Name Dropping With Style, Tent City Brentwood 03.21.23

is Jack O'Brien aka. But did you know when La snows, my thighs become so white that the light that you shine can't be seen. That is courtesy of LOCARONI a little reference to la weather those happening a couple of weeks back, and my blindingly pale thighs that I like

to talk about on this show. For some reason, I am thrilled to be joined by a very special guest co host who you know from the podcast This Day in Esoteric Political History from Utopia, Good Sport from Ted and Pushkin thirty thirty or thirty four thirty with ESPN, the five thirty eight politics podcast. Way that can first heard him. It's well, I talk about the stuff I did in college in high school, and I don't know. Man, that's where I heard you, That's where I fell in love.

So I have to honor it. I have to honor my truth of the Jody Abragant experience. Thank you and happy first day of Spring that does not feel like spring and moth physically and mentally. He's turned a new leaf. And you know sen yeah, no, yeah, you're in New York so especially we're we're talking Stormy Daniels and you know, potential megapro today's lineup, by the way, I mean, you're

a sure job to introduced it. Gosh. I was like, okay, well we'll start heavy, and I was like, um, okay, and I look at the second topic, I'm like okay, and that was the third topic. Really it really lined it up here for folk. Were that's right, well, the news cycle lined it up for us. We are thrilled to be joined by the host and reporter behind the new podcast from KCYRW City of Tents Veterans Row, which I highly recommend everyone go listen to. She also created

KCYRWS podcast Samaritans. The podcasting talent we have on the show today, folks, it's it's intimidating. Get ready, hold onto your butts. It's Anna Sky, thank you, thank you. I love that. It's like, uh my WWE. That's right. We try and bring a lot of WWE energy to the news cycle because there's not enough of it with our former WWE wrestler ex president, you know, it's we like to keep it live. How's everybody doing? How are you guys doing? How Spring treating you so far? Well? Does

not feel like spring in Los Angeles? It is. It's a cloudy, it's wet, and like, I know, the the wet is good for our client there, we need the rain, etc. But I'm over it. I'm really over it. Yeah, I feel you all right, well, and we're gonna get to know you a little bit better in a moment. First, we're gonna tell our listeners a couple of things we're

talking about today. We are going to talk about city of Tense veterans Row and just the issue of homelessness in America that you do a lot of reporting on and just kind of get your thoughts and insights because you have a lot of really interesting things to say in the show and just across media. So we will talk about that. We will talk about Trump's announcing his arrests on today it's supposed to happen, and you know, he has called for protests those The response seems to

be somewhat muted. But it feels a little strange to be like, you know, prognosticating how people are going to react. But that's what we're gonna do for a little bit today. So we'll talk about that. There's conspiracy theorist dating sites. See what I see what I was saying. Yeah, we might might skip down to the new rules for social etiquette, which is something that I like to throw too when

things get a little too dreary. All of that plenty more, But first Anna, we do like to ask our guests, what is something from your search history that's revealing about who you are? Well? Yeah, so I looked. I looked on my phone, and the most recent one last night. I think this is telling enough. So I decided last night to rewatch the old Movies Sit in Nancy, Okay,

old classic. Um, I hadn't seen it for a long time, and and then it I So I searched Alex Cox diad because it Watching the movie made me curious about the director and I'm kind of morbid. I don't know My first question was whether the director Alex Cox is still alive or at so, and you you had a guess. It sounds like you were like watching You're like the

vision on Green here. This person can't be alive. I mean the movie came out of nineteen eighty six, so I just thought he's probably dead, but in fact he's not, and he's actually not really even that old. He's in his sixties. But the search did turn up a big rabbit hole. But I guess there is a Netflix true crime documentary that has someone in it named Alex Cox who is in fact dead and also maybe murdered someone. So that that led me down a whole rabbit hole

and I may have to watch that documentary now. In addition to Sit and Nancy, Well, this story is bringing up a very interesting question for me, which is you referred to this as an old movie nineteen eighty six. I mean, you know, I wasn't aware of Sit and Nancy when it came out in nineteen eighty six, but I'm curious what the line is for referring to something as an old movie. Yeah, that's a good question. I mean thirty years, Yeah, that's thirty years. That's just right

on the threshold about right right. But that was what I was thinking. It's like somewhere right in there. You're right, you may have pinned it like like it may be that nineteen eighty six is the year that you if this movie come out in nineteen eighty seven, would you have caught it in an old movie? Maybe not? Maybe not. I feel like eighty six is, yeah, I don't know. Something about the mid eighties seems like a good dividing line.

