Hey, it's Jennifer Jones Lee. You're listening to kf I AM six forty wake Up Call on demand on the iHeartRadio app. She likes to call it Friday And here's Jennifer Jones Lee with your Thursday morning wake up call. So wasn't the game that we wanted it to be. However, we had an amazing time at the Dodger game yesterday. I mean, when you talk about picture perfect weather, it was one of those where it was sunny and just a little bit warm where you were just kind of sweating in the seats.
Totally worth it. What with Tyler had a great time, right, Oh yeah, great time. It was so fun. We saw a streaker although he didn't streak, do we still call him a streaker? It was it was my first experience of actually being there when somebody runs across the field. Ninth inning, Metzer in the outfield, dude bails over the kind of the wall, I guess in left field. I think he jumped a short portion left, okay, and I think we should call him a disruptor. Oh
I like that. It just wasn't naked, yeah to be a streaker, but this guy just tools across the field. He's in all black kind of it looked like maybe like black dyed hair, and he's filming himself so you know, he was instagramming live or something. And that team of security mode that guy down like it was a full on football hit when they got him. But he made it to second base. Like I was kind of impressed how far he made it. I shouldn't say that, but anyway, but
these this security team, like we were talking about it this morning. These guys clearly train and they mowed down this kid and then got him up. And the best part was when they were taking him off the field. So they've got him. You know, it looks like zip tied or something behind his back and they're taking him off the field. They are running with the kid, but they have him in front and they're sort of just like push running him. It was great, Dodgers lost the garlic fries. Amazing,
just had a good time. You can see all the pictures. You can see us even doing the take me out to the ballgame because that's the part I decided to video, So that's up on Instagram. Jjlk F I almost the weekend, you guys, here's what's going on. The mayor of LA who helped the city rebound from the riots in nineteen ninety two. Richard Reardon has died. An LAPD officer has been suspended for his actions during a fireworks explosion that it play. It displaced dozens of people in South LA and we
had at least fifteen tornadoes. I think so far we're up to two people killed in these tornadoes that were reported across Oklahoma, Kansas, and Iowa just in the last twenty four hours. Also, we're going to talk to Aaron Katurski about the Alvin Bragg versus Jim Jordan case. Oh my gosh, it just got juicier in some ways yesterday. So the drama continues. We'll get into that in a little bit, but let's start with some of these stories
coming out of the KFI twenty four hour newsroom. We start with a crime spree through LA and Orange Counties, and now a guy's been arrested. The fan sat Namir Green robbed. You're trying to rob thirty one gas stations in convenience stores over a three and a half week period. Booking documents show from March twenty first to April fifteenth. Green also carjacked at least two vehicles. Prosecutors say Green would demand cash from employees at gunpoint and threatened to kill them
if they didn't hand over the money. He was able to steal a little more than fifteen thousand dollars during the robberies. Green could get twenty years in prison. He was charged under the federal Hobbs Act, which is interference with commerce by robbery. Steve Gregory KFI News an LAPD officer has been suspended for his actions during a fireworks explosion that displays dozens of people in South LA. These records say the officer was suspended for ten days without pay for being deficient
in their duties. A report found a lack of training and supervision directly led to the catastrophic explosion in June of twenty twenty one. Now, the total number of training hours completed by bomb Squad members dropped from ten thousand hours in twenty sixteen to six thousand, eight hundred seventy three hours in twenty twenty. In six months leading up to the explosion, the report says only three thousand, forty two hours of training were completed. A road rage incident in Santa
Anna has uncovered a gun making operation in Coasta Mesa. Detectives were tracking down a guy who'd pulled a gun on a driver, but Santa Ana Police Sergeant Maria Lopez says when search warrants were executed at the guy's home in Business and Coasta Mesa, the Major Enforcement Team detectives as well as the ABY one or nine Task Force, were able to locate fourteen firearms, thirteen ghost gun frames, firearms manufacturing equipment, three D prin tours, and the drill press.
