450: Elaine Culotti—California is in Real Trouble

Serial entrepreneur, lipstick farmer, and season 2 undercover billionaire Elaine Culotti https://elaineculotti.com/ unleashes a no-holds-barred critique of California's downward spiral. From endless red tape and anti-business policies to the sluggish response to the Palisades fire, Elaine argues that leadership under Gavin Newsom has been nothing short of disastrous. She doesn't just complain—she hints she might run for governor herself.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Mike Rowe?

  Chuck, do you know how I know that California is in real trouble?

• 0:06Speaker 01

  No, Mike, how do you know that?

• 0:08Mike Rowe?

  Because that's the name of this episode. Welcome to The Way I Heard It, everyone. It's me, Mike Rowe. Chuck is still here in our little studio in beautiful Southern California.

• 0:19Speaker 01

  Don't you love California, Mike?

• 0:20Mike Rowe?

  I do love it.

• 0:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:22Mike Rowe?

  And I make no apology for it. And our guest today loves it probably more than the two of us combined.

• 0:27Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 0:28Mike Rowe?

  Her name is Elaine Kalati. And if you've heard of her, maybe it's because you're a fan of farming and you're familiar with the farm that she owns and her moniker as the Lipstick Farmer that she blogs on from time to time. Or maybe you still watch the Discovery Channel and you remember season two of Undercover Billionaire, where she made an appearance, wound up in Fresno with a check for $100.

• 0:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. And turned it into... How much in 90 days?

• 1:00Mike Rowe?

  A lot.

• 1:00Speaker 01

  A lot.

• 1:01Mike Rowe?

  Yeah. It was during lockdowns and took like a dilapidated old hostel or something and turned it into something truly useful.

• 1:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:09Mike Rowe?

  Yeah. She'll tell you the story in a moment and then she's going to tell you some other things. And look, I get it. This is going to be a tad political. I don't apologize for it because I'm worried for my adopted home state. You know, Chuck and I both are proud Maryland boys. But we make California our home. And we're both well acquainted with lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of people who have left.

• 1:38Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:39Mike Rowe?

  And it's such a shame. I honestly don't care what your politics are, even though this does get a bit political. It's not really about your dogma. This is a conversation about management and incentives and why people like me choose to live here but take our productions to places like Oklahoma.

• 2:00Speaker 01

  Or Georgia.

• 2:01Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, and why people like Joe Rogan, who loved it here.

• 2:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:05Mike Rowe?

  Just couldn't take it anymore and up and left. And I know some people listening are probably going, well, who needs you? Good riddance. Bye bye. I understand that feeling too. But something has happened. I think recently, I think the fires really lit a fire, as it were, under a lot of people.

• 2:24Speaker 01

  Well, they really showed us just how badly the state is run and the city of Los Angeles as well. When the firefighters, you know, go to open a hydrant and there's not water in it.

• 2:38Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 2:38Speaker 01

  In the middle of a big fire.

• 2:40Mike Rowe?

  That's the thing. We've talked about this on the podcast and maybe you've, uh, maybe you've heard it already as we listen to a fire engine outside. I love it. I love the symmetry of that. But it's been eight months, folks. It's been eight months and hundreds of tons of debris are still in the Palisades.

• 2:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:59Mike Rowe?

  And the permits are not being issued quickly enough. And decisions are being made that's going to, to force people who didn't lose their homes to make massive changes and raise them up into the air to the, the cost is just astronomical. It just feels like something truly, truly is amiss. And we're not being incentivized or motivated to do anything other than endure and ignore the thing that's clearly visible right in front of us. And look, if I sound agitated, it is because I don't want to move. I really don't. I love that Mike Bro Works is here and I love coming home to this state.

• 3:42Mike Rowe?

  But man, oh, man, oh, man.

• 3:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:45Mike Rowe?

  There's a point where I think people get worn down. And Elaine is a very successful businesswoman.

• 3:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:53Mike Rowe?

  She's an entrepreneur who loves this state deeply. And she's about at the end of her rope and she's doing things and she's, she's taking steps. And she's venturing outside of her lane a bit as a real estate magnate to try and effectuate some change, which honestly, I think the state needs.

• 4:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely, it does. And she is, it sounds like she might be hinting at a run for the governorship, or?

• 4:22Mike Rowe?

  I couldn't get her to say it, but, but listen to the passion with which she speaks, and listen to the certainty that she has about what, what needs to occur. And understand, as I, as I hope we'll illustrate in the first half hour, what a serious person this is. She's a player, and she's succeeded in, I don't even know how many businesses. But it's a really fun conversation with a woman I met for the first time, just now, and I suspect we'll stay on each other's radar. We're calling the episode, "California is in Real Trouble on Account If It Is." Oh, one other thing, Chuck?

• 5:02Speaker 01

  One other thing, yeah. There's like a little fact check in here.

• 5:06Mike Rowe?

  Oh, yeah.

• 5:06Speaker 01

  She mentions, toward the end of the pot of the episode, she mentions, she says that 48% of Californians are conservative. And she cites a Madison McQueen poll that was recently done. And I looked it up afterwards, and I think she conflated something. And actually, this will give you the example of how connected she is. She called up Owen, who, who owns Madison McQueen.

• 5:30Mike Rowe?

  Right.

• 5:31Speaker 01

  And he called me to let me know exactly what the poll was.

• 5:34Mike Rowe?

  And I'm not sure she's confused or conflated at all. I think I started singing a silly song as she was in the midst of explaining.

• 5:40Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 5:41Mike Rowe?

  And this will all be made clear, but the poll basically said that if the election were held now...

• 5:49Speaker 01

  Well, if, if for the 2026 election for governor.

• 5:53Mike Rowe?

  Right.

• 5:53Speaker 01

  48% of Californians would consider voting for a Republican.

• 5:59Mike Rowe?

  48% of Californians who vote.

• 6:02Speaker 01

  Yes, likely voters, that's correct.

• 6:04Mike Rowe?

  Would consider voting Republican.

• 6:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, across party lines, yeah.

• 6:08Mike Rowe?

  That's extraordinary.

• 6:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:10Mike Rowe?

  Yeah. So having said all that, and at the risk of repeating myself, California is in real trouble.

• 6:24Mike Rowe?

  Here's a crazy idea. What if there was an academy out there that paid students to learn instead of the other way around? Specifically, men and women who want to work in the skilled trades. And what if this academy not only paid for your training, but also covered all the expenses associated with your training, like travel and food and lodging? And finally, what if this academy guaranteed you a job at the end of the training period? Well, that's exactly what's happening at America's Workforce Academy by Meta. This is a five-week, highly immersive, pre-apprenticeship program that gets you all the necessary certifications you'll need to start a career in the skilled trades immediately.

• 7:06Mike Rowe?

  I'm talking about AI-proof, six-figure jobs, helping to build out the new infrastructure that our economy is depending on. Electricians, plumbers, HVAC techs, welders, fiber optic technicians, these jobs, they are all in demand like never before. And again, every graduate of America's Workforce Academy is guaranteed a job on a Meta website. I first announced this program a few months ago, and I have been watching the response ever since. It's extraordinary. This is a nationwide, unprecedented fast track to a long-term career in a skilled trade. If you, or your spouse, or your kid, or your grandkid are looking for a straight path

• 7:49Mike Rowe?

  into a career with no cost at all, check out the opportunities for yourself at meta.com/america'sworkforceacademy. That's meta.com/america'sworkforceacademy.

• 8:06Mike Rowe?

  It's impossible to know how to introduce you.

• 8:09Speaker 02

  I don't think anything's impossible for you.

• 8:12Mike Rowe?

  I'm telling you, I don't even know how to introduce. Are you a farmer? Are you a serial entrepreneur? Are you a TV sensation? Are you a real estate mogul? I mean, what do you prefer?

• 8:23Speaker 02

  I mean, at the moment, I prefer saving California and fixing our beautiful Los Angeles after the fires.

• 8:30Mike Rowe?

  Jagged little pill.

• 8:31Speaker 02

  Czar. I want to be a czar.

• 8:33Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 8:34Speaker 02

  I need a job. I need Trumpy Trump to give me a job. As the czar, I need some position of power so I can get rid of all these people making such a muck of it.

• 8:43Mike Rowe?

  All right, we will get to the, what the ad pukes call the, the single minded proposition momentarily. But first, I want people, genuinely, I want to better understand because just so people know, I'm meeting you for the first time, which is unusual with this podcast. It is. You live with a guy named Tim, who has, who's friends with a guy named John, who called me a couple of weeks ago and said, Mike, this guy Tim and this woman Elaine, she's on some kind of vision quest and I think you're really gonna like her. And there's a bunch of triangulating you can do, both with the Discovery Channel and went down a list of other things. And for whatever reason, I just, I trust this guy, John McGleenen, who owns. One Union. One Union Recording. Right.

• 9:28Mike Rowe?

  Where I've been making sounds and microphones and a crisp, well-modulated baritone for over 20 years now. So based on his quasi-recommendation, I thought, okay, I'm gonna reach out to this Elaine person. And turns out, you also know Grant Cardone. Turns out, you also work for Discovery from time to time. So let's just start there, since we each are bound to know some Discovery people.

• 9:51Speaker 02

  So I, I kinda got hung up in the, let's not do any reality stuff. My kids were like, no, no, no. But when COVID happened, a friend of mine reached out, his name's Glenn Sterns, and he had had a very successful show called Undercover Billionaire.

• 10:05Mike Rowe?

  Yep.

• 10:06Speaker 02

  And they were doing season two. I mean, you can't be an undercover billionaire twice.