So when my son was born in twenty sixteen, so that exactly thirty years after the Side Nancy came out, So it like the movie that was thirty years old when I was born, or Work came out in nineteen fifty. And there are things such as Destination Moon, a sci fi film where they're like, what if we made it to the moon and then you know it was made of cheese or what. I don't know what they what their thesis was at the time, but it's very old by comparison that those movies were extremely old. As far

as I can tell. There are I like that you went to Destination Moon and not you know, Sunset Boulevard are all about eve. Oh yeah, that came out of nineteen fifty. Those are timeless classics. Those are timeless classics. I was, I was trying to make a point that we're all very old, but time is slowing down or compressing in this weird way. I mean, it really is like culture cultural time is like skewing, for sure. For sure. Now I'm just gonna be asking you questions but actually

googling the plot for Destination Moon in the background. But yeah, after their latest rocket fails. No, I won't read, just read you the IMDb summary of Destination Moon. But how did how did Sid Nancy hold up? Um? Well, I fell asleep after about twenty minutes because I ambled, So I have to Uh, I've got to finish it. But so far, so good. Um, it's uh, I don't know what. I don't know why this movie came to mind as just something i'd like to rewatch, But it's I think

it's a very it's a very good about being on drugs. Yeah, I was gonna say, it's very appropriate that you nodded off during sitting names. Yes, yeah, yeah, I nodded off. Totally sober but right, but nonetheless still appropriate reaction. Very young Gary Oldman in this movie as Sibvicious, which is, uh, it's kind of interesting to see. Haven't seen a yet very young Gary oldman for a while. Also, Courtney Love has a small part in the movie, which I've forgotten

it out. She is I don't know if she comes back, I can't remember, but she's she's in it early on. In one of the first scenes she's she has a brief crying scene because the movie opens with discovering the body of Nancy and you know, I don't know, I don't know if people know this movie it's about the

sex pistol basically, yea, the Dune romance. Yes, Subvicious and Nancy Sponge and so it kind of starts at the end and then backtracks, and so Courtney Love is briefly in the beginning sobbing and saying something like she was a really nice person, kind of chewing the scenery in her fifteen second appearance. Yeah, not know. She was like an established movie actor when she came on the scene and like met Kurt Cobain and all that stuff. That's interesting. Yeah,

so so far, so good. What is what something you think is overrated? Bacon? Bacon, Bacon overrated overrated, overrated. I don't get it, never liked it, don't like it, don't understand the fuss. There have to be other people like me out there, there's there has to be. And when you say this, people immediately or like you've just never had good bacon? Right, yes, more they think I'm being contrarian on purpose, like I've chosen something that you know,

just because it's so great and wonderful. But I'm not. I don't get I don't understand. I don't like it. I don't think how did you how did you hold up during the bacon craze of the what was that like the mid two thousands or something, when there was just bacon flavored everything everywhere? I just I just tuned it out. I just, I mean, I there must be

other people like me, right, uh yeah, yeah. I can imagine you're the only person on earth who has this opinion for me, someone who enjoys bacon a lot of the time like I enjoy. I don't enjoy all bacon. I don't think bacon is like unfuckupable. It's very hit or miss, but like when it's really done to my liking, I really enjoy it. But I prefer Super producer Becca came in the chat to say, sausage over bacon. I think that is generally true in terms of like sausage

is pretty easy to prepare and replacement level sausage. Yeah, replacement level sausage versus bacon. All so I don't feel good like cleaning up bacon after the fact. I'm like, what, people who don't like bacon are correct, this is gross, Like this is this is not something that is meant to be consumed by humans. And all the breakfast foods to freak out over. I just feel like there's so many better ones. Take a pancake, waffle, scrambled eggs, I

mean almost anything over bacon. There's so many wonderful breakfast foods. I just don't get it. Yeah, so you go sweet over savory generally at breakfast, I guess. So. I guess I am more of a sweet tooth person than a salty tooth person. So maybe that is a that is a factor here. Tale I like that though I'm a salty tooth for real salty tooth. It sounds like a

like an old sailor or like an old sea captain. Yeah, which is maybe why I didn't take off the way Sweet Tooth did, Superducer Bay coming in saying Canadian bacon better, which is certainly an opinion I have never gotten on board, but I probably haven't had good enough Canadian bacon. And it's all it's definitely falls into that same category of like, it always seems like it's about the same. Would you call the movie Canadian Bacon an old movie? Oh? Yeah, yeah,

that is from nineteen ninety five. We think we have to move our line, so twenty eight years it's ordering on the old movie. Yeah, all right, all right, data point, it's aged. Yeah. What is something you think is underrated? Baths? Baths? No, I mean a lot of people like taking baths, but but I just think I don't think we talk about

baths enough and how great they are. Probably my favorite kind of indulgent thing to do to take a bath in the middle of the day if I have time, I mean having a young child, and during the work week that's usually not possible. But if I find myself in a pocket of time during the day when I'm alone in the house and I can take a bath while the sun is still out and it's midday, I mean, it's like it's amazing. I feel like we should talk about it more. And you can do so many things

to your bath. You can put bath salts in their bubbles, right ducks, Yeah, ducks. Bath beeds like smell good. It's like it's going to a spot. But but you know, you don't have to pay any money and you don't have to leave your house. I experienced a bit of a bath renaissance when I had a kid as well, just because you know, you remember, oh baths, right, is that what happened for you? You feel like it's both the ritual of giving him a bath, you know, every

day or every other day. That kind of reminded me of baths and also of mister Bubble, which I advocate for as well. And then also I think just having an uninterrupted block of time alone is also at a high premium after having a kid, so that's probably part of it as well. I think baths are for people who aren't me, because I like, I feel like I'm steeping in my filth like a tea bag. Well this is bath. Yeah, what's okay? Shower before bath is okay,

