean it wasn't dislocated then, but I had done it years ago. But like, your muscles are never fully recover when you do that, and if you're not getting enough rest and enough sleep and just generally taking care of yourself, your muscles will start really complaining. And so I had that and I was like, I'm gonna go do a really intense massage,

and it was the worst idea. I came out like so in so much pain. So I think like there's this tendency to be like, oh, I have a like I have a problem. I'm gonna like hit it. It's like it's like the thing, the computer isn't working. I'm gonna say also, maybe being hunched over computers for like a full decade probably wasn't good for anyone, even though we know it wasn't the skull horns or whatever. Just just talking about it, I'm just yeah, move your body.

I think a lot of these things are trying to provide a quick fix for something that seems like it probably is a process. Yeah. Um. I think also anything that says it's going to get rid of cellulate to me just always pings the scamometer. Cellulate is not something you need to feel bad about. Everybody has it. It's fun and also don't damage. But it's fine. But it's just Actually Demilovato just posted a photo with all her cellulate and she said it's cellulate trying to start do

it really quick. BuzzFeed had an article or in seventeen um where they the title is women say a popular new device to get rid of cellulate left them injured and it's people talking about fashion blasting gone wrong. Um, So if you do decide to fashion blast, which we're not saying don't, but just like look into it first, make sure you're apprepared. And I want to say that I fully endorse foam rolling a thing that I don't understand how it works at all, and it also works

in some mysterious way involving your fascia. I don't understand why I think. I thought phone rolling with something different than it is. I thought it's when you lie on the on the phone noodles and that's all it is. But it's like you give yourself a massage. It's like a deep tissue massage, but you give it to yourself you have to wiggle around. I didn't even makes you

feel like a cat's the best. It's like masturbating your whole body is how that's such a good That's how Mary H. K. Choi by Mary H. K. Choys new book Permanent Record, That's how she described it. I was like, that's the best description of it. But it is just like, if you do it for long enough, it releases endorphins, and there's just something about rolling around on the floor that does feel really good. Um So, we're not against

all pseudoscience. Just just don't hurt yourself. Stick. Yeah, if your octopus stick makes you feel good, like, by all means, keep keep doing it. Just be be safe, don't don't bruise yourself. Um So, we wanted to talk about the Internet dust up of the week. Um like not. I mean, obviously there's a zillion Internet dust stops every day, but this is one that feels very specifically of a certain a certain echelon of Internet life that I feel like we all have a lot of favorite story of the year,

my favorite story of the year, my favorite phenomenon. We're being sarcastic. She is not into it. We have to talk about nat and Caroline. Unfortunately at this point have been a couple of weeks. People will Nat Caroline just just on call it or Nat instead of Natalie. Yeah, and care Net and care but we should just say they were referring to Caroline Callaway and Natalie Beach and their toxic friendship that exploded onto the cut, We're going to play a video clip and stay tuned while we

watched them explode their friends. It does sound like there should be a go to, like clip real from a reality show or it's like you said that you would write this and that I don't know whether would picture the movie, which is why I think this was a smart movie. I can picture of the movie, and I am ready to take a nap. Look, I'm just saying, if you're going to be trapped in a toxic friendship for a decade, use it to me. Everything is poppy.

I guess I can we do some background for people who might not because I actually like you feel about Caroline. You didn't know, Okay, So Tessy were like, the Caroline Callaway story is going to come out, and like, is she the lady who had all the jars? Like I can't,

but I don't I wasn't following it. I'm so ash. Well, I okay, I hadn't been following it forever, but I had heard tell someone someone I follow on Instagram had mentioned her a couple of months ago, just in an off hand way, and I clicked and then I was like this, this doesn't interest me. But it's the thing that did interest me was that she had so many followers, but the content did not seem to warrant it. And I was like, it seems like people I know are

following this woman. Why I can't understand. And then a couple of weeks ago, someone was like, oh, I you know the there's going to be this big story on the cut Caroline Callaway. So of course I just went to Caroline Callowie's page and went back in time to basically the beginning of time. Did you find Natalie Well,

I mean Natalie on the photographs? This is part of the Natalie's but Natalie was mentioned like obviously you know the story broke, But for a couple maybe like two weeks or something before that, Caroline had been alluding to Natalie talking have you ever had a friend a friendship that ended? Have you ever hurt someone in Amsterdam in a way that and I was like, what does she mean?