Drugs were also found. The guy was booked Friday for criminal threats as well as multiple weapons and drug violations in Santa Anna, Corbin Carson k if I knew and the mayor of LA, who helped the city rebound from the riots in nineteen ninety two and led the city as it recovered from the north Ridge earthquake, has died. Businessman Rick Reordon served as mayor from nineteen ninety three
to two thousand and one. During that time, the last Republican to hold the office of Mayor of LA, streamlined the city's permitting process, work to make it easier for film and TV makers to shoot in the city, and expanded the Lapd. His family says he died yesterday at the age of ninety
two. The battle between Bragg and Jordan continues this morning. ABC's Aaron Katurski is here with more on testimony now that is going to be allowed, and it's kind of a win for Jim Jordan in the case of him versus the New York attorney Alvin Bragg. Except I just scout word like as we were coming on the air here Jen that the Second Circuit may have just issued a stay. So I don't know that that the testimony has kind of had It's supposed to be in two hours, but now there's a there's a stay by
by a federal appeals court. So I'm still I got to sort it out. But but but but for the moment, it seems like this this testimony is in question. But up until thirty seconds ago, it looked like a former prosecutor in the Manhattan DA's office named Mark Pomerantz was going to be sitting for a deposition before the House Judiciary Committee. He was subpoenaed, and a federal judge here in New York ruled that that subpoena was properly predicated. It
had a legitimate legislative purpose. She said, Congress, you know, makes laws, can investigate how they get at those laws anyway they want, and it wasn't for the judiciary to step in and interfere. Bragg's office the Dagg his office said, this is just a political attempt to interfere in the prosecution of former President Trump, and so they asked the judge to block the subpoena, which she declined to do, but which a federal appeals court now well
might well. Alvin Bragg is calling it, you know, harassment and intimidation on Jim Jordan's part to ask Palmer Rants to testify. What is it exactly that Jim Jordan is trying to get Mark Palmer Rance, the former prosecutor, to say, well, ostensibly he's looking at the use of federal funds that may have been part of the investigation of former President Trump. Now Bragg's office say said, yes, they use some federal corfeiture funds over the last three
years, mainly to fight Trump in the US Supreme Court. If they were trying to get access to his tax returns at amounted to five thousand dollars. Now, the attorney for the House Judiciary Committee says, whether it's five dollars five thousand or five million, Congress has the power of the purse and should
be allowed to investigate whether that was a proper use of federal funds. I mean, Jen, nobody believes that Jim Jordan, the staunchist ally Trump has in Congress, is you know, really interested in federal forfeiture funds and their use they're in. This is all an attempt to just needle brag and to try to perhaps undermine his investigation of Trump. But for the purposes of judicial review, that doesn't matter. The judge said she wasn't going to step into
a political dog fight. All right, Aaron, thank you so much for this, and I look forward to finding out. Will you shoot me a text and tell me if it is delayed or not once you get through this. Yeah, I mean well, I mean either at ten o'clock Eastern time, he'll show up or he won't so, or he'll show up and be like, well, I guess I'm not going to talk today. But you know, got all dressed up for this and now I can't even perform. All right, Aaron, thank you so much. Yeah, maybe sees eron
Kast that you guys, we were on it. I love when stuff like that happens. So we'll see. Now a lower court stay of this that's just temporary, so then we would have to get the ruling on what the lower court then why it made the stay go through. I know, you guys, it's really wonky. And yeah, absolutely, you know. It's not a It is not partisan to say that this is Jim Jordan trying to
get at Alvin Bragg. Of course it is. This is how you play the game when you're in politics, and so he of course is doing this. It's the same as if it was a democratic president and he had a staunch ally in Congress, like it Jim Jordan, who went to bat for him. That's what you do. But he did it, and in this case it worked because it does not When you look at it judicially, there's nothing wrong with it, and that's really all that matters. So we'll see
what this lower court why their stay came through. So that'll be interesting. Let's get back to some of these stories coming out of the KFI twenty four hour newsroom. An LAPD officer is suing police Chief Michael Moore and the department, claiming retaliation for posting videos of her shooting competitions. Tony McBride claims chief More threatened to destroy her career she continued posting videos showcasing her sharpshooting skills.