now we're talking. That does make sense because yeah, I just like a little soak. See, I've always solve this bike going shower after bath interesting. Okay, so yeah, but then you're still steeping in your own filth for a little bit. The shower before bath had never occurred to me. Just a quick rince, you know, because also you don't have to kind of I feel like taking a shower right after a bath kind of washes away the bath glow. I just want to get out to the bath and

right right, yeah, putting a little oils in there. Yeah, it's just it's just the bubble bath. I need the skim of bubbles to not see below the surface what's happening down there when I'm in a bathtub. Personally, that's just how I feel. Well, this is this is a call back to the thighs thing that you They're distracting. I'll say there, it's pretty distracting. My eyes can't see

the light that you shine. The lyrics to Kiss by a Rose are really kind of they seem like a day dream that someone like someone trying to write a lyric as they're falling asleep. It's very strange. Anyways, all right, well, I feel like we've gotten to know you a little bit better. Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back. And we're back, and and I wanted to talk about City of Tents Veterans Row, which is a

series that you have been reporting out. So you start the season off talking about like you say that homelessness is an issue that the more you've reported on it, the less kind of inerge to it you become, the more like kind of outrage you feel. And you also say it's a problem that you feel like we could

solve if we really wanted to. Can you can you talk a little bit about like just that that feeling that you get from you know, knowing more and more about about the homelessness crisis and in America, and you know where that kind of outrage comes from. Yeah, you know, I think that there is a certain amount of numbing out that happens almost as a defense mechanism when you live in a city like Los Angeles where where I live, and the homelessness crisis is so visible every day. There's

encampments under just about every freeway over past parks. So I think a lot of people, I mean, the nice way to put it is, you know, you is you get desensitized, right, it becomes part of the landscape probably is a necessity, because otherwise you would be upset all

the time. I think the not it's a nice way to put it, is there's a lot of dehumanizing that goes on, I think, on how people are really I mean one group of people that a lot of folks seem to feel very comfortable generalizing about and saying some pretty horrendous things about just in casual company and which, and so you know, a lot of my time is spent talking to people who are experiencing homelessness because they're the most affected by the crisis, and so I think

naturally that just chips away at that layer you know that might otherwise develop, and you know, you get to know people on an individual level. You see how close a lot of us could you know, are to becoming unhoused. And so that's why I say early on in the series, just the more I cover it, the more sensitized, if that's even a word I feel to it. And it's you know, it's it's it's outrage because I also get an up close look at a lot of the systemic

failures behind the crisis. But it's also sad and upsetting, and yeah, all those things, all those things, it's you know, it's it is a humanitarian crisis that's unfolding in a lot of our big cities, and and I guess when you are really plugged into it and talking to people experiencing it all the time, it's it's just hard to hard to backtrack and just kind of oh yeah, like accepted as a regular part of the landscape. But I also do say in the first episode that it's not

an intractable problem and there are solutions. I don't want people to feel hopeless about it, because I mean, it's it can be complicated on to one on one level, right when you talk to individuals and get to know their stories and all the factors that might have ledged

someone to falling out of the housing market. But really, you know, there are a lot of things that work, and we've seen them in One of the reasons with this podcast actually that I focused on unhoused veterans specifically, is that they've been an interesting case study in recent years,

in recent decades in this country about what works. Veterans are generally more politically popular as a group of people than non veterans, so they've gotten more assistance and it's worked, and as the series unfolds, we unpack what that assistance is and we look at, you know, how these things could be applied to non veterans as well. But yeah, I mean, I can go as far into the weeds as you want or stay as big picture as you want,

but basically, there are things that we know work. There are big common you know, drivers of this crisis that we can address. But that doesn't mean they're easy to do that these solutions are easy, you know, they require a lot of resources, in some cases a whole new social contract. So I don't want to minimize that. But it's not like this is a mystery. This is an issue we've been dealing with for decades in this country that's been studied a lot, and there's a ton of

research about it. And yeah, so we do know what the causes are and what the solutions are. Just that big picture like American reaction too, and I it's probably other countries, other Western countries too, but the reaction of wanting to dehumanize, And it also reminds me of a thing we run into where like billionaires are more popular than they should be with the people who they spend a lot of time whose lives they spend a lot

of time like making worse. It's like this American thing where we want everyone to be getting what they deserve at some level. And so they're like they want to blame homeless people who are you know, suffering from homelessness for their situation and you know, also give billionaires credit for their circumstances. And it's I don't know, I don't know how we get out of that, because I go

it runs deep. It feels like, but I think talking to and like hearing reporting where you are actually speaking to these human beings and hearing their stories and you know that they are here because of like something that they sacrificed and like gave to the country is a pretty powerful way to do it. I guess, thanks, Yeah,

that is. I mean another reason that this story was interesting is because it does focus on a group of unhoused veterans, and it definitely I'm always looking for ways because as a reporter, I don't I don't want to write policy prescriptions or get into that territory. I can certainly talk about policies that have worked in certain instances or case studies or research, etc. Etc. But I'm not going to advocate for this is you know, specifically exactly

what we should do. I'm going to present you with what we know, and you know what has worked before. But but something that I do try to do pretty actively is just pierce that numbness a little bit and hopefully present the issue to people with a fresh lens.