And it totally worked on me. It built up this anticipation for something that I knew logically I didn't actually care about, but I was so desperate for something that was a low state, exciting thing. So Tess and I are the defense. We're defending the Natalie and Caroline saga. On the ground that it was like a breath of fresh air and a horrible climate where it's very hot and everything is going to die. It was like, hey, remember remember the two thousands when you could just have

like a long read. I remember like long reads, remember like crown nuts, Crown Nuts, just like a petty drama, A lot of things like gladly or not our priorities anymore. Well, it reminded me of waiting for a season finale of a show before you had the ability to record it and watch it whenever or binge what you watched, because it was like, you have no choice but to wait. They made it a content event, a content event, but

also you didn't know what's going to happen. You knew it was going to happen, but you didn't know it wasn't Maybe Natalie was going to back out and not publish it. You didn't care what was in it. You just wanted to see if it was going to happen. When it's exactly sure, guys, we can't lower stand here. Okay. You want to say also that I agree with Emily that the way that this type of content is like feminized only published on women's interest sites. I totally am

against that. I've been rereading Peter Biskin's Easy Writer's Raging Bulls, and like every relationship between seventies directors is like a Caroline and Natalie relationship. They all are like frenemies, like jealous, but also like close but petty and always plotting about how to get back at people. Men do that too. It's not a female behavior in any way. Um. I thought Natalie was was like very self aware about what

are you fucking kitty me? I thought she was writing the story with the perspective of somebody who was like, I did some dumb ship in my early twenties. I forgot so I forgot to explain what it was because I just got a lot story short. There's an Instagram influencer who became a scammer when she decided to have these like this work shop line. Caroline, Caroline Callaway. She is like an upper middle class person's ch okay, fine, she's rich. Her parents, we found out her parents or

great grandparents developed Sara Sota, Florida. Somebody was like, why does she have a real leopard skin coat? And that was the answer. Yeah, So she she became she and and it turns out that like a lot of her popularity was fabricated. She bought followers and stuff. But she's like a rich person who ended up making a friend at n y U and it was this really toxic friendship.

Mostly Caroline was just treating this this girl terribly, and she ended up having this girl whose name was Natalie Beach writing her Instagram captions, basically ghostwriting, and then Caroline

for free. And then Caroline got a book deal with an advance, and she told Natalie that she would give Natalie thirty of this and then Caroline like couldn't, wouldn't flaked out on writing the book, screwing Natalie over and then the wind the book because that's all somewhat reass And I've also seen people arguing from Caroline's side, saying, hey, this girl is like clearly having drug issues and like

mental illness. Yes, how dare you like make it look like she just scammed you because she didn't get the money herself either. She just like didn't follow through and a bunch of this stuff that she did. You could argue, I mean, you're getting natalie side of the story because she published this in the cut. But for instance, say you're in a bar in Amstagram in Amsterdam, in Amstergram, which is the Instagram Amsterdam. Uh, You're there with a friend.

The friend is like, I'm interested in the bartender. You can go home, and you do go home and you go to bed. Your friend is calling you. It's like maybe you're asleep. There's a lot of like detail in some of the things that Caroline supposedly did to Natalie that are immediately picking holes in the story. Picking holes, poking holes. Yeah, both of them fashion fashions. Holes in the story about whether Natalie really worked at a pencil store,

she did. It was proven she worked at the pencil store on the indignity of the pencil community came out to pencil store owners were like, Natalie never worked here. It wasn't our pencil so we only pencil but it wasn't. It was it's the one in like Soho or that one Natalie. They were like, she didn't work here, and people were like, see she's lying, and then they were like, no, she worked at the one on York longhand I think

it's called Wait. But when they said the pencil store, I was like, oh, in Highland in Highland Park, but I thought she worked in I thought it was in New York. No, she moved here and got a job at the pencil store. It's hard to keep it. There's so many locations of her, all of her quick name checking of her supposedly so in like undignified jobs that she had to take while Caroline was off traveling the world made me so mad because she was like, I'll

be an urban farmer, like a carpenter or something. It's like they're all totally like if you're if you want to be a writer, people have fucking odd jobs, get over yourself, Like I don't know, I just like they weren't. It's like not like you're slinging hamburgers for minimum wage at McDonald's, like you're working in an organic farm and go wanness like you're fine, it's just like a lot of ship talking about Goanes. I felt bad. I was like, that was a real job, that there's a job harvesting

there for whole foods. It's the Whole Foods is very good. It's true. So no, but they paid they they just cut healthcare for like a billion people. But this was before before that, before the Amazon probably look, so I

don't know. I'm just saying that. I'm just like she's trying to like paint this woe is Me picture and I'm like, you still like live in New York when you have like you know, like fine jobs, like I don't know, and you're trying to be a right, you're young and you're trying to be a writer like what Caroline was snobby and a dick, and May and Natalie feel bad because Caroline was like, I'm living this lavish lifestyle.