• 10:10Mike Rowe?

  Right.

• 10:10Speaker 02

  So he had to put together a team.

• 10:12Mike Rowe?

  Your secret's blown.

• 10:14Speaker 02

  You're outed. And so he put together a team and I was one of the very lucky people to be chosen. Now, not necessarily billionaires, these are hardworking people that he felt could actually do the job, which is scale the business to a million dollars, or it's nothing but 100 bucks.

• 10:27Mike Rowe?

  So they give you 100 bucks, they don't tell you where you're going.

• 10:30Speaker 02

  Nothing.

• 10:30Mike Rowe?

  They basically drop you off in some berg, give you a beater of a car, 90 days and 100 bucks. What did you do?

• 10:39Speaker 02

  I mean, for anyone who hasn't watched the show, it's season two. You can still download it on Discovery Plus and watch it. And I, completely by accident, tried to stay at a hostel, which wasn't actually a hostel, but it looked like a hostel, and I turned it into the greatest business. It took a while to get there, and I was terrified. I was in the middle of Fresno. It was during my partner calls it something else, no. And we've now, you know, grown to love Fresno. It took me about maybe two or three weeks of being there to see all of the undeveloped talent.

• 11:13Mike Rowe?

  What did you do with the hostel that wasn't a hostel?

• 11:16Speaker 02

  I made it a essential business. It was COVID. It didn't have windows and doors. It had to be an essential business, or it had to be shut down. So I was like, OK, essential. Groceries are essential. Food is essential. Farming is essential. We have to do something in food and farming. And having a little bit of experience, and I don't want to say I had a lot of experience. I have a farm in Fallbrook.

• 11:37Mike Rowe?

  Where's Fallbrook?

• 11:38Speaker 02

  Fallbrook, San Diego County, North San Diego County. It's pretty. I bought the ranch because I needed a place for horses and I, and my dogs and my swans and my turtle and my stuff, so I'm like, I gotta get this ranch.

• 11:49Mike Rowe?

  Sorry.

• 11:50Speaker 02

  And, yeah, and it's so, I have a lot of animals.

• 11:52Mike Rowe?

  How many swans you got?

• 11:54Speaker 02

  I have three.

• 11:55Mike Rowe?

  What are you calling?

• 11:56Speaker 02

  Robbie and Israel, and the third is unnamed.

• 11:59Mike Rowe?

  Why?

• 11:59Speaker 02

  Because I haven't thought of a name yet.

• 12:02Mike Rowe?

  How about Gibbons?

• 12:03Speaker 02

  OK, what is it?

• 12:04Mike Rowe?

  Orlando Gibbons wrote a famous madrigal called "The Silver Swan, Who, living, had no note. When death approached, on lot did silent throat, Leaning her breast against a reedy shore, Thus sang her first and last, and sang no more." Something like that.

• 12:22Speaker 02

  Are you hitting on me?

• 12:23Mike Rowe?

  A little bit. "Farewell, all joy, O death, come, close my eyes. More geese than swans now live, more fools than wise." Orlando Gibbons.

• 12:37Speaker 02

  Gibbons.

• 12:38Mike Rowe?

  G I B B O N S, yeah.

• 12:40Speaker 02

  So, and Gibbons could be a boy or a girl name.

• 12:42Mike Rowe?

  Could be.

• 12:42Speaker 02

  Well, I haven't probed the swan, so it has to be a girl-boy name.

• 12:46Mike Rowe?

  Probed, you mean examined?

• 12:48Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 12:48Mike Rowe?

  Do you prefer not to know the gender of the swan?

• 12:51Speaker 02

  No, I'd like to know, because I had a mated pair, and they haven't made babies since the babies came.

• 12:56Mike Rowe?

  Because they mate for life, you know?

• 12:57Speaker 02

  I know. But one of them's interfering, and I don't know which one is which anymore.

• 13:04Speaker 01

  But how do you keep them from flying away?

• 13:07Speaker 02

  Well, one is pinioned. They just don't. I don't think they know they can fly.

• 13:11Mike Rowe?

  Pinioned, Chuck. Are you familiar with that term?

• 13:12Speaker 01

  No, should I look it up?

• 13:14Mike Rowe?

  No.

• 13:14Speaker 02

  It's something they do to the wing, so they can't, you know.

• 13:16Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, it's a...

• 13:17Speaker 02

  You have to do it right when they're born, though.

• 13:18Mike Rowe?

  It's Latin for cutting them off.

• 13:21Speaker 02

  I didn't do it myself, though, by the way. And so the reason the other two aren't is because I couldn't, so there you go.

• 13:26Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 13:26Speaker 02

  But the first one I got pinioned.

• 13:27Mike Rowe?

  So is it a farm or a ranch?

• 13:29Speaker 02

  It's both.

• 13:31Mike Rowe?

  What do you grow?

• 13:32Speaker 02

  Uh, row vegetables, avocado, or lots of citrus, lemon lime, seasonal, have a farm stand, do CSA.

• 13:39Mike Rowe?

  What's that?

• 13:40Speaker 02

  CSA, Community Supported Agriculture.

• 13:42Mike Rowe?

  I see.

• 13:43Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 13:44Mike Rowe?

  Great.

• 13:44Speaker 02

  Farming.

• 13:44Mike Rowe?

  All right.

• 13:45Speaker 02

  And I left the ranch to go to Fresno. And so I had a little bit of experience. I mean, even though my farming partner is really the farmer, I had a delivery business during COVID of vegetables to all my friends in LA, in Beverly Hills, which was really funny. And I have a long list, which you'd be blown away. Then I, I started this idea that maybe we should do, you know, fresh farm delivery out of this essential business. We got bags and we started a business and I opened a bar outside. I opened a coffee shop.

• 14:12Mike Rowe?

  What'd you call it?

• 14:13Speaker 02

  Uh, it's called Shep's Club. It used to be called Shepherd's Inn.

• 14:16Mike Rowe?

  So Shep's Club, is it still in Fresno?

• 14:18Speaker 02

  It is. It's still in Fresno. It's right on, it's, it's right across from the Greyhound bus station and the train track.

• 14:24Mike Rowe?

  You should write vacation brochures. But it's a going concern.

• 14:28Speaker 02

  It's a going business. And the thing about, I had said this to many people, it's like, it's the testimony of whether or not a business can survive with a television show is after the television show is done, if it keeps going. And it's kept going. And the guy that runs it's a really smart cookie, so.

• 14:43Mike Rowe?

  I just want a quick sidebar. I'm, I'm not quite bitter or broken, but I'm skeptical. I'm deeply skeptical of the reality genre, because when I entered it 22 years ago, there was that, like, a brief shining moment where it lived up to its name. And Dirty Jobs was a truly honest show. How honest is undercover billionaire?

• 15:05Speaker 02

  I can't speak for everybody, but for me, it was like incredibly, and I didn't know anything about it, but I couldn't, like, they did zero for me. There was one point where I stayed in the hotel with the crew when the crime rate was so bad and they lit the back of the building on fire. And that night, I stayed at, I stayed at their place where they were staying, Hilton. They pulled me out. But for the most part, they were like, ix-nay. I even had a night camera girl, Lauren, who was so amazing. And she was so terrified. She's like, I'm going back to the hotel. I'm like, no, you're staying here with me.

• 15:38Mike Rowe?

  So they really filmed this thing over the course of three months?

• 15:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, 90 days.

• 15:42Mike Rowe?

  Every day you're on camera.

• 15:44Speaker 02

  And at night, like sleeping, washing, driving.

• 15:49Mike Rowe?

  Why did you accept?

• 15:50Speaker 02

  Because it was COVID and everything was so boring and closed. And I was just like, out of my mind at the ranch.

• 15:56Mike Rowe?

  Okay, this is important. I'm writing down the word bored because I don't want to forget it. And honestly, what little I do know about you does speak to a chronic and unusual work ethic.

• 16:08Speaker 02

  Why not do it is what I, how bad, what's the worst thing that could happen, you know?

• 16:12Mike Rowe?

  Oh, reputational loss, profound humiliation, loss of consortium.

• 16:19Speaker 02

  Not a worry, not a worry, not a worry.

• 16:22Speaker 02

  Who cares?

• 16:23Mike Rowe?

  It's just occurred to me, Chuck, I've never said loss of consortium. I don't believe I've ever heard you say that.

• 16:27Speaker 02

  I don't even know what that really means.

• 16:29Mike Rowe?

  Chuck, you want to explain that to her?

• 16:31Speaker 02

  Yes, loss of consortium. I feel like, you know, the best you can do, as my dad used to say, the biggest room in the world is the room for improvement.

• 16:40Mike Rowe?

  What'd your old man do?

• 16:43Speaker 02

  He was a fighter pilot. A good one, yeah.

• 16:45Mike Rowe?

  Army, Navy?

• 16:47Speaker 02

  He was Air Force and he flew F-100s and F-111s.

• 16:49Mike Rowe?

  No kidding?

• 16:50Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 16:51Mike Rowe?

  So you're an Army brat?

• 16:52Speaker 02

  I am, I'm an Air Force brat.

• 16:53Mike Rowe?

  Where'd you grow up?

• 16:54Speaker 02

  Germany, England. My mom's British. My mom's an orphan. She grew up in an orphanage. Her parents were, as she says, blitzed during the war. And so I have this great mom and dad, you know? They're amazing. Well, my dad's passed away, but he's still amazing to me every day.

• 17:12Mike Rowe?

  You ever change the fuel cell on a KC 135R Stratotanker?