The officer says the chief told her he didn't like the images the videos presented and she needed to choose between social media and being an LAPD officer. In the lawsuit file Tuesday, the officer claims her videos were identical to other mail officers videos, but she was still blocked from being promoted. McBride is the daughter of Jamie McBride, a director of the LA Police Protective League. The LAPD declined to comment on the pending litigation. Chris Adler KFI News that is
hale that sounds like that damaging hail. At least fifteen tornadoes have been reported across Oklahoma, Kansas, and Iowa in the last twenty four hours. Rescue crews and cole Oklahoma are assessing the damage from a large and extremely dangerous tornado that killed at least two people. The National Weather Service says that tornado hit the west central part of the state. Large balls of hail that you were just hearing were seen hitting the state. All Over Cole has a population of
about six hundred people. Forecasters issued a tornado watch last night for parts of Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri. Police in North Carolina are trying to find a man who allegedly shot a young girl, her parents, and another neighbor because a basketball rolled into his yard. Will be damn sure to be loud and clear when this case comes to court. That's da Travis Page. Six year old Kinsley White, who was recovering from her injuries, has
a question for the shooter. Why did she shoot my daddy and me kid? Dad? Oh nope, that's the kind of stuff that gets me. The girl's mom says her husband tried to draw the gunfire towards himself to protect his family, and he was shot in the back because the basketball rolled into this guy's yard. Are you freaking kidding me? It's It's one thing when we're talking about somebody went to the wrong doorbell and somebody says that he was
scared and shot. That was bad enough. Then we have people drive down the wrong driveway, turn around, no interaction with the homeowner at all. One girl shot and killed in the car, and then in this case, you shoot a young girl her parents in an another neighbor because a freaking basketball rolled into your yard. It's disgusting. It's disgusting when we do these stories over and over and over again, and people ask me a lot. They're like, why do you stay in news? Or how do you get through
some of these stories? And it's thirty years this year, and I often say, I just say the words, right, I just read the words. I can't think about what the story is, just read the words. But then when you have a cut like that of a six year old girl asking why did you shoot me and my dad? You know, every now and then those get through, and that one gets through. SpaceX is launching the biggest and most powerful rocket after the test flight that was supposed to be
on Monday was scrapped and there was something that had to do. I can't remember exactly what it was, but they said that there was something right on the countdown Monday that made them stop. And it was roughly two months ago that SpaceX completed its first fire of the fully integrated starship, which has those two components. So it's got this massive first stage booster that's the super heavy one. They call it and then they have the upper stage known as the
Starship. So we've got the super heavy Starship going up, and in a typical fashion, both components of the craft are designed to be fully reusable. Which is what is so cool about Elon Musk's vision in this is that we haven't had this kind of thing, really, this reusability, and now that you've got it, think about how much they are saving, how much money they are saving with reusable rockets. So anyway, we'll see an hour from
now is when it's expected. Also, there's a former vipach war guide at Magic Mountain who says she suffered emotional and mental distress after enduring a rumor that she kissed a coworker at a party. She's a part time employee. She sued the park for five hundred thousand dollars in damages. She says her supervisors made up up the rumor, and when she confronted them, they retaliated by removing her from preferred shifts. The employee was hired in twenty seventeen and claims
she was forced to work fourteen hour days. Magic Mountain did not reply to our request for comment. All right, the old school blue check mark is it gone. Maybe ABC's Mike Debuskie is here for us. Hey Mike, good morning, Good morning Jen. Yeah, it's kind of like his rocket. We don't really know if it's going to go off today. We don't really know if legacy verified accounts are going to lose their blue check marks today.
So yeah, like a lot of things with Elon Musk, it's kind of just a question mark at this stage, and he has said that, so you know, if you don't pay for it, you're going to lose that legacy checkmark. And then people started paying for it, but people who had the legacy check mark and didn't pay for it still had it there.
So there was a lot of confusion, right right, And if you go back to the original conceit of the blue check mark, you would think that that is a problem, right, a misinformation problem, because the whole point of a blue check market it's founding, was to cut down on misinformation. If you're a famous account, you don't want people impersonating you, maybe running scams or saying something off color. Twitter gave you a little blue check mark.