But also Carolyn didn't have that life at all. That was the whole point was that she went to visit her and she was like, I've been imagining that everything this person posts on Instagram is true and it's all made up and they're just living in their dorm, ripping the carpet up up. My favorite details I saw a lot of people be like, Oh, anyone who's done adderall can tell you about They were like, you know, do an adderall? Sometimes you just clean the house, do Yeah.

I mean we've all heard stories about how speed makes people clean the house. Um. Um made me also be like, was I the only blogger not taking adderall right? Probably the only time I ever took into my life was when I worked at a grocery store and it was like perfect for like stocking shelves. Just your brain doesn't work. So here's my issue with the story. I have a few issues with the story. Um. One, I think both main characters, including the narrator, are boring as paint. Um

I think you mean unreliable. Um, They're not unreliable in an interesting way. Like I so like a lot of comparisons could be made with this story and with the n A alb story. Also, because that was another cut story that's probably is going to be turned into a show or maybe Shanna Ryans has it. Um, it's gonna be a Netflix thing, I think. Um, anyway, somebody's gonna make a lot of money off of that at the cut.

So um, good and good job everybody. Um, But that at least you had a person who was like a character. Like the thing about Caroline Callaway is that she's like fundamentally quite boring and I and I and like she had to pay for her followers because there was nothing really that interesting or compelling or even just like esthetically cool about what she was doing all like Natalie did all of her photographs apparently and their ship like she's

bad at photographic graphing. I think that was the arc that I thought was interesting with that she thought she was helping build this brand and then halfway through she found out it was all bought, Like she hadn't built anything. She was just helping make content for somebody who was already like buying followers to one end, right, but see the other end of the story that I just don't.

I just I'm frustrated with the amount of real estate that has taken among us and again like among a very certain segment of the Internet, like it might feel to us like everybody was talking about this story and was in past them, because because I think most people have already moved on, and they've definitely moved on. By the time this episode is coming out, there will be

five new developments, but like they'll get back together. But I don't know, like when you have a story like this and if you're doing especially if it's like a personal essay or like and it happened to me, like at this elevated New York media level, Like the question that an editor will ask is like, what does this story say about? What? What is the story talking about? And what does it have to say about that thing?

And I don't I truly don't find anything that this story when I think the story is saying to be interesting or untold. At this point, this is the most told story about being a millennial women, like living in

the internet economy or the social media economy. It is so overdone, Like there have been so many movies and stories written by men about this because nobody, like everybody loves to tell a story about how women are fake and stupid on the internet and like how how being a an influencers like some kind of scams what I'm

saying too, I don't think it's a scam either. Like when I saw what Caroline did, I was like, everybody does stuff like this the workshops and then not delivering the promised well that experience and so when that story happened and like that was just a new story. That was like the one woman fire festival. Like she's just that's sort of interesting, Like when that's when that's just

a story, she's low stakes. Like the better story about a fraudulent convention was Tana Mongoes like ton of con were, which was a big influencer YouTube one way, Remember there was a disaster um and uh butt con. Did you guys read about coon haird down read about butt Con on Jezebel. That's my favorite scammer story. It's about her.

I think her name is Mickey Agriball, who founded thanks the period company that it turned out she was like harassing all her female employees, so she started a new company that's called like butt Con and thinks because thanks the product, Well she went somebody went to the convention and they were like the woman who was like the shamed influencer. She was like wearing just like a giant like butt around her head like all night and there

was like a butt kissing booth. Just the whole thing seemed like her plan to like bring it back that that woman's side Hustle is the worst pizza place I have ever been to. What is it in my entire life? Wild? It's in Park Slope. It's a gluten free pizza place. Is the crust made of path? It might be very no, but it's not because it's really dry and doesn't Actually I don't think it would be that insorbit because it's

like a cracker sauce. Is that weird blue liquid? But it's like, I mean, it is like an oblong pizza. Isn't it weird that period? It is really weird? No, that's that's like I feel like that's something we talked about when I was like doing ads studies as like a middle school gifted class program, Like we had to like watch ads and analyze them because everybody was really into like subliminal messaging and like average anyway, um from the message was women's mouthwash. I would staying, um cloud