• 17:17Speaker 02

  Good God, no.

• 17:18Mike Rowe?

  But you would love it.

• 17:19Speaker 02

  No, but I've gassed up my tractor plenty of times.

• 17:21Mike Rowe?

  What kind of tractor?

• 17:22Speaker 02

  Um, the, I have two. I have a Kubota, which is pretty reliable. And the other one's like a GMC. It's old and it's not reliable.

• 17:32Mike Rowe?

  We had a Massey Ferguson growing up, and a John Deere, and an International Harvester.

• 17:37Speaker 02

  I have a couple of cranes too, but I don't know what they are. Scout maybe is one?

• 17:40Mike Rowe?

  Scout makes cranes?

• 17:41Speaker 02

  And, um, I don't know what the other, I have a lot of equipment at the ranch.

• 17:45Mike Rowe?

  Now, when you say cranes, you are referring to the mechanical device, not the distant cousin to the aforementioned swan. Because if you have swans and cranes...

• 17:53Speaker 02

  You know what? I might be the only person you know that has both.

• 17:56Mike Rowe?

  Get out of here.

• 17:56Speaker 02

  I have cranes at the pond, and I have cranes that you lift things with.

• 18:00Mike Rowe?

  You are like, so it's all creatures great and small. You're an animal lover?

• 18:04Speaker 02

  I can't, they're the best things on the planet, and every single one of them, wild and domestic. I love animals. We're so like them too.

• 18:12Mike Rowe?

  Well, I mean, yeah, we are part of the kingdom.

• 18:14Speaker 02

  One time I got a phone call from somebody at my house that said, "Elaine, you need to come home because there's a crane in the house." And I was like, "Well, why would the guys put the crane in the house?"

• 18:24Speaker 02

  And it was...

• 18:25Mike Rowe?

  That's a fair question, fair question.

• 18:27Speaker 02

  And they sent me a picture of this like beautiful, long, black bird. He was gray. The ones that come by our thing are gray, because not to be confused with the herrings, which are white.

• 18:36Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 18:36Speaker 02

  And he had his head down in the chandelier, and he was hiding in this giant chandelier. I have a picture, I'm sending you the picture. And he was trying to hide in the chandelier to not be seen.

• 18:46Mike Rowe?

  I'd like to see that picture.

• 18:47Speaker 02

  Insane.

• 18:47Mike Rowe?

  Taylor, where were we with the birds?

• 18:50Speaker 03

  In, uh, Kansas City.

• 18:54Mike Rowe?

  No, no, no, the ones that attacked me, I had the broom, and I had to keep them away with the broom. Somebody's gotta do it. Storks? Whooping cranes, yes. Whooping cranes.

• 19:04Speaker 02

  Those are big birds.

• 19:05Mike Rowe?

  They are big birds, and they're very protective. And I, you know, when you're around them, because they'll imprint when they're young on whatever is raising them. So if you're a human, and you're raising these cranes, as they do, I think it was like off Patuxent, maybe some... Yeah, Maryland, yeah. So you've got to dress like a crane. Like you wear like a burka and these white sheets. You look like Casper the Friendly Ghost, and you have to whisper.

• 19:30Speaker 02

  This is not real.

• 19:31Mike Rowe?

  I swear to God, it's real.

• 19:32Speaker 02

  Well, you were wearing like a little burka with it.

• 19:34Mike Rowe?

  Wasn't so little. I mean, it's, look at me. I'm a European, there I am, right there. And there's the burka. Yeah. That's me wearing a burka. Well, that's not. That's me trying to fend off these cranes.

• 19:44Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. And he was mad.

• 19:45Mike Rowe?

  But those are the burkas. Yeah. Yeah.

• 19:47Speaker 02

  Oh, look how cute. Was this a Dirty Jobs thing?

• 19:50Mike Rowe?

  No, it was called some. Somebody's gotta do it. Somebody's gotta do it. Yeah. I've been doing the same show for 22 years, Elaine. I just changed the title every six or seven.

• 19:58Speaker 02

  Someone's gotta do it's a great job name.

• 20:00Mike Rowe?

  Well, you know what?

• 20:01Speaker 02

  Someone's gotta do a lot of things right now. Okay?

• 20:03Mike Rowe?

  Well, that is, it's so funny because I said to Chuck when we were just kind of pitching the idea of you and not yet knowing, right? But I'm like, this woman is on a mission. And what's got to be done in the Palisades and I think in Altadena and in California in general, I promise we're going to get to it. But I'm not yet fully satisfied that we can jump into your mission until we understand even more. Like as an entrepreneur, and I don't want to make this gross, but you're a woman of means. Obviously you're on undercover billionaire. You said you're not a billionaire, but I'm guessing you're well-heeled.

• 20:39Mike Rowe?

  What if, say, five years ago, some big oil company offered a promotion that gave you a chance to lock in the price of gasoline at $2.50 a gallon for the rest of your life? Would you have taken that deal? Or what if a nationwide grocery store had given you an opportunity to lock in the price of ground beef at, say, $2 a pound for as long as you live? Would you have taken that deal? Yeah, me too. Unfortunately, those deals were never on the table, but this one is. Today, as in right now, for a very, very limited time, Pure Talk is offering every American the opportunity to purchase unlimited talk, text and data,

• 21:22Mike Rowe?

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• 22:08Speaker 02

  I was for a long time. I was, I started out with, you know, well, my mom was a school teacher when she finally was able to work. And my father was retired military. He worked for Jepson. So he was the technical writer. He's a very bright guy. And we lived in a modest home in Aurora, Colorado. And I was entrepreneurial from a very young age. I started a shoe shine company. All my girlfriends, all my girlfriends worked for me.

• 22:35Mike Rowe?

  How old?

• 22:37Speaker 02

  I was like, maybe 16.

• 22:39Mike Rowe?

  Uh huh.

• 22:39Speaker 02

  Yeah. And my first job was a job job. It's the only job I had, but I didn't get paid hourly. I got paid by the lead and I worked for train heating and air conditioning. And I would call up and do these home surveys. I was probably 14 or 15. I'd be like, hello, I'm train heating and air conditioning. We'd like to come to your house and do a survey. I wish I had your voice. Cause that would have really, I would have doubled down on the money.

• 22:57Mike Rowe?

  You know how weird you would be with my voice? Your face, my voice?

• 23:01Speaker 02

  That would truly be a voice for radio, right? I would just have to hide behind something. And then when I went off to Arizona to go to school, I took shoe shines dance with me and I started this big, pretty big shoe shine company and sold it.

• 23:12Mike Rowe?

  What was it called?

• 23:13Speaker 02

  It was called Ragtime.

• 23:14Mike Rowe?

  Ragtime?

• 23:15Speaker 02

  Ragtime, like.

• 23:16Mike Rowe?

  Oh Ragtime. Ragtime Joe played an old piano on a honky tonk cafe. When anyone requested a brand new tune, here's what Ragtime Joe would say. There'll be no new tunes on this old piano, this old piano of mine. There'll be no boogie woogie and none of that jazz or any other kind of that razzmatazz. We'll sing about Swanee, the old folks at home, the wide open spaces where the buffalo roam, but there'll be no new tunes on this old piano, this old piano of mine.

• 23:41Speaker 02

  I like that song. I don't think I've ever had anyone speak it to me.

• 23:46Mike Rowe?

  Hmm. Well, it's a big day for both of us.

• 23:48Speaker 02

  It's my first big Ragtime day. So after Ragtime, I.

• 23:53Mike Rowe?

  What'd you sell it for? Is it rude?

• 23:54Speaker 02

  Uh, gosh, it's like maybe a couple hundred grand. Not a lot.

• 23:59Mike Rowe?

  So you're 17, 18?

• 24:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was young.

• 24:01Mike Rowe?

  In Aurora?

• 24:02Speaker 02

  I was 21, 22. Yeah.

• 24:04Mike Rowe?

  You're a military brat. You're in your early twenties and you sell a shoe shine business for a few hundred thousand dollars?

• 24:11Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 24:12Mike Rowe?

  What'd your parents think of that?

• 24:13Speaker 02

  I don't think they understood it. I think they were like, what? I think they must have thought I was doing something far more nefarious, for sure.

• 24:22Mike Rowe?

  That is so wild. I mean, your pop must have been proud, though.

• 24:26Speaker 02

  I think he was very proud of me. I mean, we had, my dad always gave me good advice, but my dad was the opposite of extravagant. He was very, he didn't like anything flashy. Yeah, nothing flashy ever. And so I had to be very careful about, you know, talking or bragging. It was, it's unbecoming and not allowed.

• 24:45Mike Rowe?

  But you were aware of all that at 21, 22?

• 24:48Speaker 02

  No, it didn't seem that big of a deal to me. I thought I kind of, I was, you know, very interested in design, very interested in like buying and flipping homes, but I didn't have the means to do it. So I had to sell something in order to be able to buy my first piece of real estate. And that was the only way I was gonna do it, without any means of how to fix it up or money to get it or an idea of how to get a loan or, no clue.

• 25:08Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 25:08Speaker 02

  And, um, but eventually, you know, I got the hang of it. And then when I came to Los Angeles, after school, I was very interested in this weird, I was going back to Europe and buying antiques and coming back and forth. And I got very interested in the vintage Levi business. I thought, what a fascinating, and I love vintage, I'm wearing a pair right now, by the way, if anybody hasn't noticed.

• 25:30Mike Rowe?

  I did notice that.

• 25:31Speaker 02

  And I thought the, you know, I love American companies, I always have, and I thought Levi's is such an incredible company. And the shoe shank, this is the craziest story. Do we have time?