So now if you're tying that to monthly payment, anyone with eight dollars can look like a quote unquote legitimate account, and that has raised a lot of eyebrows in sort of the social media space about you know, is this really just a ploy, is this status symbol or is it really a symbol of verification and that supposedly we're going to lose that symbol of like you know,
Twitter ordained verification today. But again, it is the sort of the conversation hanging over all of this is that it is four twenty today, Jennet is the weed day. It is a number that Elon Musk has a history with. He was sued over a tweet and twenty eighteen saying that he was going to take Tesla private at four twenty a share. He snuck a four twenty reference into his original bid to buy Twitter. So it's a number he has a history with. He seems to find it very amusing. So that's
also part of this what this could all just be a big joke. Well that's what I was thinking. So the minute that I saw your story last night, I was like, it's another Elon Musk for twenty, you know, trick on us or something like that. At the same time, I think that if he is trying to trick us. He is though, raising the argument of why in the world would I pay an eight dollar monthly fee for a blue check mark that is not necessarily going to verify or, you
know, show credibility that I really am who I am. If somebody else wants to be whatever, you know, Jennifer Jones Lee Kfi on Twitter and they pay the eight bucks, how would people know whether it's really me or
whether it's the guy that paid eight bucks. So kind of what Elon Musk has done is put a spotlight, I think, on what's going on on Twitter, even if he is trying to just make a joke, right, And part of this goes back to again that original conceit of the blue check Part of it was to verify that you're an authentic account, but what it came to convey was this sense of legitimacy, right that Twitter had deemed you important enough to be impersonated, which is kind of strange, but it did
carry this sort of status symbol aura to it, and he's hoping that that aura is something that people will pay eight bucks a month for. And jen he kind of needs people to pay eight bucks a month for it too, because so he says he said in his first email to Twitter staff when he took over. He hopes that half of Twitter's user base signs up for Twitter Blue. They're going to need to if the company is going to make it
through what he sees as a coming economic storm. The number as it stands right now is about point one or point two percent of Twitter's user base signs up for Twitter Blue. So there's a lot of road left to be driven down here, Jen, Why does he think that we would be okay with paying eight bucks a month for a blue verification mark that may or may not show validity in who we are? Why? I mean, he's a smart guy. He's had to think this through. You know, one would hope.
But there's also the question of you know, Elon Musk is a prominent figure in social in the social media space now, but he was a prominent figure in tech. He's a powerful man. He's, you know, for a time, the richest man in the world. I'm sure he surrounds himself with people who you know, are are you know, good advisors? But I you know, I guess that is the open question in a strange way, Uh, Jen, I think that the blue check now that they have
tied it to payment. Has become almost the inverse of a status symbol, right, the opposite. Yeah, because it's like, hey, look at this guy who pays for social media, that thing we all get for free. You know, why would you do that? You know he must be you know, some sort of Elon Musk super fan. Right, Um, which which is it's other? Which is this whole other part of the discussion. So yeah, it's again sort of a question, and again like we
don't know if this is going to happen today. So as of right now, you know, Karen Travers, Aaron Katersky, I know they don't pay for Twitter. They still have their blue check marks. Interesting, all right, we'll keep an eye Okay, those two accounts, then we'll keep an eye on it. Mike, thank you, you're great. Talk to you soon. Take care of Mike. Bye. That's ABC's Mike to Busky. Cool little story about Mike. Mike actually was ABC's So at night two times
a day. Actually, I should say, uh, there's a an email that comes out that talks about what Aaron Katurski and Karen Travers and Mike and you know whomever are talking about. And you have the opportunity to book them. Right, It'll say they have a window of you know, five in the morning to whatever nine or something like that. So every night I looked down this list and I see, oh, you know, do I want
that? Do I want that? And Mike was the guy for a long long time who sent that list out, So he was like their their booker. Right. But Mike is very into tech, and so Mike, as often you know a lot of us had done. You start out in one job in media, and you go from that job into whatever maybe you're passionate about. And he got that opportunity. And so now Mike is doing tech for ABC, not booking anymore. However, do you remember the name Dana
Schaeffer. Dana Schaeffer worked here at KFI. She worked usually she would fill in for Alex when Alex was producing the Handle Show, and then Dana would fill in. Now Dana just took Mike's job in New York. I tell you you, guys, once you get in this business, you can't get out. It's a rule. Two teen brothers and a twenty year old man in Alabama have been charged with murder in connection with that mass shooting at a Sweet sixteen party that killed four people. So yesterday when we left, there
were two people who had been arrested. Last night they got a third person. More than thirty people were hurt in the shooting on Saturday. The three were arrested on Tuesday. Long Beach is getting five point two million dollars in federal funding over the next three years to help put homeless people into permanent homes. Homeless Services Bureau Manager Paul Duncan says the funding will create housing opportunities for
forty five families and one hundred forty individuals. There are a number of things that we are matching to that, so there'll be some additional vout truths I get matched to that, as well as some case management funding through the county. Duncan says the city is also opening a temporary emergency shelter at the end of the month to compensate for the closure of the winter shelter. We have a man that's been arrested for an alleged crime spree throughout La and Orange Counties.