juice anyway juice, I just women secret vape juice. That's why it's illegal. It'll damn it. It'll give you popcorn popcorn for Oh. Speaking of which, check out our September book club pick Oh Yeah, Smash. We're going to have a book club podcast up soon for our Patreon subscribers, And if you go to patreon dot com slash Nightcall. You can subscribe and get access to that episode and our past book Club episodes, so check it out. Also, if you've ever been scammed to four oh four six

night we really want the scams. I'm really not sure how she feels about it, but come on, tell us one so good that we'll all come around and No, I like scams. I'm just like it's also like this thing that started with girls where it's like all female friendships are fake, which is like I understand the like impetus to do that or to like do a counter narrative against like some kind of friends forever, like um babysitters club type female friendship narrative, but it's like, at

this point it feels very old and very done. Well, we were talking about that before the podcast. How none none of us really related to like having a Caroline or being in a layer vice versa. I relate to, I know what this friendship is, but this friendship is like overrepresented right now. Yeah, it's over represented. And also I think most people have like a glimpse of that, but it's very it's rare to stay in that really, just telling you John Millius and Paul Schrader had such

a similar dynamic. John Millius is such a Caroline and Paul Strader such a Natalie. But Paul Strader is a better writer than Natalie. Paul Strader is the biggest scammer, actually, is what I learned from Love Paul Strader. I know, but I'm just saying, let's take on mail scammers the way that we take on fel um, and let's take on the big scammers instead of just the rinky ink

ones I think speaking of. Yes, we are gonna switch over to our interview real quick with Jed and Theo UM about the homelessness crisis in l A, about some real scammers in l A who are just sucking up the city and UM in the name of business improvement and business development. So yeah, we'll be having them on after the break. And now we are joined by our guests today, Theo Henderson and Jed Parriott from street Watch

l A. Welcome, Thank you for having us. Great to be here, UM, THEO and Jed, you guys are both involved a Street Watch l A, which is a group in Los Angeles that helps monitor the sweeps that the police do of homeless encampments. UM THEO you are unhoused and live in Los Angeles. We wanted to talk a little bit about sort of the way that the city of Los Angeles has been presenting the homelessness crisis, UH

and some of the invective people have been using. UH. There was a fire a couple of weeks ago in Eagle Rock, a big fire that turned out to be essentially like an act of terrorism, uh, towards a homeless encampment. UM. The people who set the fire, one of them was

named Daniel Noguerra. It was a twenty five year old from Igle Rock, who it turned out his father was is the head of the Eagle Rock Chamber of Commerce, Daniel Noguerra, who has also been in the news for sort of refusing these bus lanes to come into Eagle Rock. So we just wanted to talk about sort of the state l A is in. UM. Yeah, Jed, could you talk a little bit about street watch l A. Yes. So Watch l A is really like a network of people. UM.

You don't have to pay. It's not an official organization, but UM the work is a volunteer based and UM it's a collaboration between It started as a collaboration between members of d s A, l A Democratic Socialist America and l A CAN that a community action network who for decades have been fighting for human rights in skid Row, which is the homeless epicenter of the world really UM and the criminals Asian epicenter in that regard as well.

I think skid Row's most police community per capita outside of Baghdad. That's that still stands. But yeah, for a while, that's true. And THEO you lived downtown UM in another area, I live in Chinatown, and as I personally have an experience of the increased harassment of the l aspd UM neighborhood prosecutor and the Business Improvement District executive director. Initially

I had moved in Chinatown. I lived in Chinatown before the Great Recession, and due to life happening that I became an house due to illness and you know, the rising costs of medical things that I had to do to survive. I became an house. And I had usually stayed in the other areas like skid Row and Mo Tokyo, but it became much more dangerous, it became a little more aggressive with the police ease, and I wanted somewhere that people knew me, and I didn't. I had a

sense of safety there. So their aim is to get me to make a mistake so they can make issues that they can justify be staying out of the park. Yeah, it seems like what we're really seeing a sort of the criminalization of poverty and of being on housed and it's happening obviously at a structural level through things like

the Business Improvement District. Well, that was one of these things that came out of this, this Glendale fire story, was that there's like these two guys who set this fire are actually part of this sort of um like a series of Facebook groups, like secret Facebook groups where people are kind of coordinating these ways to attack and harass and otherwise terrorize on house people in Los Angeles.