So that and veterans were an interesting way to do that, because there is a kind of general goodwill that Americans have for people who have done military service, just kind of by and large, and so I think that in some ways expanded the audience the people that would be receptive to hearing it, and just automatically humanize the people of the center of it. For some folks. I mean, you know, I think I don't know, for better or worse,

that that is just true. And then also I'm always trying to find ways to break the conversation out of superpartisan political lenses because this issue, especially in a place like where it's a real top issue for people, it's become so political and the way people talk about it, it's so binary and and a lot of people just have these preconceived ideas and it's very hard to break through that so I'm always looking for ways, and again with veterans, it was it was an opportunity to break

through some of that because the politics just god all turned upside down because of the military angle. So on that point, I mean, I take your point about how veterans are an entry point for a lot of people

because people tend to want to support them. But the flip side of that is, you know that talking about veterans and talking about supporting our troops is just so is used so cynically by politicians, you know, on both sides, And the GOP loves to talk about supporting our troops and then very rarely backs it up with supporting veterans, and Democrats don't seem to be doing that much better.

I'm just curious, like, do the people, the people that you talk to that you got to know, do they feel connected to that being back and forth at the political level. Does it matter to them whether a Democratus president or Republicans president and how they've talked about supporting our troops. Well, the story that I follow over this series,

it focused. It focuses on one encampment that was on a street in LA for more than a year and at any given time, there were as many as almost fifty people living there, pretty much all the military veterans, and so they themselves were really mixed bag in terms of their their backgrounds, their own political beliefs, you know, how much they were following national politics. That it was it was all over the place. It was really hard to generalize the issues that they were dealing with, you know,

the kind of service they've done. I mean, it was it was all over the map. What was interesting about this encampment, which was nicknamed Veteran Row, I mean, one of many things that was interesting was how it attracted a lot of people who I've never seen at any other encampment in Los Angeles. And there are many large encampments around in LA and different ones that had become flashpoints at different points in time, which this one eventually did as well. But it also drew a crowd that

was really unusual people. I mean, people had political rallies there, different candidates running for office, Like back when there was a recall effort to try to recall Governor Gavin Newsom, there were people who wanted to replace him, who had events there that they would broadcast on YouTube. There were you know, usually kind of fringe candidates, to be honest, but they drew a barbecues. There were people always showing

up to do different kinds of events. There were always people coming with cameras and making documentaries and doing all sorts of projects like that. Specifically because of because it was Sands, there was Yeah, a Walmart commercial was filming there one day, or at least that's what the crew told me. I have searched for this Walmart commercial online to see if it ever saw the light of day,

and I haven't found it. But but yeah, early on in the series, you hear a crew they're shooting what they say is as a Walmart, a documentary stat Walmart commercials. So Walmart as a filmmaker, I should just say they're very They're like Kubrick. They will do take after take until they can get it right. So that's why it might not have come out. Walmart is acting filmmaker Stilby, Yes, perfecting that. But that was one of the things that

drew me to it. And you know, in the middle of it all, you had these dozens of unhoused military veterans. We're kind of being used as a backdrop, backdrop a lot of the time, and you know, they themselves, I mean they were more concerned day to day with trying to get into housing where you know, where's the next meal going to come from? You know, they generally speaking, they really did not want the encampment to be known

as a political partisan place. They didn't really want to be affiliated with, you know, any particular candidate or party or anything like that. But a lot of people showed up there genuinely trying to help, but also promoting themselves in different ways. And I found that really interesting. Yeah, it's you talk about the barbecues. It is like there

is this community that's happening there. And you even speak to one of the veterans who lives there and is like, I wouldn't want to necessarily be in an apartment by myself. Like there's really seems like the having other people around and like having this community that has kind of come together. They have a dress code kind of they have like a homeowners association type role about like having your flag

facing a certain way. But like, yeah, it's I don't know comparing it too so just to for people who aren't familiar with Brentwood, Brentwood is like, you know, this super wealthy neighborhood of Los Angeles, if you saw the people versus O. J. Simpson, like that's where OJ lived and in like the mansions are just up the street

from where this is happening. The reason it's happening here is because there's also the Veterans administration, like right there, this massive chunk of beautiful land right in the middle of the city that the government is just not doing

anything with for years. But yeah, it just like when you compare the number of like Taco Tuesday parties and barbecues and like things that we're coming together with these people, there's like just so much humanity there and community that you don't see in those surrounding neighborhoods that are like fighting so hard to get them out of there in a lot of cases. M that's interesting. Yeah, And you know,

encampments are generally communities. Spend time at any given one, you know, anywhere in LA and most often it is a community, you know, and people have relationships, and I think that I think it's easy to underestimate that, and I think you know, it's hard to understand like, well, you know, if you hear something like oh, somebody you know, turned down a particular shelter offer for example. You know,