• 25:41Mike Rowe?

  Okay, nothing but time.

• 25:42Speaker 02

  So people will find it weird. So, okay, in the industry of rags, rag business, so if you're cleaning like oil in a shop, there's rag companies, and essentially they take in all sorts of like remnant rags, towels and jeans and, um, you know, sheets from places, and they're called rag companies. They're all over downtown LA.

• 26:01Mike Rowe?

  Yep.

• 26:01Speaker 02

  And in these rag businesses, they wash the stuff and then they deliver it to your mechanic shop. So the biggest expense that I had in the shoe shine company when I had like thirty cents was rags because you have to keep changing them out.

• 26:12Mike Rowe?

  Chuck, you know what I need you to find? Uh, yeah, I think so. Go ahead and find it.

• 26:16Speaker 02

  I'm afraid.

• 26:17Mike Rowe?

  Go ahead.

• 26:17Speaker 02

  Okay, so this rag business, I was downtown in this big rag place one, one day. And when I say big, I'm talking about maybe like three hundred thousand, four hundred thousand square feet filled from the floor to the ceiling with big piles of fabric and jeans. And I, there was a jean pile. And I said to the guy, I'm like, how much are the jeans if I just use jeans? And he goes, that's like seven cents a pound. Ah, can't get rid of the stuff. And I was like, I'll take all of it. So I went to every rag company and I bought every pile of rags at every company. And I wound up getting this baker's building out in Sherman Oaks.

• 26:48Mike Rowe?

  Wait, wait, denim?

• 26:49Speaker 02

  Denim.

• 26:49Mike Rowe?

  You're buying denim?

• 26:50Speaker 02

  I just bought denim.

• 26:51Mike Rowe?

  Okay.

• 26:52Speaker 02

  I took it out to this building in Sherman Oaks. A friend of mine owned a food truck business that did movie sets called The Cast Supper. So cute. I can't remember his name, Kevin, maybe. And then he was next to this baker and they had baker's racks. And I wound up in this, I took over this bakery and I had all my jeans all over the place. And I graded them. I put them on a grading scale, A being the best ones, all the way down to shorts where you had to cut them off. Levi's, Wrangler, vintage, not vintage, everything. And I made up prices and I sold them and I made so much money selling jeans. It was insane. In Europe, I had European buyers. I had, everyone's like, she's got, I was the queen of Levi's.

• 27:37Mike Rowe?

  So, but you're selling existing brands. Is that right?

• 27:41Speaker 02

  Mostly Levi's. Levi's was really kind of it. I had probably the largest private Levi collection, period.

• 27:47Mike Rowe?

  And what was this business called?

• 27:48Speaker 02

  It didn't have a name. Didn't have a name. It was very private. It was very private because-

• 27:54Mike Rowe?

  If I were to suggest a name for that, I'd go with Third Swan.

• 27:57Speaker 02

  Oh, I like that.

• 27:59Mike Rowe?

  Third Swan, nameless.

• 28:00Speaker 02

  I thought it was Gibbons, nameless.

• 28:02Mike Rowe?

  Well, I mean, it hasn't, I'm gonna see the paper.

• 28:04Speaker 02

  The reason it was a nameless business is that it was, I was so busy, so fast and so trying to figure out what was the way to really like turn it into real estate because that's all I was obsessed with, buying real estate. And what I found is the Italian kind of merchant business in Rimini.

• 28:22Speaker 02

  Italy was where the Japanese would come to buy the jeans. And the guy that was my middleman, guy that would buy them and fly out here and buy containers. It was all cash business and he was very serious about this business. Like, he knew way more about it than I did. And he was gaming me. That's the thing. Like, I didn't know what they were really worth. So, yeah, that was my-

• 28:42Mike Rowe?

  So, how long did you run this nameless business?

• 28:44Speaker 02

  About, I did it for two years, long enough that I could buy, like, real, real estate. And then I bought real estate.

• 28:50Mike Rowe?

  And how much you sold it for? If that's not too-

• 28:52Speaker 02

  I didn't sell it, I sold out of the goods. I ran out of material, I couldn't get any more jeans.

• 28:55Mike Rowe?

  But you made enough money to make your next move.

• 28:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:58Mike Rowe?

  Before we go there, quick sidebar. You mentioned shop towels.

• 29:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:01Mike Rowe?

  And rags.

• 29:02Speaker 02

  Oh, there you go.

• 29:03Mike Rowe?

  There's Chuck, the producer, right there. That's me, doing a campaign on these rags you were talking about. So, that's an industrial shop towel, right there.

• 29:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 29:12Mike Rowe?

  And the problem with these things is they're laundered with lots and lots of other towels from lots and lots of other businesses. And some of those businesses have a lot of heavy metals in them.

• 29:23Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 29:23Mike Rowe?

  And so, freshly laundered shop towels were coming back with crazy high traces of dangerous metals in them. And so, this company hired me, it was Kimberly Clark, to introduce these disposable shop towels as a remedy for those things. And they worked so well, I wound up getting boycotted by some union I'd never heard of, textile washers union or something. Chuck didn't suffer at all, as a result. And he's just there, mugging it up for the cameras, again. Oh, he loves that shop towel.

• 29:59Speaker 02

  Aw, Chuck.

• 30:00Mike Rowe?

  Anyway, I'm also fascinated, in that last exchange, by the fact that you had a whole denim thing. I just created a mess on social media when I posted Sydney Sweeney's thing with the good jeans thing, because I did a commercial. I used to work for Lee & Wrangler. And I had my mom in a series of commercials, talking about good jeans as well. I just mention all of this because I'm slowly getting the listeners' permission to get to the reason that I know you agreed to come here, but we're not there yet.

• 30:29Speaker 02

  Did you see the Hillary Clinton Bad Jeans ad?

• 30:32Mike Rowe?

  Yes.

• 30:33Speaker 02

  I just wanted to know if you saw it.

• 30:34Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, I saw it. I mean, that's lightning in a bottle, you know, to get a campaign like that and to have it just-

• 30:43Speaker 02

  So awesome.

• 30:43Mike Rowe?

  It's incredible.

• 30:46Speaker 02

  Epic.

• 30:46Mike Rowe?

  Yeah. Truly epic.

• 30:48Speaker 02

  People should learn from it. Did you see Scott Baio today?

• 30:51Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 30:52Mike Rowe?

  That tweet where he basically went after Tyrus.

• 30:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, he went after Tyrus, yeah.

• 30:56Speaker 02

  I mean, Tyrus doesn't know, and I love that show.

• 30:58Mike Rowe?

  And I love Tyrus, he's been on this podcast.

• 31:00Speaker 02

  Has he? Oh, my God, I love that show. That's a great show, but I gotta say, I also love Scott Baio, and good for him for saying something. And you know something? He had like 150,000 hits this morning when I saw it early because people love him.

• 31:12Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 31:12Speaker 02

  And it's just, it's not Tyrus's fault. It's the reality is, is that's what happened to people.

• 31:16Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 31:16Speaker 02

  I'm glad he said something.

• 31:18Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, I think what Tyrus said in passing, almost parenthetically, was, I don't even know if Scott Baio's alive.

• 31:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, he made a crack about that he could be dead for all, for all he knows. And Scott Baio came on to set the record straight that he is alive. And what happened to him, why you haven't seen him, is because he got canceled for speaking out in favor of Trump in 2016.

• 31:40Mike Rowe?

  Well, I think he spoke at the inauguration or at the first announcement of, whatever it was. Yeah, whatever it was.

• 31:46Speaker 02

  But I'm, I mean, that's a great, like, I think it's fair to say that Tyrus could have reinvigorated him and pumped him right up to somebody that people want to spend time with now. So, good, I'm glad.

• 31:56Mike Rowe?

  Well, you know what? People are still, and I think this is relevant enough to mention because we're going to get into politics in a minute. But I think, like, I'm getting a lot of heat right now. Do you know who Nick Cersei is? He's an actor. He was on Justified, Fried Green Tomatoes. He's been around for a long time.

• 32:14Speaker 02

  I'm sorry, Nick, I don't know who you are.

• 32:16Mike Rowe?

  Well, he made a movie called Capital Punishment. And he was at January 6th. And he saw something very different than what most of us see and made a movie about it. Anyway, I had him on and he told his story. And I don't obsess over comments, but it is interesting how people are still right on the knife's edge. And when they hear something they don't like, man, they just, they can't help but, they can't help but tell the world about it. You know? It's really, people are fragile. And they're upset with me because a guy named Nick sat here and, and told a story that they didn't like. And I think we're still in that, in that world, you know?

• 33:01Mike Rowe?

  Because it felt like for a while that maybe we got past it a little bit. But the Scott Baio thing kind of reminded me that, no.

• 33:08Speaker 02

  Well, we shouldn't get past it.

• 33:10Mike Rowe?

  I don't think we're past it.

• 33:11Speaker 02

  I mean, I think that the, the importance of what's happening right now. God, I hope I don't get you in more trouble.

• 33:16Mike Rowe?

  I don't mean to get sirens and motorcycles.

• 33:18Speaker 02

  First, before I say anything, I just want you guys to know that Mike has no idea what I'm about to say. I'm just gonna say it.

• 33:25Mike Rowe?

  Thank you.

• 33:25Speaker 02

  And you, I don't know if you have the luxury of editing, but if you don't, I'm sorry.

• 33:29Mike Rowe?

  No, this is live right now, actually.