Also member the LAPD officer. There was one in particular who was really in trouble for his actions during that fireworks explosion back in twenty ten or twenty twenty one that displaced dozens of people in South la. That guy now has been suspended. Also this morning, police Laguna beacher trying to find a man suspected of attacking his girlfriend, leaving her with serious injuries that landed her in the hospital. Please say Charles Kelly the fourth broke into his ex's home yesterday
and took off after the violent attack. He's wanted for attempted murder and is considered violent and dangerous. Let's say good morning now to Kafis Jason Middleton, who also has a show on Sunday's Macro two to four Sunday's at two o'clock. How's that going. It's going great. Actually, yeah, we're starting
great. We've been workshopping a little bit of a couple of things, but we have we have so much good news that we can follow up on every week, like AI of course, you know what's how's that impacting jobs and things like that, white collar and blue collar. We have other we keep our eye on the Fat of course, which is news this week as well. So yeah, it's been It's been a lot of fun and Victor is a great producer, so we are we're finding the stride awesome. All right,
So let's talk about AI that you just mentioned. We were talking about Elon Musk with Mike Debuski a second ago in Twitter and the whole blue verified check mark thing. Is that going away today? So he's got that happening. But yesterday he went after Microsoft. Ye idea is interesting? Well he did because Microsoft decided to go after Twitter. So Microsoft says, yeah,
we're not gonna We're not gonna be using Twitter anymore. I guess they can't afford that eight bucks a month, so they needed that verification thing, so they pulled back. So then Musk, of course, being the petulant person that he seems to be, decided that, oh yeah, well we're gonna
sue you for using stuff our data and things like that. But I will say that like Microsoft of course, has made a huge play in artificial intelligence with chet, GPT and and incorporating it into being, it means when you can force Google to move off of its toadstool long enough. I saw Super
Mario Brothers yesterday. Everything's a toadstool today. But when you can move Google, then you have moved something, right, So all the focuses on AI, and Musk is saying, okay, well, if you're going to do that to Twitter, then you can't have access to our data so that you can help train your AI to make it smarter and better. Right, Musk is not alone in this, I should admit. This week, read It came out and said that they're going to start charging other companies for their data
too. That might be a deeper well of information because people use Twitter in a little i mean read it in a different way than Twitter. Yea deeper information, a little more thoughtful, if you will, also a little crazier at times, of course, but you when you're limited on a character account. Now Twitter's upping its character account too. As long as you have one of those verified accounts, you can go to ten thousand characters soon. So
we'll see how all this is playing out. But AI is a hype cycle right now, and everybody's has a card to play. I'm surprised that this time, and I think I'm surprised that both you and I are kind of
on Elon Musk's side. Like, in other words, Microsoft goes after you, you gotta hit back, yea be like yeah, sure, Microsoft to have at it, well, Twitter is fighting for its life in a lot of ways, and a lot of people don't see how, how or why Elon is doing certain things in order to create revenue streams in order to make his nut on that his month is yearly is what one point two one point three billion. That's just the viig on what he had to take out in
order to buy it. And remember he didn't want to buy it after a while, you remember it was a joke, and then he sued and then he lost, and he so he kind of got backed into the deal of owning Twitter, and now he's like what do I do with this thing? And and has said as much as like, yeah, somebody came along with the right price to have at it. But you know, he's admitted that it's a way bigger task than he thought it would be running Twitter, which
cracks me up. Handling his pr and communications must be like they must have the burnout rate of I can't even imagine. I mean, he's going to need AI just to take over his comms, he told BBC like you referenced, he told the BBC reporter last week. The BBRAC reporter asked him,
hey, would you take forty four billion dollars for Twitter. He said, absolutely not, and then he paused for fifteen seconds of dead air, and then he said, well, you know, I mean I'd have to consider it, wouldn't I Right, Well, the guy is all over the place. I mean, for anybody who's ever seen or thought to themselves like, dang, that PR person for the president is good. They know how to spin, they know how to twist and turn. Even those PR people like
the Karen Jean Pierre's and the Sarah how can be standers. They're probably like, hell, no, I would not go president all day long. Trump, Biden, Shore, Elon Musk, No way. Not easy to manage. All right, So let's talk about now another round of layoffs. We keep hearing these tech companies saying, Okay, I'm gonna laugh a little more, a little more this time. Meta again. Yeah. So this is a continuation of their first announcement, but these are the first layoffs to hit
where the rubber hits the road. And so what they're doing is they're basically pulling out of part of its whole Meta team in London, which was actually a growth area for them in the EU, interests coming back to the United States along with layoffs too, so they're closing the office as well. So that kind of shows you a little bit. Next month in May, they're going to do another round, and nobody knows for sure where that's going to come from. A lot of it think a lot of it's What's app and