they must be resistant to all help. You know, they must be That just sounds like a totally illogical thing to do. But um, but a lot of the time, you know, people do have community where you know, they make community at often at encampments and and most people certainly do want help and they would prefer to live in a house or in some other circumstance. But but also, you know, you can develop ties and relationships and a feeling of community anywhere that you live for a long

period of time. And so you know, sometimes there can be a few steps still finding a solution for somebody that that will work for them where you know they don't necessarily have to give up that feeling. But and all of that played out Veterans Row. Veterans Row had its own unique flavor to its community because it was all these unhoused veterans who were in that location for a very specific reason. Like you said, it's because they were right outside of this enormous, huge campus own and

ding dormitories. Just like, yes, it's a super weird place if you're here in LA I mean, most people, you know, if you don't have a reason to go there. You just drive past it and you kind of are vaguely familiar. But it's this huge VA campus with a hospital on it and other medical facilities and various things you know, that are fully functioning. And then it has all these creepy old buildings and open space and a lot of

people wonder what is going on there. And there's a long backstory that we get into, but the important part is the reason it's a VA campus is the land was donated more than a century ago to be a home for veterans. This was at a time when the United States actually had these veterans homes all over the country, these campuses where people returning from the Civil War and later conflicts could live and see doctors and get healthcare. So this particular campus was part of that system for

a long time. But over time we abolished that system and the VA evolved into what it does today, which is largely healthcare, so all cemeteries benefits, and so this campus it really reflects that because it has the medical facilities, but then it has these old remnants of what it once was, and there was they also leased parts of it out to different entities, that have nothing to do with veterans at all, like some schools that have athletic

facilities there, which has always been controversial and even led to a lawsuit some years ago resulting in a plan the VA, you know, because they were because the government was given was you know, given this land or chosen to be the stewards, I suppose of this land under these particular stipulations that it'd be a home for veterans. They ended up agreeing some years ago to create new

affordable housing there for specifically for homeless veterans. So one of the reasons that this camp formed right outside that property is because a lot of the vests there they were receiving services at the VA, they maybe landed on the street after trying to get into different VA programs.

But also they by putting up these large tents that they had put up in these flags, they were trying to call attention to this plan that still hasn't come to fruition although it's underway to build this new housing there. They're trying to they're trying to let kind of let people know, hey, this is we're supposed to be living on this land, but we're what we're on the street and so yeah, so it was they had this you know, this connection in common to the to the land next door.

You know, most of them were under the care of doctors on that campus. They sort of brought like a military flare to the encampment on the street with these matching flags that they had, and they had some chore rotations and things like that. So it was a very unique community. Yeah. Well it's a really it's a great podcast.

Everyone should go listen. You know, we're just scratching the surface here, but it's a it's a really mind blowing, you know, snapshot of America in all its good and really bad glory on display in like some really yeah, just surreal ways, Like it's a it feels like, yeah, the Veterans campus just it feels like an Ivy League school that was just left to like just abandoned like decades ago, like and and is just rotting there. Well they're like, we don't, we don't have housing for these people.

It's it's very surreal. Yeah, very strange place and very interesting dynamics with this camp next door. And then the surrounding neighborhood, as you mentioned, is Brentwood, which is one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Los Angeles. So yeah, all of that and how the community interacted with the encampment and the encampment and its relationship to the VA, it was all pretty fascinating. And you know, it was it was a tragic situation and some and some all whole

things happened. But also you know, there was there was a lot of humor in it. I mean just with the spectacle that it was and the people that would show up, and so yeah, I'm trying to get to all of that. There's one veteran who's like, I need surgery for my like badly hurt ankle, and a guy shows up and like keeps trying to let him pray over it, and he's like, yeah, yeah, no, no, no it helped, Like it definitely feels like five percent better. Can I leave now? The guy's like, no, no, no,

let me let me keep praying over your ankle. Like it was just like a small, yeah example, these things that would happen all the time, where people show up with their own very particular ideas about how to help, and you know, and a lot of people were drawn to it because it was veterans for different reasons and wanted to help, but a lot of the time their idea of helping wasn't necessarily connected to what the veterans themselves wanted or needed. Yeah, and I found that very interesting.

So that was the other common thread through the whole series, is just me trying to sort out who who is helping? Who is actually helping here? Yeah. There were some really good examples though, of the of people who were helping by just being like, these are humans, what would make

them feel better? You know? Like what like the person who was a former food company exec who started barbecuing there and like started the regular barbecues just like brought a weaver grill and created a regular kind of community event. She did. Now, she also had a very large Instagram follow that she was documenting all of this horror, which

I thought was interesting. There were a lot of people that would come to do altruistic things but also would promote themselves at the same time, which I felt was

worth pointing out. But but a lot of people, you know, they would look they would come with like basic stuff, you know, water, food, socks, things like that, And yeah, I mean I think, you know, after reporting on this issue for so many years, I feel comfortable saying homelessness is a big systemic problem in this country that requires big systemic fixes, And so people will often ask me like, well, what should I do as an individual? How can I help?