And so this was like basically and and then there have been a lot of smaller examples of this, but this was kind of the this became a fire that you could see across I mean, this guy through an M eighty to a homeless encampment and he was his million dollar bail was paid because his father was a

rich person. But it was also a pointant to note that they blamed the house for this encampment, that there's a lot of backdoor conversations between a lot of these characteristicity Turney's office business in proven districts, UM Chambers of commerce, council property owners. Yeah, and I think it's important to say that the reason we need things like Street Watch l A As a countermeasure to these kinds of vigilante groups. I mean, this is also dystopian and Nightmarage is very

much like the Purge movies. But it does feel like it's like they're telling us they're doing their job, but they're obviously doing a lot of semi illegal to very illegal seeming things in order to make what they want

happen happen. Um. It just feels very in keeping with like the general tenor of times right now that like what once was just like nimbism, which has like a very kind of it's subourbony sort of like you know, mannered but bigoted type of like flavor to it is now just actively like like actual vigilante groups and people doing actual people are so dumb they think that they could have saved I mean, I guess it's also Facebook's fault. Obviously, it's all of these platforms fault for having a place

where you can have secret hate groups. Well they're not secret either. I mean, I'm in a neighborhood, so I I run the night call Facebook and I'm on Facebook. I would have left Facebook, but I'm on it and I'm the only one. But I'm in neighborhood groups that are easy to join. There by no means do you have to even prove that you live in the neighborhood. And on a daily basis, this is a topic of conversation where people will weigh in with you know, really

like as if they're trying to make a joke. There's no joke to be found about committing violent acts against homeless people, about making the streets inhospitable, about moving people away, but nobody says to where or how in a way that is so you can just feel the animosity there, and it's it's extremely scary, and I think it's so dehumanizing.

And beyond that, I mean, there are now apps like Citizen and next door um that don't download Citizen Well, I mean that's and and the frustrating thing is that you know, um Molly recently gave a comment at City council, and we'll talk more about that in a minute. But I'm I'm a parent, and I remember I downloaded this Citizen ap there was a shooting. You're my son's school, and all I knew was that there was a shooting.

It was on the radio. And eventually I downloaded Citizen because I feel I'm very concerned about school shootings and I that was where the information was. But then in addition to that information, you have an onslaught of these, you know, and and so many of them turn out to be false alarms. But it creates this sense of paranoia, and I think in Ellie especially, the blame often falls

totally wrongfully on the unhoused. Yeah, so if we could talk a little bit about the Business Improvement District for a minute, because I think there's something there's a lot of things that have these very instiduously sort of neutral sounding names. It's very chinatown Ish. Yes, yeah, um, not Chinatown the film, but um yeah, could you explain the

business with the Business Improvement District? Does the Business Improvement District is the it's in lockstep with the l a p D. The l A p D cannot do overtly illegal things because of lawsuits and criminal charges being brought to them. So they have dispatched the business Improvement District employees to do their bidding and the respect for business owners and keeping property values up. And they would use code words of quality of life to use to unhoused

segregation to unhoused members. Now they are a diversity of on house. There is an invisible on house like I was because I knew the virtual hall of people out there that think all on housed people are mentally addicted or mentally ill or in the grip of indiction kind of addiction or do some through through uh, some moral failing. When the in housed do call the police, they do nothing. They nudge each other and give each other high five.

And I had a friend of mine get attacked by one of the employees because he was following his wife. And they did nothing. They just uh, he's still working there, They still go to his meetings. They park right outside of his business. I just want to add to you know, um on note of like on housed folks trying to get the police to protect them from from house people.

For the past couple of years that I've been doing street watching at a park, Um We've had numerous accounts of UM property owners showing up with with a gun and threatening people to leave someone through a boulder from their pickup truck at a tent was in the tent. UM but literally, I mean that could have killed someone. Is another thing in Eagle Rock also a couple of years ago where some business owners put out lie on the sidewalk. That's right, that's right. We documented that, UM.

And again it's like, that's the thing is, we do have to document these things in groups like stre you watch l I do have to be at these sweeps in order to make sure that they are conducted legally, because who often they are not? Yeah, and I would I would suggest you, I mean, UM, making sure that they're done legally. I mean a lot of these laws are bullshit, are laws that we want to abolish, UM that they used to do. Suppose what they call clean ups.

They would take offense of the word sweep the city, but that's exactly what they are. They are UM complaint based. So a lot of them right, So like homeowners, propertyarmers will call in and say, I want you to deal with this encampment over here, get rid of it. UM. And even if that's a d a complainant. There's no trash at all. They'll still like everyone move their stuff,

which is really hard for especially for disabled folks. Um, it's it's brutal and being there to document it's not only to collect footage for potentially you know, legal purposes, but in the moment it's form of harm reduction. They see there being watched, they might treat someone a little better than they would if we weren't there and raising

awareness on social media. Like you said, two weeks ago, I had one of the employees that had came onto my Twitter actually has been stalking me for several months, and I don't I didn't know her by just basically

doing she worked at Alpine Recreation Center. And this young lady has um taking several months along with some of the ritual of the gossip of some of the parents that do not like on the house, people in the park, and that I have a connection or relationship um tutoring kids or teaching their martial arts and things like that. So they got together and started to create some sinister accusations.