• 33:30Speaker 02

  Look, people need to toughen up. You know, if you weren't having any of the rhetoric before 2016, but starting in 2016, if you believed that there was no laptop, if you believed that if you didn't get a vaccine, you were going to like, you know, kill your grandmother, if you were, if you thought that people that were protesting, that went into the Capitol were truly criminals, if you bought into all that stuff, that's too bad, in my opinion. Because at the end of the day now, there is more than enough evidence that there was a laptop. There is more than enough evidence that forcing people to take vaccines was probably not a great idea. There is more than enough evidence that many people that were in the Capitol were just

• 34:15Speaker 02

  curious and upset. And I feel like if you can't see that, you can't see anything. You can't see anything. Just accept the basics. Just the basics.

• 34:32Mike Rowe?

  So as some of you may have heard, I went to Congress 16 years ago to testify before a House Subcommittee. And then again, a year later, to testify before a Senate Subcommittee about the need to reinvigorate the skilled trades with some kind of national effort that would make a more persuasive case for a lot of good jobs out there that didn't require a four-year degree. Well, 15 years later, I finally heard back from the government, and I am delighted to tell you about a program called BuildFreedom.us. This is the national PR campaign that MicroWorks has been talking about for a decade and a

• 35:15Mike Rowe?

  half now, and it's focused on 300,000 or 400,000 excellent jobs in the defense industrial base. These are the electricians and the plumbers and the Steam fitters and the pipe fitters and the CNC operators and the ship builders and so forth. But in this case, all of those trades are focused on building out our national infrastructure through the defense industrial base. So people who are building our autonomous weapons, our planes, our ships, it's only a matter of national security and it's a very big deal. And on a personal level, it's really been very gratifying. Build Freedom donated $10 million to MicroWorks. The money's available right now for you if you want to pursue a skill that's in demand

• 35:58Mike Rowe?

  and work in the defense industrial base. I think it's an opportunity of a lifetime. Go to buildfreedom.us, see what's available and then apply for a scholarship from MicroWorks. The money's there, burning a hole in my pocket. Go get some. BuildFreedom.us. We talk a lot about the elephant on this podcast, the blind man grabbing the tusk and concluding he's holding on to a statue made of ivory, or the tail, or the leg and coming to a different conclusion, or the trunk and coming to an altogether different conclusion. But yeah, it's, the evidence demands a verdict, but the evidence is not limited to a tusk or a trunk.

• 36:38Speaker 02

  Right.

• 36:39Mike Rowe?

  There's a lot to look at.

• 36:40Speaker 02

  There's a huge body of evidence.

• 36:41Mike Rowe?

  Right. And that starts to open the door to what I really want to talk to you about, but not quite yet.

• 36:47Speaker 02

  What's the story, the saying that Mark Twain, I know you know it, about convincing somebody of the truth is easy, but convincing them that they've been duped is impossible.

• 36:55Mike Rowe?

  That's right. Yeah, that's a great one. It goes, uh...

• 36:59Speaker 02

  I love that you know this stuff.

• 37:01Mike Rowe?

  Well, it's a lot easier to convince somebody that... Let me look it up. Look it up. Something was wrong. Well, he also said, "The truth gets around the world. In the time it takes a man to put his pants on, a lie gets around the world."

• 37:19Speaker 02

  The truth takes a long time to get around the world, but a lot gets around the world like that.

• 37:23Mike Rowe?

  It's like reputations too. The reputation of a town like Baltimore or Albuquerque, you know? It's like the reputation of a man. You work all your life on a thing. And in one moment, there's a riot or a murder. Or, you know, maybe it's Freddie Gray or maybe, you know, The Wire, right? Shot in Baltimore, one of the best shows ever made. But as a result, poor Joan in Boise is pretty sure the only reason to go to my hometown is to, you know, buy some heroin or hire a crack whore because of that show. And Breaking Bad did the same thing to Albuquerque. And so, you know.

• 38:00Speaker 02

  Albuquerque's a mess.

• 38:01Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, it is.

• 38:02Speaker 01

  I got the quote, "It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled."

• 38:10Mike Rowe?

  That's right.

• 38:11Speaker 02

  And that is right.

• 38:12Speaker 01

  I know it's right. I just found it on the internet. It has to be right.

• 38:14Speaker 02

  And that's where we are. I found it on the internet.

• 38:17Mike Rowe?

  It must be true. In the words of, was it Abe Lincoln, Henry Ford, Mark Twain, Cicero? Yeah.

• 38:25Speaker 02

  We just have such an opportunity for the first time in so long to just consider that it might not all be true, that there might be a lot of nonsense that we've been fed.

• 38:40Mike Rowe?

  I think, you know what I think?

• 38:41Speaker 02

  What's wrong with that?

• 38:42Mike Rowe?

  I've been reading this guy and.

• 38:44Speaker 02

  Which guy?

• 38:45Mike Rowe?

  Well, his name is Jeff Childers. Unless it's Childers.

• 38:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, it could be either one.

• 38:51Mike Rowe?

  I'm not sure. But he started in 2020, writing a column called Coffee and Covid. He's an attorney and I think he found himself with some time on his hands. And he took a dim view of our institutions and a lot of what was being sold as settled science and started writing about it in a way that was. Elegant and eloquent and funny and weirdly optimistic. And now he has a huge file, not huge yet, but it's big. And I'd, I'd love to meet the guy, but he, he made the point this morning when he was talking about DC.

• 39:33Mike Rowe?

  And I don't know if you've been to DC recently, but we just filmed a movie there not long ago. And there's some lovely parts, the mall still looks great, but boy, it's bad. And it's self-evident, you just can't deny it. Unless you're in the emperor's new clothes, unless you're the townspeople looking straight at the naked emperor and going, oh, bravo, that looks great. That's the thing that I thought we were largely past, but we're not. We're not there yet. And it's so strange, rather than argue the fact that maybe there's a better way to deal with the problem. Then mobilize every LEO in the country.

• 40:17Mike Rowe?

  What comes back over the net is there is no problem.

• 40:20Speaker 02

  Wait, what's LEO?

• 40:21Mike Rowe?

  Law enforcement officers.

• 40:23Speaker 02

  Got it.

• 40:23Mike Rowe?

  Right, so you got the FBI, you got the, you know, everybody.

• 40:27Speaker 02

  I just didn't know the acronym.

• 40:28Mike Rowe?

  Well, so this was Jeff's point this morning, one of several, he's like, we're still doing it. You know, I'm not saying the Republicans or the conservatives or the president is correct in this course of action. I'm simply saying that if you're going to take the opposite view, you can either say, I wouldn't do that. I would do this instead. But that's not happening. What comes back is Chuck Schumer literally says out loud, I feel perfectly safe walking around DC. Chuck Schumer has 22 Secret Service people. And he's walking around the mall, he's not walking in these other areas. And then everybody jumps onto that.

• 41:10Mike Rowe?

  And I don't mean to make this as political as it's sounding, but the media will pick up the narrative and go, okay, so there's no problem. The whole thing is a gaslight. And so normal people look at all of that and go, what, is there a problem or isn't there a problem? Instead of saying, obviously there's a problem, maybe we can disagree or possibly agree or discuss the best way.

• 41:35Mike Rowe?

  To remedy all of that. And so that's what I mean. We haven't moved past the fact that, well, if they say black, the other side says white. We're not quite to the point where maybe even with the Palisades, maybe even with the thing you really came here to talk about, but we're not quite ready to do it yet. Maybe the same applies. Maybe they see it and they see two different things.

• 41:58Speaker 02

  I think we're turning the tide. I don't have anywhere near the opposition that I used to have. My friends have stopped calling me an anti-vaxxer. At least I'm past that.

• 42:10Speaker 02

  My friends have stopped calling me a, you know, Trumper or Trump this, or you like Trump, when I simply wanted a more fiscal, you know, educated president. I wanted somebody that understood working and signing the front of a paycheck. It wasn't really that I had an opinion one way or another. And I also find that less people are dismissive of me if I say something that's political. Now they're starting to listen. And I've been fairly consistent. Going back in history about when I might have been what you call red-pilled, it would have to go back to Benghazi.

• 42:51Speaker 02

  Because for me, that was just such a weird thing, like to witness and really try to put the pieces together. It didn't fully set in. And I went to the 2016 inauguration because I was invited. I just wanted to go to the parties. I didn't really even, I didn't vote and I didn't care. I just wanted to go to all the parties because these people that invited me were doing the whole inauguration. They're like, you should come, it's gonna be great. I'm like, okay, I'll go. And I went. And all my friends here were like, are you going to the march? And I was like, what? Like, and I had such a grand time. And I did go to the march. And it was so weird. And Madonna was like screaming on the, I mean, it was just, the inauguration was perfectly

• 43:35Speaker 02

  beautiful and the parties were fun. I mean, Texas can throw a hell of a party.

• 43:39Mike Rowe?

  Oh, my God.

• 43:39Speaker 02

  Oh, my gosh.

• 43:40Mike Rowe?

  I was there this year.

• 43:41Speaker 02

  The Lucasey boot thing. And I was, this is insane. So that- That was like the only reason I went. And so I have had a fairly consistent migration into the mindset that I now have. And also, I'm raising children. And I'm like, no, you're not going down that road. That's not. And they're like, Mom, I'm like, 16, let me do it. Not Mom, I'm 18, leave me alone. I go, no, I will never leave you alone. You're absolutely not doing that. So

• 44:09Mike Rowe?

  How old are your kids?