And I just tell them, you know, we'll think about, like what what do you want to get out of your helping? And you know, I don't think there's a lot of ways to go wrong unless you're doing something

really destructive or or harmful. You know, I don't think there's a bad way to get engaged because you're not you know, you're certainly not going to solve this crisis just on an individual level, right and you know, I don't think you're probably going to make it worse either, But if you I mean, yes, if you just start with connecting with people on a human level, asking them what they need, what they'd like, getting to know them,

that can become hugely, hugely impactful. If I mean, if that's something you're comfortable doing and have the opportunity that can be transformative in somebody's life, if you can just be an advocate and an ally for that person, because the system around helping them is very under resourced and understaffed and so so that can be a big way

to start. So can I just quickly highlight the immense wisdom and what you just said, which I just clicked for me, which is like, when something is so complicated and intractable, it actually means that basically everything is worth doing. And I mean that's like I will carry that with me going forward. I mean, it's such such a brilliant articulation of how to approach these things. Yeah, and if and it feels like a lot of the stuff that seems intractable and you know systemic is also the result

of under resourcing. Like in this country, there's just a lot of things that haven't been given the resources for decades now that we're seeing the consequences of. Yeah, I mean, I can you know, one example is just I mean, the you know, the big underlying factor in places like La New York City, San Francisco where we have these large homelessness crises is housing affordability and housing availability. When you don't have much of either one, people tend to

fall out of the housing market. That doesn't mean that individuals who are experiencing homelessness don't have other issues going on. Some of the time, you know, other than financial issues or needing next month's rent. But that's the big underlying fact. They all fell out of the housing market at some point in time for all different kinds of reasons, and it's very hard to get back in once that happens. And then once you're on the street, the homelessness crisis

overlaps with all these other crises that we have. You know, there are holes in our mental health care system. Meth is ubiquitous on the streets of la because because it is unbelievably cheap, and so I think sometimes people conflate homelessness with mental health crisis or you know, drug crisis, math crisis, but they are not one and the same

at all. And the big thing when it comes to homelessness is housing affordability, housing availability, And one of the things that really helped us reduce vetteran homelessness over the last decade and a half was putting more resources into essentially the veteran version of Section eight, which are these are vouchers that provide rental subsidies for low income people. So if you qualify, you get a voucher, you can take it to a landlord, pay a percentage of your

income towards rent and the federal government will pay the rest. Now, normal Section eight is very oversubscribed. If you want to get a voucher, even if you qualify, your chances are like one in four maybe nationally and less than that in Los Angeles. There's a there's a huge waiting list.

It's it's really hard to get. If you're a veteran who qualifies, you have a much higher chance of getting one of these vouchers because they have their own pool, which which Congress has has been more generous about funding. And so those vouchers, paired with services provided through the VA are really at the heart of a big push that resulted in a huge decline nationally in veteran homelessness of twenty ten. So yeah, now, fully funding Section eight

for everybody would be enormously expensive. It's not politically popular, right, But that's like one example of a big system thing that you know, we can look at something that worked at least with this one group of people that's under resourced when you're talking about the general population. Yeah, all right, well, thank you so much for taking the time to talk

to us about it and for doing the reporting. Everybody should go check out the show, City of Tents Veterans Row, Let's take a quick break, we'll come back and talk about some other stuff. We'll be right back, and we're back, and we'll probably were the Trump thing. I think we all know. Trump claimed these going to be arrested probably today and has called for supporters to protest. We talked about it on yesterday's Trending. We'll have more updates on

this afternoon's trending. So Jack, it's almost like it's almost like Schrodinger's podcast, Like, right, if the fact that people are hearing this means that things didn't melt down, right, because if they're truly westcast probably do an emergency episode. Yes, of course, all right, but uh, for the rest of the episode, I wanted to just run down. Did you guys see the article in New York Magazine that was like the new rules for social Etiquette. It's this like

grandiose project. It's got hundreds of rules. They are real hit or miss, and we've just been kind of checking in with the list and talking to our guest co hosts and guests about about their thoughts on on these things. I think there are a few that we feel like could be canon like should be things that we adopt into our social etiquette, like never tell someone who they look like, yeah, oh yes, it never goes goes like Miranda July. And I find it really annoying. Yeah, it's

nobody ever likes to hear that. I think that someone is the key word there, which is like, this isn't like fodder for small talk with a stranger. I think like if you're a friend, you know, I had a friend for a while and like, I mean a good friend of mine actually texted me today and said what he said. I wish I had better news to share, but the far right Israeli finance minister is in the news for all the wrong reasons and he looks like

a bizarre, evil version of you. Yes, and I coming from a long time friend, I'm happy to hear that, but I don't want to hear that from someone who at no. And I always run it through the filter, like if it's a famous person, it's like, Okay, what you're really saying is that I look like this person's less hot cousin. Let's be honest. It's like it's just never good. It's one more thing on this. I know this when you were doing this as a throwaway check.

But but one more thing about this, which is I think so many of these pieces of etiquette sort of have this through line, which is like, don't do stuff that doesn't set someone else some set someone up to like respond in a productive way, like you know, and a lot and like that, just telling someone who they look like, it's like, what am I supposed to know?