She took it a step further and went looking for my public page, took some isolated pictures and then tried to insinuate that there was some horrific things that I've done. And from this point on, it's like, and she still employed. There, she's you know, there's nothing been done to her. She's they talked to her, but she's bold, she's you know again, And if I had the roles were reversed, I would have been arrested or or at least discipline or transferred. Yeah.

I think what is very insane about this too, is that we live in Los Angeles, which really likes to present itself as being sort of a sanctuary, progressive, progressive, and it is not clearly the people that empower are not haven't done anything to help the homeless this crisis, which has only gotten worse and more severe with all of their supposed solutions like doing you know these quote unquote cleanups. Um, it really seems to me like they want to make this kind of superficial clean up of

the city, but they have no plan ever. Well, yeah, I mean, I think I think this is especially the case in Los Angeles, but it's true in any big city that has any kind of you know, which is every big cities, every big city in America. But like it's you know, I think if you're listening to this and you're like, oh, this is like terrible, what does

it have to do with me. It's like if you live in one of these neighborhood where people start to talk about like, oh, we have nice things now, like my neighborhood is nice now, like that's your business improvement district, and there there's like this is the way the sausage

gets made. Like obviously it's nice to be able to have like new businesses and stuff in in a in a in a neighborhood that has been underserved by that, but like oftentimes that comes at the cost of people who are just trying to live and UM often they pushed I mean in Chinatown, we've seen this, especially with

groups like UM. Chinatown Citizens for Equable Equitable Development is another really great group who's been working for housing rights in Chinatown because in their effort to gentrify Chinatown, they have been pushing out everybody that lives in low income

housing or rent stabilized housing. The promise of you know, making the place nice and providing services and community for the who live there's always a false promise because it's always about bringing in new people, richer, wider people, and the city is getting sued by c C D l A because they built this giant new development called the College Station that was supposed to have just this bare minimum number of low income units and they failed to do that. Well. This is this is one of the

hugely frustrating things, um. And I think a point of contention for even people who would agree on on most fundamental issues is that the developments that are being built promise a certain number of affordable units and almost never deliver on those units. UM. I live in like on the border of Hollywood and Louis Filas. I've seen it now with two big developments. They promised a certain amount

of low income housing. They then ameliorate that. It's oh, well, if you wanted, we would have to build it too tall, and now we're going to build it a little bit smaller and the number of units is going down. And I think that a lot of people would argue that a solution to this is to build more and that the market will adjust, and it's it's so impossible. There's a story this week about this thing pod Share, Oh my God, that everybody was furious about because it was

essentially selling hostile bunk best. It was like, yeah, I mean, and all these developments too, even the ones that have low income, they're all majority market rate, which drives everywhere, and low income, like what they consider low income is so much money. It needs to be free. Um. We also need supportive housing. And I think that this is something like that. I heard that the Section eight list is like years. I'm on it and I still as

ten years, ten to fifteen year waiting list. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, good luck. And I mean I I have a friend who's in Section eight and she was in a violent situation and had to leave, and she was so afraid that she couldn't find another place, and it was dealing with the bureaucracy was absolutely impossible. You know, it's it gets people stuck in situations. THEO and Jed, could you tell us a little bit about what things you feel like the current on house population needs just right now?

I know I will spink for Chinatown and I've been saying this and it's been basically ignored. And if today if someone says, well, we're gonna get you off the street, what do you need? This is what I need. I

don't need a shelter. I need affordable housing where I can be able to pay my rent with the benefits that I have, and I will need to have some supportive services in order if if something happens to me, if I get sick or things like that, that I don't end up like where I began and on the street.