• 44:10Speaker 02

  Jesse's 30, Leo is 29. And they're both very conservative kids. And then Cosi, who is 21, is not conservative. He's, I would, I don't even want to say. But the point is that they get their own opinions, no matter what you do. And the best thing you can do is be consistent and do the same thing. And I am consistent about my politics. I want good governance. I don't want my money to be unaccounted for. And everyone should want that.

• 44:39Mike Rowe?

  And speaking of money, again, just to close the loop on this, you got the denim thing, you sold the thing, and then you get into real estate. And that was your wish fulfillment.

• 44:48Speaker 02

  It was. I love it. So I love development. I like building things.

• 44:53Mike Rowe?

  Are you more a developer? Or a

• 44:56Speaker 02

  Well, I started out

• 44:57Mike Rowe?

  A salesperson.

• 44:57Speaker 02

  I didn't have any money. No, I don't sell anything. I like to keep it. But sometimes they have to sell it because you can't afford it. I've done that. But if I can keep it, I will keep it. And I'll fight to keep it, even if I don't have any money. And also, I've had no money, and lots of money, and no money, and lots of money. It's always up and down. And it doesn't really bother me like it bothers some people, which is, I think, a key, important, you know, trait of a real entrepreneur. It's really not the money. It's really the kind of the experience and the journey of it all.

• 45:22Mike Rowe?

  Sorry, to go way back for a minute, was there a bet on billionaire? Like, did you have to put up money?

• 45:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, 50 grand.

• 45:28Mike Rowe?

  So you bet $50,000?

• 45:30Speaker 02

  I said I bet them a half a million if they wanted it in cash, because I was so, thought it was so ridiculous that they thought it was impossible to do. I was like, mm hmm, it's easy, I'll be done. I'm gonna get it done. I was so overly confident until I got there. I learned a very big lesson because I had been out of the scrappy business of really throwing deals together and at no, you know, just no holds barred, just figure out how to duct tape and staple it together for so long that I had to get back to that and it took me a minute because I'm not me. I'm this person that has nothing. So I can't like act like that.

• 46:05Mike Rowe?

  Right.

• 46:05Speaker 02

  And so it just took me a second, but I figured it out. It just took a minute.

• 46:09Mike Rowe?

  So what in terms of properties that you that you own or manage or have developed, again, forgive me, I don't mean to make it personal, but I think this is going to be very, very relevant when the audience hears what you really came here to talk about. You're invested in this state. You're invested in the Palisades. I'm just wondering roughly to what degree.

• 46:29Speaker 02

  Eighty percent of my portfolio is in the Palisades and there's literally no clear way to evaluate what it's worth. And that should be very scary to everybody else. And I know it's what's troubling recurso.

• 46:45Mike Rowe?

  How much did you lose in the fires?

• 46:47Speaker 02

  Just like maybe, you know, 18% if you take the, you know, like what burned and what can be repaired. But the issue, well, first of all, let's get back to the fact that like certain things in real estate are fundamentally easier to do, even though they might be hard work. Like if you buy an old home and you fix it up and you flip it, that is easier to do if you're willing to put the work in and do it yourself and get in there. But if you want to buy a piece of land and develop it, you need a lot of different things that are not easy to do yourself, like a really good land use attorney or a really good soils engineer or a civil engineer. And then you need a planning person and a permitting person and you start to go through this process and it's not just

• 47:31Speaker 02

  incredibly laborious, but it's also very expensive. And so the Pacific Palisades and also Malibu, but probably more so Malibu entitlements are very challenging to get, to obtain. And an entitlement for anybody who doesn't know is the ability to build whatever is permitted to be built there. So if you have a piece of raw land that's unentitled, it's not really worth anything. Once you get a permit for a house or you get a permit for a building, now you've entitled it to whatever that design is.

• 48:01Mike Rowe?

  And those entitlements are issued by local government or by the state?

• 48:05Speaker 02

  Well, there's some zoning that's, you know, already set in place, but it's definitely local government. It's the local building department. The Department of Building and Safety is a big quagmire. There's a lot that goes on there. They're understaffed and they work ridiculous hours. They work so hard, but there's so much bureaucracy and red tape and requirements and clearances that the people that run the building department and work in the building department, they don't have the power to say yes. They only have the power to say no. And that slows things down to two, three, four, five, six years, you know, hearings, and you can't get anything entitled.

• 48:44Mike Rowe?

  So in real time now, it's been what, four months?

• 48:46Speaker 02

  No, baby, it's been eight months.

• 48:48Mike Rowe?

  Are you kidding me?

• 48:49Speaker 02

  Yeah. January 7th. What are we, August? What's today? 15th, 14th?

• 48:54Mike Rowe?

  I can't believe it's been eight months.

• 48:55Speaker 04

  August 14th today.

• 48:56Speaker 02

  August 14th.

• 48:57Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 49:02Mike Rowe?

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• 49:46Mike Rowe?

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• 50:25Speaker 02

  Yep, it's been eight months and there's, they opened up a satellite building department, sort of. It's not satellite. It's actually in West Los Angeles. I'm going to just speak about the Palisades to unconfuse people. Let's not talk about all of it. Let's just talk about what I know really well. That building department is in the Sotel Building Department in West LA. It's called the One Stop. It's a great idea. It's supposed to go in there one stop. It's called One Stop and get your permits, but it doesn't work like that, number one. Number two, 1,541 people were in there, like I checked, like maybe the 1st of August. 88 permits have been issued and 18 of those permits are in the Palisades. Now, I know that I have stuff that I've been working on for a couple of years because I'm a developer. It's a lot easier for me to go to One Stop, so maybe the 1,541 people are not from the

• 51:10Speaker 02

  Palisades. And that's not okay. If our resources are for the people in the Palisades, we should be issuing One Stop permits for people in the Palisades as they come in the door. And we're not doing that.

• 51:23Mike Rowe?

  Why do you think?

• 51:24Speaker 02

  Can't bureaucracy. It goes back to the beginning of the conversation that we're having before the show. Like, there's a money issue in Los Angeles. We have poor management of our resources. So, and that is, you know, clearly explained when you just look at the fires to begin with. There's no brush clearance. There's no water. The fire hydrants don't work. We don't have enough staff on the fire department itself. And when your mayor's not in town, and then you have a meeting with Trump who came in, and a bunch of promises are made and none are kept. So, our resources aren't managed. Then, you have this mobilization to do cleaning, which was provided by what's called the Biden May Talk, the FEMA. FEMA

• 52:09Speaker 02

  comes in. There's May Talks and Say Talks. People don't know what they are, but if you're in big construction, which I have been, you know that there's kind of a, in an emergency response situation, you have to have a preparedness. You have to be ready. And so that means you have to already have in line who is going to mobilize for you. What cleaning company? What hauling company? What, you know, check and balance, right, the accounting company? What traffic control company? And those people are in what's called a May Talk, which is a mandatory award outside contract thing that FEMA puts together. And then when the emergency happens, inevitably, they always do, your mobilization team is ready, and everyone gets in the plane, and the cars, and the trucks, and they show up.

• 52:53Speaker 02

  Army Corps of Engineers. Boom, there they are. And they are set up like a military outfit. So they're in theater. They're in theater. What are we doing? Okay, we're gonna do opt-in. This is our first program. Go to everybody, find everybody, opt-in. Are you opting in? Are you opt-to-sign up here? Everyone signs in. 6,800 opt-ins. Okay, great. Clean 608,000 homes. The postage stamp of the home. Simple lots. EPA comes in. Military style. You know, if you're not opting in, go over and sign that line. That money, that 1.1 billion, is federal. It is not Los Angeles. L.A. was standing around as an observer.

• 53:38Speaker 02

  In fact, in some cases, in the way. This is a military outfit in theater, cleaning up our streets and making sure everybody's okay.

• 53:45Mike Rowe?

  When did they arrive?

• 53:46Speaker 02

  They arrived at like the, I think, 11th of January.

• 53:51Mike Rowe?

  So that was fast?

• 53:52Speaker 02

  Oh, my God, they were quick as can be. I mean, Army Corps was on it.

• 53:55Mike Rowe?

  Okay.

• 53:56Speaker 02

  And also the National Guard. They had everybody trying to figure out what to do to make sure that everyone was out. Remember now, they haven't even figured out. They had body dogs, body, what do they call those?

• 54:08Mike Rowe?

  Cadaver dogs.

• 54:09Speaker 02

  Cadaver dogs out there. Live and, there are two different kinds of dogs, by the way. I had a whole thing on that. So.

• 54:15Mike Rowe?

  Two different kinds of cadaver dogs?

• 54:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, ones look for, no, two different kinds of dogs. Live dogs, dead dogs. Dogs that look for dead bodies. Dogs that look for live bodies. Did I say that right? Not dead dogs.

• 54:26Mike Rowe?

  I just can't imagine bringing a dead dog out to look for.

• 54:29Speaker 02

  Okay, so what I meant is there are dogs that look for dead bodies. And there are dogs that look for.

• 54:35Mike Rowe?

  Who look for living people, yeah.

• 54:36Speaker 02

  Okay, all right, sometimes.

• 54:38Mike Rowe?

  I mean, how do you decide? I mean, can you imagine the conversation at the pound?

• 54:42Speaker 02

  With the dog, like, hey, buddy.

• 54:44Mike Rowe?

  Weird Rochambeau.

• 54:44Speaker 02

  There's two roads we can go down here.

• 54:46Mike Rowe?

  I don't want to look for the dead ones. Give me the live ones.