Instagram probably is what's coming up next. So this is a tinuation of Mark Zuckerberg's calling twenty twenty three the Year of efficiency, and so he's going to but you know what, he's being rewarded as far as shareholder price goes, because they're up eighty five percent since he made this announcement per share price, so that's about twenty They lost about sixty six percent last year and now they're
up eighty five percent. So you can do the math. And so it seems to be that people are confident that he knows what he's doing moving forward. He thinks that advertising money is going to go to meta. We're back to AI again. See how this is touching everything. It is a hype cycle. It's just like when the iPhone launched and everybody was chasing tail in order to find get into that market. That Steve Jobs basically established and which
makes Apple the most valuable company in the world. All right, I just saw too that Snapchat is getting serious about chat. It announced that it's customizable Chat bought My AI is now accessible to all users until now, I guess you could only get that if you were a subscriber to Snapchat Plus. And now they're saying, how about it again? In the race for AI it is again I hate to keep saying this, but it's true. It's a
hype cycle and people are trying to get in there. And it all started when Microsoft felt that first domino back in January saying hey, Chat GBT is going to be part of our bang and our search results. The thing that's insidious about AI is it's not being managed at all. There's this race to the marketplace. Does not necessarily come with ethical standards, Yes, and so that's going to be an issue moving forward to the other thing about Snapchat.
Of course, snap is here in La down here on Silicon Beach, which is another area of coverage I'm expanding into for macro. But at the same time they're also rolling out Mirror, which you may let you use AI to try and close when you're at the store. Okay, So so all about that, see there's a functionality there, but then you're in control because you can you control mirror, you activate it, you you press the button.
Then you get to do all these things when you do search results. Though, if you search for the cheapest Honda, let's say I'm just using that way, the AI result is going to bring you like, oh, here is the physical this is the cheapest Honda model you can buy, but there's also this one it's really close in price too, that you might want to
consider. That sounds human, right, That's like that's like one of your parents or your friend telling you, hey, you know, yeah, maybe that's maybe that's a cool car, but maybe this one is just a couple thousand more and you get this extra stuff. It just sounds more personable and and and personified. And uh, that's that's going to get into an iffy area when it comes to advertising, all right, and really quickly, um McDonald's came out said it's going to have it, which it made me laugh.
It says it's going to cook our burgers at a hotter temperature. Yes, that cheese is gonna be meltier. And I'm that Big Mac. We're gonna put more Big Max sauce, and now apparently it says not only are we gonna put more Big Max sauce, we are going to let you buy just that Big Max sauce, which I thought is brilliant because I don't know anybody right now, well I should ask you. Do you have Chick fil a sauce in your fridge? I do not, but I have what's what's
called qp K e W pie, which is very similar. Okay, so when the Chick fil A sauce came out, m oh yeah, I literally was like, I don't even really eat the Polynesian sauce, but what the hells? So I got both of those. I think this is brilliant marketing on McDonald's part. You can have now that Big Max sauce at home. You have it at home, I don't know, you're dipping your French fries in it, and all of a sudden, where am I going to go? I'm gonna be like, damn, that Big Max sounds great. It's
a dipping sauce and it works. I mean, this is this is part of a larger plan. You mentioned the hotter temperatures yea, for they're cooking there. You're going to add grilled onions that are actually done right there. I'm calling this the Chipotle effect. Remember a couple of weeks ago we talked about how I would eat a bowl of e coal life. It came from Chippotle. I stand by that, and I think that McDonald's just noticing that too. So they're going back to basics. They're using softer buns, are
using better meat. They're going to have a better experience without increasing their load time. How long it takes to assemble your meal. Yeah, without adding complications to the assembly line. That is fast food. All right. You know what. I have not eaten at McDonald's in eons, but the last couple of weeks, we've talked about them so much. I'm so in Really, maybe we could on the way back from Chipotle. Okay, all right, sounds good, dude, you're great. It's Eason. He just high
fived. Did you guys hear that? See that high five? Sad news yesterday, Richard Reardon died. The mayor of la who helped the city rebound from the riots in nineteen ninety two led the city as it recovered from the Northbridge earthquake, passed away at the age of ninety two. He was mayor from nineteen ninety three to two thousand and one, and during that time he
was the last Republican to hold the office of mayor in La. He's streamlined in the city's permitting process, work to make it easier for film and TV makers to shoot in the city, and expanded the LAPD. His family says he died yesterday. Let's say good morning now to Jesse Bossell, who is the manager at Armstrong Garden Centers. Jesse, good morning. I'm telling you
I have to say shout out to KTLA. They were talking with you guys yesterday or day before, and I thought to myself, I need to talk with them because of all this rain and weird weather that we've been having. How in the world do you know what to plant and when to plant this year? So, Jesse, thank you so much for joining me. Good morning, Thank you so much for having us. Yes, spring is in Bloom and Armstrong right now and we're just having a lot of fun over there.