There's no yes and to that right, yeah, okay, And a lot of the piece of advice kind of fall into that category, just like don't say something where think about think about someone's response when you say something and whether they're going to be able to kind of pick it up and totally Yeah. Another one that I think is probably solid for everybody to adopt is actually, it's great to talk about the weather. There was like this

unofficial agreement in the nineties. I think like there were stand up comedy bits it was like, don't talk about the weather. It's boring. What are you a fifty year old man? And it's but we live in strange times. The weather is something that should be fine to talk about, all right, whether in the sports. So the only two things left, yeah, just kind of you start this whole conversation talking about the weather. Yeah, yeah, and that's what I was using. This list just got exactly all right,

here's something for discussion. You get can stop me when you hear one, but that you have some thoughts on you want. Bobby de Niro may go way back, but to everyone else, he's Robert. This is aimed at a very specific like. So one of the overall notes I have on this list is like, the very first item is like you don't have to read all your friends books, and it's like, well, that's like for a very specific

group of people are constantly yeah. But so on this one, it's like their writing specifically to famous people who drop the nicknames or people who are you know, in the orbit of famous people. This like, I think it's hilarious when famous people do this. I it also feels like doing it must be the greatest feeling in the world because of how ridiculous it makes them look and how

hard they insist on doing it every time. So it's like, I don't I don't feel like I can make a full hard judgment on this one because I don't know any famous person well enough to try this shit. But man, they really seem to like it. Yeah, but I mean, but you're saying when you hear an actor refer to and all my examples are basically any people in the good felt anyway or any halfway right or like or Marty Scoressy Marty. I feel like it's the way you

hear all the time. But if it's someone who's worked with them and it's famous and like that's what they get caught on set, then you're okay with that. But if it's like me, I happen to have seen them at a bar or even like sat next to them at a random dinner, I can't. I can't switch over to Marty. And I'm fine with it. Oh, I'm fine with it across the board. I think it. I think you should be willing to accept the consequences of your

actions when you do that, but I don't. I'm just like, that's a that is a choice, but it's a choice that I'm glad people are out there making. It doesn't necessarily endear me to those people, but I don't think that's their goal either, right, Well, yeah, it must be kind of an awkward thing too. Like let's say you're

a celebrity that's worked with one of these people. You're doing an interview and you want to say something about Robert de Niro, but you know him as Bobby, Like, it probably feels just even more pretentious to say his full name if you actually know this person and have worked with them. Well, me and Robert de Niro, you know, there's I mean, I kind of have some empathy for

the celebrities on this one. I don't know. I don't I recently had a sort of like inverse name dropping awkward experience where someone was talking to me about their friend Greta for like a long time, yes, and then through context clues, I realized that it was Greta Gerwig and they were talking like about my friend Greta's movie and like going to that and and I was just like, just you should have just drop that name from the beginning and just owned it rather than trying to like

overcorrect for not being a name dropper. But it's tough. This stuff is tough. Total, it is very high. It's up there with not not reading your friends. But we're on a podcast dissecting a list from New York Magazine. Let's just just be up front about the air in which we are operating here I had we we had Robert Or, the famous NBA basketball player on our NBA show, and I just called him Robert Or the whole time.

I was like, well, thank you, yeah. But I think that's also you could also steer really hard into that and just anytime you're referring to your friend Bobby, you just say Robert didn't here. Get it all out there, all the way out there, all right. Some others never send an edible arrangement. What they're great, They're great. Fine. Um, I don't think that this is a a hard rule.

This is not a never. Don't use your friends as for play is is another one of the ones where I felt like I was learning a lot about whoever wrote this. What does that mean? So that's what it then goes into like a discussion of like friends fighting in front of their friends, and like I don't know, like I had no real world experience to like put

it onto. I guess like the the assumption is that their friends get horny from fighting with each other in front of them, and that is so somehow, I don't know. My man thought is like you got you sick little friends of nested pathology, and yet stop using me to get horny by yelling at each other when you got to dinner with me and my wife. I don't know, it sounds like I'm just trying to I'm just trying to have a dinner and with my friends argue in

front of me without it being sexual. Can you just can you just argue please and make this a normal dinner where my friends to argue in front of me. Yeah. The other example of like huh for for me was always wink, always wink. It's just one of the rules. No explanation, right. I love that rule. I can tell you a story about a buddy of mine who was applying for a job at home depot when he was a sophomore in college, maybe junior or a sophomore high school,

maybe junior in high school. And he's going through the interview and he's like super nervous, first ever job, and the like, you know, the shift manager at home depots like being a kind of like big timing him. You know, during this interview, he's peppering him with questions, asking all his questions, and you know, my my buddy's trying to answer be earnest and so forth, and then like three

cours the way through the interview, he just there. He looks at my buddy and goes, stop winking at me, son, and my friend just goes okay, but like he hadn't been winking at him. It wasn't trying to just thrown off, and he didn't. He couldn't. He couldn't bring himself like question the premise uh and be like no, what are

you talking about? Or I'm not He was just like okay, and he continued that's like one of those Google mind fuck interview questions, where all right, at this point we accuse you, accuse the attendee the interviewe of winking at us and see how they respond. You can calcely cancel almost any plans up until two pm. Specific I don't