• 54:50Speaker 02

  So they did all that and then then they started cleaning and they did and they were so great. I mean, they were really, really great. But again, let me just stress it's 6,800. And what's frustrating is because we're so unorganized in Los Angeles, and I'm sorry, you know, to the people in LA that are not unorganized, because believe me, there's plenty of people in LA that are not as unorganized as the overall management. So I apologize to all of you, because I know you're all working hard, Tracy, everybody. The issue is that you don't have a communication hub that is central for everything else. So all of the math is from the Army Corps' organization. So when you say we're 80% done, and you're at a microphone, and you're Karen Bass, you're 80% done with what the Army Corps

• 55:35Speaker 02

  of Engineers is doing. And that's not fair, because that's not true. If you have 18,000 structures that are gone, and those structures are big and small structures, 25,000 people without a place to sleep, and 100,000 people displaced, you don't say that when you're 80% done with 6,800 written down, organized by the Army Corps, you know, list of structures that were 80% done. It's just a straight up fabrication. And it's a fabrication of the math, and it gives false hope to people that were further along than we are. Also, everything else is wrong. How many trucks are there? How much debris storage do we need? How much time do we need? How much time does the insurance company need?

• 56:19Mike Rowe?

  Where is the debris storage? I mean, I keep reading about the landfills and the drama about where we're gonna put it, and how we're gonna get it there, and trains, and all of this. I mean, it's complicated. It's like you need to be a quartermaster. You're running a supply chain.

• 56:34Speaker 02

  Or have an accidentally weird skill set in railroad and in buildings.

• 56:38Mike Rowe?

  Right. Like, I mean, how do you?

• 56:40Speaker 02

  Who knew?

• 56:41Mike Rowe?

  So like, let's just focus on the debris for a minute. How much is there, and where are we gonna put it? And what's the holdup?

• 56:47Speaker 02

  Okay, so, everybody has their, like, secret little talents. Mine is a very weird talent. So I see empty space full in my head. I always have. It's how I, like, create things. I'm like, what's it gonna look like when it's done? Like, whether it's land or a room. And when the Palisades burned...

• 57:06Speaker 02

  And I drove to Altadena and I went through Malibu. I was like, this is a million trucks. This is a million trucks of debris. It broke my heart. Like, it's, it's just rubble. I mean, it's insane. It's worse than, it's so big. It's far bigger than Gaza.

• 57:22Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 57:22Speaker 02

  Like, think of it like that. And it's flattened. And they're like, it's not gonna be da, da, da, da, and sixty, eight hundred. And it infuriates me because it's a million trucks. Stop saying that. Because if you know it's a million, you can prepare for that. Instead, we just made it up. So we let them make it up. And just like all the other narratives that you know are not true, we want to believe it's true. And they wanted to believe that six thousand eight hundred would do it. Army Corps is gone or going. They just got like a finish up work.

• 57:51Mike Rowe?

  Wait a minute, six thousand eight hundred trucks would do the job?

• 57:54Speaker 02

  Six thousand eight hundred homes.

• 57:56Mike Rowe?

  Right.

• 57:56Speaker 02

  Was the end of it. And by the way, they're over four hundred thousand trucks and were half cleaned up. So.

• 58:04Mike Rowe?

  What's the reasonable expectation? Like, you're eight months into a disaster of this magnitude. How much of the debris should be gone, in your opinion?

• 58:13Speaker 02

  I don't think that the Army Corps and the efforts by FEMA were any less than a thousand percent spot on and incredible. They were very organized. They were fast. They were clean. They were polite. They were truly like, it's gonna be very hard to replace that outfit. And now it's independent contractors for people that did not opt in or things that were not on the list for FEMA to clean period. Very complicated lots and things that sloped down and big buildings and commercial stuff. There's a lot of stuff that was not on the opt-in list. Those people need a haul route. A haul route is, is this boring?

• 58:51Mike Rowe?

  No.

• 58:52Speaker 02

  Okay. So in order to move debris, when you get a permit to build a house, you are gonna be digging dirt, for example, because you're putting in a basement. Where are you gonna put the dirt? You go to the city and you say, I've got so many cubic yards of dirt. Where will I put it? And they're like, you can go this way. And you get a permit to take the dirt to a dump or to a specific landfill or a place that needs dirt. That's called, that route is called a haul route. If it's massive quantities, you have to have a hearing for it and you get it approved. And the haul route hearing approves your direction on the road. You're gonna go out, you're gonna go left, you're gonna go this way or on that freeway. Don't get off there or get off here. That's your haul route. When this first happened, there was this huge, big mess.

• 59:35Speaker 02

  They were driving to all of the local landfills because they wanted to expedite the delivery of the debris out of the city. So Karen Bass and Gavin Dushum and everybody wrote all these executive orders, and one of them waived some of the toxicities that are in the burned debris would be able to go into landfills that maybe weren't able to take that kind of toxic waste. Now, whether this did or did not happen, because I've been challenged on this. It's in writing, but whatever. Let's just say it's not true. Do you care if you're a mom with two kids and you live next to the Calabasas landfill? That it may or may not be true that that landfill is toxic. It's the point. You don't just put your trash in someone else's backyard.

• 1:00:20Speaker 02

  And that's what we did. And we did a lot, 400,000 trucks to Silmar and, you know, I don't know, Calabasas, Azusa, Simi Valley. And the mayor of Azusa famously said, "I found out about it when you did," to Channel 5 News. He didn't know. So they didn't ask anybody. And then they got a big hearing for a haul route. They were fighting over the haul route. And the Board of Supervisors caves and gives them what they want, but it's not actually what everybody thought. It wasn't more volume. It was more loads per day. So ECC, which was doing all the distributing of funds

• 1:01:03Speaker 02

  on behalf of Army Corps and the FEMA, May Talk, got a haul route, but not private individual contractors. They had to have their own relationships. So all the debris goes into all these local landfills. I think Khloe Kardashian, and if it is you, Khloe, you should reach out. I'd be happy to talk to you about that. Got really upset and said, well, what are you guys doing? And I said the same thing months earlier. What are we doing? We, this is too much debris. It needs to leave to a landfill that's not anywhere around here. There's lots of landfills designed specifically for this. It's all, they're lined, but it's more expensive if it's further away. Plus, if you do laid, a lay down yard, you know what a lay down yard is?

• 1:01:47Mike Rowe?

  Best to explain.

• 1:01:48Speaker 02

  So lay down yards are really important in big construction. They're prep yards, they're breakdown yards. They're where you separate debris and gravel. They're where you would lower in anything that's going to get loaded into a truck and taken off. Lay down yards are usually where the dirt really is.

• 1:02:02Mike Rowe?

  I worked in one, once with cement mixers where they drive them at night.

• 1:02:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:07Mike Rowe?

  Thousands of them and men crawl in the back of those drums with hammers. Cause every time that drum spins, right? Another layer hardens. So by the end of the day, a space that might've been 30 cubic yards is now 10. And all that's got to be hammered out, right?

• 1:02:25Speaker 02

  That's right. And then they dump it into the lay down yard. And then they grind it up.

• 1:02:28Mike Rowe?

  Yep.

• 1:02:28Speaker 02

  And they make a big dust pile and then they, yeah, that's lay down yard.

• 1:02:32Mike Rowe?

  Okay.

• 1:02:33Speaker 02

  So I was, well, little, I felt like a mouse, like, please listen to me. I was like, there's gotta be a better way. Why can't we put it on rail? And then I did a white, I love to write white papers. And I randomly found this, it wasn't completely random, but that's a different story. Cause I do, I'm in, I do a lot of stuff with railroad. But I found this place and it turns out that in 2007, a guy by the name of Michael Kissel, I hope he's watching this, I haven't been able to find him, wrote a white paper on creating a lay down yard in a rail setting.

• 1:03:14Speaker 02

  With loadable rail car access for massive amounts of debris if there was an emergency in Puente Hills, which is 12.4 miles from the epicenter lay down yard in Altadena and 34.4 miles from Chautauqua and PCH. So all of Malibu's debris and all of Altadena's debris and all of Palisades debris could go only freeway directly to that yard, which is more than big enough to take all of the debris because this is railroad. So you know, you got four, five, six trucks per car. And also it's designed for it. It's gigantic. It's massive.

• 1:03:51Mike Rowe?

  You still got to get the debris onto the railroad cars though, right?

• 1:03:55Speaker 02

  That's right. But that's what it's for. It's a debris on rail facility.

• 1:03:58Mike Rowe?

  Hmm.

• 1:03:59Speaker 02

  All right. So it's owned by what's called the Los Angeles Sanitation District and the white paper was drafted and sent to them. And I can't figure out when it happened, but sometime between 2007, eight and 2014, they got the $500 million to build it. They built it. It's there. It's beautiful and it's served by rail to a landfill.

• 1:04:21Mike Rowe?

  It was built basically for this purpose?

• 1:04:24Speaker 02

  Correct. And it's served by rail to a landfill. And the landfill is over by the LA River Cleanup. It's in an area that's designed for this. It's served by Union Pacific. They built seven miles of custom rail to make it work. And the landfill is 600 million cubic yards and it's empty. It's closed. And they've rented the Puente Hills facility and the landfill to a trucking company for storage. It's just a store, just the white covers, okay? For $150,000 a month for multiple years because they can't figure out how to own and operate it.

• 1:05:08Speaker 02

  So instead of mobilizing like an army and moving the trucking company, which by the way, we're perfectly fine to move, I did two hauling routes. I went to the city. I drove to the Puente Hills. I took pictures. I met everybody. I went to the landfill in Mosquita. I took picture. I did everything. Instead of just saying, this is a great idea, the email's unopened. It sits in the box. I can see the email to Gavin. It's not open. So I got so frustrated.