Everything's in Bloom. The rain did us some good this year, for sure. Okay, So that's what I wanted to ask you. I wondered if there would be any issues with you know, with rotting or anything like that, mildew on any plants in particular that you guys have had to say, all right, everybody, you've got to either change up the time you're planting or change up what you're planting. You know, not so much. I mean, honestly, even with all the rains, this was a good
thing. We were coming out of a drought. We of course, we're going to see some issues with some of your natives or some some cactus or cucula that maybe got a little bit too much water. But honestly, this was a fantastic thing for kind of reviving and juvenating some of the things in the garden that have been kind of beat up and tired. And we are really seeing a show at the garden Center right now. There's just a tremendous amount in bloom right now, and it is just so showy, abauseful.
Okay, I have to tell you that yours at the one in Glendora is the one that I would go to, and I love that one in particular, you guys have the best heirloom tomatoes. However, I don't know what it is about me. I don't know if I overwater underwater. I kill the darn things every time I get them. So what should we be planting now? And can you tell me any tips on airloom tomatoes because I suck at them absolutely so summer vegetables or this this is our prime time. This
is when do you want to get them in. We're talking about your airloom tomatoes. Really any tomato. We carry seventy some on different variety to tomatoes, arrong. We have peppers, eggplants, splash, zucchini, melons. If you're into fruit and vegetables, please come see us. We will set you up for sure. We give classes on gardening, small space gardening, tomato gardening, stuff like that, so we can definitely help you out. But yeah, tips of the trade on tomatoes, really good fertile organic soil.
We want to fertilize their heavy feeders. Most of them will need a tomato cage and they're a regular water. They're gonna they grow almost like a weed sometimes if you're doing it right, and you'll just see rapid growth and tremendous amount of bud and bloom production and fruit production on these plants. Okay, go back to the fertilization. That is something that I am. I don't really do and I know I need to do it. You know, once I stick come in the ground, I'm good about watering them. But
the fertilization, I don't really know how to feed plants. I guess sure it's super easy, honestly, at time of planning. We sell a couple of different brands of organic fertilizers that you can work into the soil when you're planning the tomato. Typically these fertilizers last for about two months when when you put it in there, and literally if you can come back every couple of months and hit your plants with some fertilizer, you will reap the rewards.
It really is a food for them. It's almost like, you know, a bidem And for us, we'll do all right, but you know, it's like if you really give them what they need, they will show you that they like it. Really, So fertilizer is key one thing that I kill. Also, well, I'm a crappy gardener. I'm like clearly made that, you know, apparently, But is cucumbers. What's the deal with growing cucumbers? Cucumbers are kind of a summer vegetable, much like a tomato.
I kind of like to put a cucumber on a small little cage. They're a little binding plant, and I think it's you know, it's much easier for me to harvest the fruit if I can kind of work them up onto a small little cage. Otherwise, if you wanted to grow them in a container race bed, they're going to kind of be a little bit of a ground cover. Again, full sun, pretty regular watering. And again,
fertilizer is really key. I think people will really be surprised if they were to not fertilize and start fertilizing their plants, how much better they do and produce much more fruit honestly, if you're in the fruit game there. But yeah, cute cumbers, tomatoes, squashed czucchini, peppers, they all really can co exist together, you know, in small spaces in containers and raised beds for sure. Okay, so you could put a tomato in with a pepper in the same raised bed, Oh yeah, yeah, I could.