That's part of the reason why it was on the street, because I had the choice between um eating or high rent or war and getting I was scared to go to the doctor because God knows, if they was gonna tell me I need a new medication, how was I going to pay for it? Or you know, even though I'm now on medical but if I happen to were or get a part type job, those real concerns. And you know, I don't have family to fall on because my older is I have. It's eighty years old and

she's in declining health. So you know, then they have families and responsibilities of their own, and this is life happens. It doesn't mean I'm a moral failure. Doesn't mean if I could work, I would have definitely worked, because who in the heck wants to to be out here and be harassed? But there's there's the working on house that lives in their car at the end of the day, so that that doesn't guarantee that I'm not going to

be on the house if I work. Can we talk a little bit about the criminalization aspect of that sitting in cars, um and other things that are covered under I would just say this issue is decades in the making. It's a result of the commodification of housing and healthcare and all these basic human needs and our capitalist white

supremacists system. The way you address it, as we've been talking about, is a cover up, essentially, is to erase it with police, more capitalism exactly exactly, and it's it's it's all proven to fail. Criminalizations proven to fail. Capitalism is proven to just create more poverty, uh and inequality and UM. And so in the short term, yes, the criminalization policies must end. I mean, this is what we're

pushing for. As THEO talks about services that he needs, um before he gets housing and and when you do eventually get the housing, which is going to take a while, and so immediately another thing I've talked to you about getting a shower. Uh. Yeah, it's only one bathroom in

Chinatown and it opens up late. So if you have to relieve yourself, which they always complaining on house are using the bathroom, you have to go almost two miles to the Starbucks and pray it's open to be able to use the bath And it's so scary as that.

In the business I provement districts by the way, Um, what business business provement district is a when a group of commercial property owners come together and say we'll pay more taxes to the city to get more services and will and services to them is privacy security guards that

go use their power. Um, it's gentrification. It is like, really they talk about tenants to talk about business tenants when they use the word tenant, which is so fed up, so they don't really they're not looking out for the people who live in the community of looking out for the people who are there to make money. Um. And they do not want any of these services that they do not want house people to to be present at all because it hurts their bottom line and they have

so much control right now. Unfortunately, I saw a crazy sign Hollywood. They've also been doing a big sort of gentrification slash, you know, harassing everybody constantly to try and make it, you know, touristy. And they had a sign up in a store that said it was like put up by the business improvement in district and it said if you see any like unsavory people like, you know, please report them to the security guard. And I was like,

you're just saying what you really mean. There was an extremely offensive sign in a restaurant and in town that I used to go to, where it basically explicitly said, if you're homeless, please don't come in, you know, even if you have money to spend, We're not interested in your business. And it was mind blowing. And because it

assumes everyone agrees with that. Yeah, And one of the things people have been talking about in terms of which is a bill that would limit the unhoused in l a from sleeping anywhere near a school, anywhere near a public park, anywhere near a sports venue. It's kind of an absurdist bill because it's just like, it's a long winded way of saying basically anywhere, because where is where are you not close to a park or school or

driveway or doorway? That's one of them lays are all the supposedly public spaces in Los Angeles, But it's clear that they're only public for some people. But here is the criminal part about it. The criminality of it is not the unhoused people. It's our elected officials, it's l A p d. Is in the city attorney. They are violating constitutional rights. I'm going to read that something that was said many years ago. We know through painful experience

that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor. It must be maddened by the oppress. Dr King wrote that, he wrote that in the height of segregation and Jim Crow, and right now we are in a new manifestation of black holes Jim Crow in the same way, because they are criminalizing people of color that are unhoused, and they are making propaganda that states that all in housed people

are violent, mentally ill, and drug addicted. And can you talk a little more about how it plays into racism because and sort of the statistics about the in housed community. I say that as white supremacies tenues all of us. Everybody is impacted by white supremacy, even the whites that

are not are trying to prolificate it. It's the fact that you can send out a propaganda message that states that unhoused people that you see African American and on the news they're violent and such as such that they see them and they can call the police and put them in jail. The park that I'm at most of the days, which is my constitutional right, school is near

cassel Er. They've created this such a horrific uh narrative that the school has tried to ban me from getting employment at the school because they are afraid the parents will unenrolled their child because they feel that I, because of my condition, I would be a danger to the children. Can I actually throw it to Tess here for a minute to talk about um, you have some good things to say about sort of the connection between schools. Well, yeah,