know sure, I'm fine with canceling plans. So yeah, I won't be mad at you if you cancel plans with me in the world I know, truly, like, oh no, unless the plans are two thirty or something right right, yeah, exactly. And then this one. If your friend is dating someone you seriously object to, you have one chance to sit

them down and tell them. This seems like genuinely bad advice because it feels like that like, I can't see how this would be true for purposes other than like you are writing as rom com screenplay and like you're just adding like I understand the overall gist of it is, like you don't want to just keep hammering that with criticisms, and like you want to do it in a targeted,

thoughtful way. But at the same time, like being like you only got one chance and once you do it, it's over and you have to live with the decision that you've made just feels like artificial and like they wanted to they needed to fill an article full of rules. Sounds very arbitrary. I mean, yeah, I'm more of the mindset that unless someone asks, I'm not gonna just set them down and tell them my opinion. But it also

depends on why you object to the person. I mean, if you know something egregious about this person, or you know or they're engaged in really abusive behavior or something like that, then maybe it's appropriate. But if it's just kind of run of the mill I don't like this person, then I don't. I don't see any need to have a sit down. I'm yeah, I'm not objecting to this based on me wanting to have the conversation, Like I do not like conversations like this. I'm not going to

be the person who's like keeps bringing this up. But it just it does feel like sometimes you just gotta help your friend, like you have to. Sounds like you're trying to like universalize something and make it rule about something that's kind of just very dependent on the situation. Yeah. Look, I know this is the second time we've talked about this, but I need you and your wife to stop trying to get horny by arguing in front of me. I mean, you know, to your to your point, and I mean,

I you know, that is the exercise I think. And they're very like upfront. And that's why I loved this list is they're just gonna, you know, we're gonna just throw a bunch of very specific and sometimes very outrageous things out there and let the internet talk about it. And yeah, it's certainly, but but I respect that it felt like a felt like a very ten years ago kind of project. Yeah, absolutely, and it worked. And all right, well, Anna, such a pleasure having you on the show. Where can

people find you? Follow you all that good stuff? Thank you for having me I'm on Twitter at Anna Scott journal for Journalist and you can find my podcast City of Tense, Colon Veterans Real anywhere all the usual places Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, etc. Yeah. Yeah, and that's a great one. Go check it out. Everyone. Is there a tweet or a work of media that

you've been enjoying. I will say there's a work of media that I'm really looking forward to enjoying because I've been listening to a ton of podcasts in you know, working on one, I want to get inspiration from other good ones. And I see that The Atlantic has a new one hosted by Van new Kirk, who and they did the amazing Floodlines podcast some years ago about Hurricane Katrina. And they have another one called Holy Week, which also takes a historic event and puts new eyes on it.

And I'm super excited about it. So I don't they don't need my help promoting it, but I just feel like, yeah, I'm so excited about it that I'm just talking about it everywhere. Amazing Jody, Such a pleasure having you as always where can people find you? And as their work of media you've been enjoying. I'll mostly plug this new series that's coming out right now called good Sport, which is an eight episode series about sports, but not really mostly about kind of how sports can help us understand

some bigger things. And it's wherever you get your podcast, good Sport. But I'm very happy with them, how it's coming out and the reception it's gotten so far, so yeah, go ahead and check that out. And then in terms of media, well, mine is sort of nested. So I've been really really just like binging this podcast called The Restless History NonStop, which is you know, two historians, British historians,

and they just sort of go deep on history. It's nothing, nothing mind blowing about the format, but it's just really good chemistry and really sort of thoughtful and funny. But they did a series on the Rise of Hitler and the rise of the Nazis, and in that they kind of shouted out a number of times a Netflix series called Berlin Babylon, which is set in like thirties and

early forties Berlin. And so now I've jumped from the podcast to this recommendation to this Netflix series Berlin Babylon, which is a docu series or no, it's it's it's a scripted series. Yeah, and it's it's fantastic. It means really good. It's German, but it's you know, it's really good, awesome. You can find me on Twitter at Jack Underscore. O'Brien,

I'm still out here. Like in tweets Like three years ago, trash Jones tweeted, if at first you don't succeed, think about it for the rest of your life when you're trying to fall asleep. You can find us on Twitter at daily Zeitgeist. We're at the Daily Zegeist on Instagram. We have a Facebook fan page on a website, daily zeitgeist dot com, where we post our episodes and our footnotes where we link off to the information that we talked about in today's episode, as well as a song

that we think you might enjoy. Superproducer Justin Connor, what is a song you think people might addressed? So I'm not going to be here tomorrow, so it's up to Jack or Brian or whoever takes over for me to continue the string of hits that have been coming. The pressure is on. But this track is by a composer, singer and multi instrumentalist from Toronto who goes by the name River Tiber. This guy can really sing and lay down some interesting harmonies. The beat was made by Katrinada,

who I love. I'm a huge fan of his work, but this one is an underrated top five for me. So this song is Gravity by River Tiber and you can find that song in the footnotes footnotes. The Daily zeit Geis is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcast from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Up going to do it for us this morning back this afternoon to tell you what is trending and we'll touchy all the ye