I could have a tomato that I grow on a tomato cage. Peppers are not really going to take up a huge amount of space. Peppers are really kind of tidy vegetable to me. And then yeah, I could underplant with. If I like herds, I could do basil lacho partially I wouldn't do necessarily in the race bed, but pretty much everything else, okay,
And yeah, they really co exist beautiful. If somebody is listening this morning and they're like, all right, look, I don't have a green thumb, but I just need something easy because I really just want to have some sort of garden. What's the one thing that the worst gardener you would say like, try this, start with this. Okay, So if you want um, I could really know. If you say you wanted to have a plant inside of your house, you could do a sansavaria or pathos. It's
extremely easy if you want to be outside. We have an a tremendous arrangement of incredible succulents, not only blooming succulents, but you know, foliage succulents, vibrant colors on these things. They are they are really bulletproof. Not only that, we're really seeing a huge burst in the pollination realm of things right now with everything in bloom like it is, a lot of these pollinators are very very hardy shrubs. When you're talking about your lantanas and your lavenders.
I think we did a thing on y'all row on KTLA. Those are all very very hardy shrubs that give you a lot of blooms and they're very versatile. I'm a renter. I have seventy five containers that I'm looking at right here, every sort of different thing um I have out you know, butterfly garden out there, so it really you can do a lot of things. Please come see this. We'd love to coach you. If you're intra sit in it. Anybody that I'm strong would love to help you. Okay,
And one last thing. I know you guys in the past, and I don't know if you're still doing it, do ladybugs. You'll give away ladybugs where you know you had a certain promotion years ago and I remember coming and getting the ladybugs. What do ladybugs do for the garden other than they're just really fun? Thank you so much for mun We're actually having the Ladybugs for you giveaway week weekend. This weekend Friday, Sunday Sunday, We're giving
away free ladybugs for every purchase. Ladybugs are a tremendous introduction to your garden. They're a beneficial insect. Not only are there cute and whimsical and you see the flow realm, they eat bad bugs that are are bad for your gardens, such as aasives and scale and soft bodied insects. They're really so I don't have to go out there and spray chemicals or anything on my plants. Literally, ladybugs are gonna go eat those bugs for me. And they
reconduce pretty quickly, so they stay in your garden pretty regularly. There I introducing my butterfly garden a couple of years ago. They're still out there or something. That's great. Okay, So I had no idea why. I knew they were beneficial for some reason, but I didn't realize they are bad bug eaters. I love that, Jesse. Thank you so much Armstrong Garden Centers. I've always had really good luck you guys when I go in fact, like the ones that I will say that I've got at the big box
stores, Jesse, years always grow way better. So this is not like I don't, you know, not doing an endorsement for Armstrong, but I am personally because I think you guys are awesome. Thank you so much for having those. Thank you so much, absolutely, Jesse, see you later, you two, all right? So you guys, we go from vegetables to not really a vegetable? Is weed a weed? Weed is a weed, right like marijuana is a weed? I think is it a plant?
Who the hell knows? But eight is four twenty and we now spend more on legal weed, which may or may not be a weed, then we do on chocolate. There was a story that came out a couple of days ago, and I saw it a couple days ago. Michelle just sent it to me too, She said, did you see this from a couple days ago? We spend more in the United States on legal weed then we do
on chocolate and craft beer combined. According to this study from this new report on Mjbiz Daily, Americans spend about thirty billion dollars on legal marijuana last year. That compares with the roughly twenty billion that we spent on chocolate an eight billion that we spent on craft brews. Almost two dozen states now allow the sale of weed for recreational purposes, and you've got nineteen more that sell it
for medicinal use. But still when it comes to legal weed, those sales are totally dwarfed by the sales of actual tobacco products last year, those total fifty three billion. However, you do see some of those tobacco sales starting to decline in places where the marijuana sales are going up, and they are. This Mjbiz Daily report that I saw by twenty twenty eight, it says
sales of legal weed could reach fifty seven billion dollars. So if it's at thirty billion right now and tobacco products are at fifty seven billion, you could literally see those numbers flip flop in just a few years. Anyway, Happy four twenty to you. According to my friends who smoke weed, they say that some of the dispensaries and whatnot gab free giveaways of things. I don't know how that works exactly, but if you and bibe happy for twenty two
you. SCAFI and KOST HD to Los Angeles, Orange County socowweather from KFI. We've got a beautiful sunny day ahead with highs in the seventies, maybe even right at eighty, could see some nineties by the weekend. We lead local live from the KFI twenty four hour newsroom. I'm Jennifer Jones Lee.
This has been your wake up Call. You've been listening to your wake Up Call with me Jennifer Jones Lee, and you can always hear wake Up Call five to six am Monday through Friday at KFI AM six forty and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app