I mean I so Molly. I wrote a letter that Molly read um at the city council meeting about this bill. And I have two kids in school right now. They're in two different neighborhoods. Um. They are both neighborhoods with large unhoused communities, as I would say every single neighborhood in Los Angeles has. And I think the difficult thing is is that the people who send these you know, their kids to these schools. One of the schools is

a public school. It's a free school, so it's very difficult because there will be a group of people who will speak as if everyone's on the same page. Our children should not see on housed people. Now you live in l A, you drive around and you are going to see people of every income level, people with disabilities. We are really telling our kids that being poor is a crime, and it is not. I mean, it's it's

it should go without saying. But it's very frustrating. And you were saying also, it's like one in what was the statistic about the number of kids and they I will, without like outing anybody. I know for a fact that there are several children in my son's school who are not living, who are living on housed and their parents, um are sending them to a school they had a

you know, choice of schools. They're involved parents, and it's not discussed because obviously, I mean, I think many people with good intentions wouldn't want to out these people, and many people would be put off by the school or treat the children differently. But I mean, it's really it's so frustrating because I feel like we have to talk to our kids, starting from a young age, about rejecting um, this sentiment that that being poor as a crime and

that being on houses a crime. Because our kids are in classrooms with children who are unhoused, and the idea that we start teaching them this early to treat those kids differently, it's it's repulsive to me. I mean, it's it makes me very like that it's very important to talk about and especially to bring something in like this, To try and bring this bill in at this time is so horrific and evil, and a lot of the people at the meeting we're referring to it as a

new form of apartheid, and I absolutely agree. Uh, the on housed community is overwhelmingly made up of people of color, and in Los Angeles it is uh yeah, it's I would just say, um, so in l A nine percent of the population roughly is African American, but of the homeless population, just to give you an idea, anden by the way, um it's actually it's an old law Municipal Code D specifically used to say you can't sit, sleep, or lie on the sidewalk or does say that right now.

Judges have over the years come out, federal judges and said that's unconstitutional. Um, unless there's a shelter bed or housing available, you can't punish someone for sleeping on the street. Um. And recently another judge said that it's a case Martin versus Boise, the City of Boise, Idaho. UM. And so the city attorney decided recently, well, you know we're gonna address that. So we're gonna mend for eighteen and we're gonna say yes, it's legal to sleep on the sidewalk.

We're just going to tell you where you can and can't. And that's where they think they're gonna be able to get away with it, or they've thought there. Now they're hearing all the all of us, the community coming out, um, and now we're starting to rethink this. But one of the big things they've added, aside from all the sidewalk restrictions is c which is basically a standard own law. It says that you can be criminalized for talking to

someone in a way that makes them feel threatened. And it actually says in there that if someone commits a violence on you for making them feel threatened, it's your fault. And so it basically allows people to become vigilantes and it gives them the power to attack al most people and say that they're attacking them because they were afraid of their life. So it is actually enabling violence. And they've also been really ramping up this stuff on Fox News.

I haven't been told that Trump is suddenly very interested in the homelessness crisis in California, and people were saying it's because there was a lot of violent anti homeless rhetoric on Fox News recently, sort of also encouraging people to kind of take up vigilante violence against the poor. Um, what do you guys think about Trump coming to l A. It's not positive. I can tell you that. Well, I'm

differently this can started because why it? And then I'm not surprised because even though the Carcetti and the city mayor are not Republicans, um, they share his views because they are enacting weaponizing the police to do exactly what he's been saying. So I mean, and I would argue that that the city has already been enacting Trumpian policies against the homeless and they really want to be able to enforce which which they can they can do if

they get enough shelter beds. So I actually am worried that Trump is going to say, well, hey, what if I put up enough shelters then you could legally maybe enforce the We all know how his buildings end up. Oh well, thank you so much for joining us today, THEO and Jet. This was really great and we'd love to help you guys back again some time. And thank you. Where can we find your guys work? And um and

you know, support what you're doing online? Well, for me, I'm on Facebook and my Facebook name is the Theodore T. E. O D O R. E. Henderson and I have a support page, THEO Henderson's Support Committee, and I was looking for in my Facebook is not showing up to it. And I have for THEO Henderson PayPal if you want to reach in and help me out for some basic things. And you check out as street watch l a dot

com if you're interested in network. And I don't say on a policy side, because a lot of people will say that, oh, you guys are just against criminalization. You just said, what what's the solution? I would recommend checking out services not sweeps dot com, because that's a policy that is a coalition of people that have come together and said here's what you should be doing, and here's what you shouldn't be doing right. Services not housekey's not handcuffs.

It's another slogan, So yeah, services not sweeps dot com. Check that out. Cool. Thanks, thanks, thank you. That is it for Night Call this week. Thanks so much to Jet and THEO for coming by, and thank you all for listening. You can follow us on Twitter at night Call pop, Facebook, at Nightcall Podcast, on Instagram at Nightcall Podcast, and again you can support us on Patreon at patreon dot com, slash Nightcall and support the pod at any

level that you wish. And as always, you can give us a night Call at to four oh for six nights, or you can email us at Nightcall Podcast at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening. Nightcall is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.