• 1:05:36Mike Rowe?

  So this is in the governor's inbox?

• 1:05:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, unopened. Gavin, unopened. So I got so frustrated that I called Bobby Kennedy because I love Bobby. He's such a great guy. I called him and I said, oh my God, I'm so frustrated. I need help. And he goes, what's up? And I said, can you read this? I sent him my white paper. He read my white paper, obviously, because he's like interested and curious and knows how to mobilize. And he sent it to Lee Zeldin. Okay, seven hours later, Lee Zeldin has Eric Amadon and his whole team on it. Seven hours.

• 1:06:13Mike Rowe?

  This is the guy running the EPA right now.

• 1:06:17Speaker 02

  These guys are on it. And so just my experience is always the same. Conservative people, whether you like them or not, are workers. They're people that work and move things all the time. And they're always working and they're always doing and they're always like creating and going forward because that's what their passion is versus like this whole like maybe someone else will do it mentality. And I feel like our government is not at all conservative. They're like waiting for something to happen to them in life.

• 1:06:50Mike Rowe?

  It feels, somebody said to me the other day, that it just feels like a conspicuous lack of urgency.

• 1:06:57Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:06:59Mike Rowe?

  And if you're not, if this doesn't... I just can't imagine living where you live. You had a front row seat to all of this. I was here. I just landed the day the fires started and had a front row seat to a degree to it. I'll remember it the rest of my life. But for the people who really call this place home, that is going to be a defining catastrophic event. And if that doesn't break the spell of just Mismanagement. It's, I mean, mismanagement implies a level of action that's misguided. You're not talking about any Good point. What management?

• 1:07:43Mike Rowe?

  You're talking about emails that aren't being opened. You're talking about facilities, big investments that were built. It's like the fire extinguishers are within reach. The structure is fully involved. But we're going to have a conversation about whether or not to access the fire extinguishers. Makes no sense. And I think people listening in different parts of the country are just shaking their head and going, you know something? Governments like TV. You get what you deserve. And these guys have got the government they deserve for a whole bunch of reasons. And it's California. And throw in the gerrymandering conversation and everything else. I think, I don't know if you thought much about it or, or if you care,

• 1:08:27Mike Rowe?

  but the rest of the country, so much of the country doesn't know how to think about California. They're exhausted by our identity crisis, I think. They're just exhausted by it. And where a lot of people would normally feel sympathy, they don't. They just shake their head and they go, you know what? That's a lot of rich people in a beautiful part of the world that elected a bunch of bums. And now Now they're reaping what they sowed.

• 1:08:56Speaker 02

  Hmm. Well, I would like to go on record and say that my love for California is beyond explainable in this podcast. And part of that is because of the people that I've met since I've been here. There's no place more cosmopolitan. There's no bigger diversity in terms of the kind of people you meet. There's no harder working people. If you there's lots of people, but they work really hard. And the most successful people and everything from the acting community to the farming community to the it's a true American dream community. And the current administration is sabotaging it, which is frustrating. Not just Hollywood. They sabotage everything. And I don't know if it's by design or accident.

• 1:09:41Speaker 02

  I mean, I honestly don't want to give them enough credit to say it's by design. I think it's literally like so busy trying to get elected to the next position that you're so busy hustling that that you're not really doing your job.

• 1:09:50Mike Rowe?

  It just, I mean,

• 1:09:51Speaker 02

  It's not, there's no, look, Gavin's been playing at this, you know, presidential thing for well over the last few years. And to me, he's never even here. Your leader's not there. I don't even know about Karen Bass. I cannot find I've asked people like, did you vote for Karen Bass? I can't find a single person. So who are these people? Because I know a lot of people. I know people inside of California. I know union people. I know San Diego people, San Francisco. I can't find anybody that voted for this woman. So our systems are screwed up. Our management is screwed up and our resources are squandered. We have no money. We're like $300 billion in debt now, or something crazy, or will

• 1:10:31Speaker 02

  be when he leaves, whatever. And with no money, no power, and no know how, nothing is going to get resolved. And I do not believe for a minute that that's not going to change. Because this hit Democratic ground zero. And these are the people that make this state great. So these people in the Palisades, these people that are friends of mine, need to take a minute and really think about who they want to run the state. Because we can't repeat this. It can't be, you know, some assembly person from San Diego. I'm not even going to name names. There are 50 people running for mayor. There is not a single person or governor, single, not one. I read every one of them.

• 1:11:12Mike Rowe?

  Can you explain to me? There's gotta be a grift.

• 1:11:17Speaker 02

  There is a grift.

• 1:11:20Mike Rowe?

  Why are 50 people running for governor when probably 50 of those people know with absolute certainty they cannot and will not win? What's the point?

• 1:11:31Speaker 05

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• 1:12:02Speaker 02

  Okay, so let's start with the fact that you can't raise money. If I say I'm gonna be governor, I'm gonna run, I'm gonna, I'm having a campaign, you have to actually have a campaign committee. Once you form a campaign committee, you have to have a treasurer. And the treasurer has to have a bank account. And that money has to be managed by the treasurer in the campaign committee because of campaign financing laws. So it's kind of set up like that, which is sort of edgy, because who's to say that every campaign, you know, treasurer person is, you know, truly, you know, on the up and up?

• 1:12:34Mike Rowe?

  Right.

• 1:12:35Speaker 02

  And you've met all the requirements by just having one. There's like probably a 4% charge for credit card charges and bitcoin charges and things like that. If you're like, you know, raising money and somebody goes on your QR code and gives you money, so you pay, that goes out right away. And then the management of this campaign costs money, so that goes out right away.

• 1:12:52Mike Rowe?

  So how large is the average campaign committee? How many people are we talking about?

• 1:12:55Speaker 02

  I think you're only required to have two, yourself and one treasurer. Oh, no, it's, it's crazy. I mean, it's crazy. I'm sure as it gets bigger and you get bigger, and if you do have a path to, you know, winning, that maybe that changes, but I'm just making the point, like, anyone can run.

• 1:13:10Mike Rowe?

  In order to run, you gotta declare, gotta have a treasurer, gotta form a committee, but the two of you are enough to justify the enterprise.

• 1:13:17Speaker 02

  That's right. You and I could do it, yeah. We could run all over the country going, "Yeah, woo!", and then you could talk about your show, and I could talk about my train.

• 1:13:22Mike Rowe?

  And we could raise money.

• 1:13:24Speaker 02

  Right, and we could raise as much money as we want.

• 1:13:25Mike Rowe?

  Millions.

• 1:13:26Speaker 02

  It's all covered under our campaign stuff.

• 1:13:28Mike Rowe?

  What do you mean covered?

• 1:13:29Speaker 02

  Wait, who's gonna be the treasurer, though? You or me?

• 1:13:31Mike Rowe?

  Rock, paper, scissors, baby.

• 1:13:32Speaker 02

  That's the way to do it, I think.

• 1:13:33Mike Rowe?

  That's the only sensible way.

• 1:13:34Speaker 02

  And then we just, you know, chitty chat about everything, and, and then you've got like this, you're raising a lot of money, and you're talking about like Leo Zaki talking about his chickens, and everybody talking about their stuff, and I'm just like, what are you? What?

• 1:13:45Mike Rowe?

  So let's say we decide to do it. I'll be the treasurer. You run for governor.

• 1:13:51Speaker 02

  All right.

• 1:13:52Mike Rowe?

  All right. We do it. We go out in the world. I start talking about dirty jobs.

• 1:13:55Speaker 02

  I'm gonna give you a hundred bucks and I want you to get to a million dollars.

• 1:13:59Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, you know, I guess we could turn it into a TV show. But let's just say we go out there and people really dig what we're screaming. And they like it. And we raised 10 million dollars. And then, you know, this happens, that happens, and we decide for whatever reason, you know, sorry, we gotta shut it down. We're not gonna.

• 1:14:17Speaker 02

  You always have that campaign fund sitting there to be used for campaigning.

• 1:14:21Mike Rowe?

  What do you mean? Like, where's the 10 million go? You don't give it back.

• 1:14:24Speaker 02

  No, it just sits in the account if you didn't spend it.

• 1:14:27Mike Rowe?

  If you didn't spend it and it sits in the account and you're no longer running, I don't understand, like.

• 1:14:34Speaker 02

  I mean, I suppose you would keep it in the account and run for something else or run down, what they call run down. People run down. I mean, why stop running? You have a, you got a campaign, you're out there.

• 1:14:43Mike Rowe?

  But can you legally take that money that you've raised out of the campaign and then go back to your private life with that money?

• 1:14:51Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, I guess if you're Kamala Harris, you can, because that's what happened.

• 1:14:55Mike Rowe?

  Really?

• 1:14:56Speaker 02

  I mean, well, first of all, I'm sure some people caught this, and I certainly did. When you register, you have a registration number, and Biden had a registration number and Kamala had a registration number. And when they first swapped out the Biden-Kamala thing, they used Biden's registration number for a while. Someone caught it and it was gone. But I caught it. I took a screenshot of it.

• 1:15:14Mike Rowe?

  Really?

• 1:15:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, really.

• 1:15:16Mike Rowe?

  You really are a jagged little pill.

• 1:15:18Speaker 02

  It pissed me off. And then they also took all the money. And then they paid like all these friends of theirs, tens of millions of dollars, Beyonce and Oprah, all these people, they paid them. And then all these people are like, no, I did it for free. They did not do it for free.

• 1:15:30Mike Rowe?

  So wait.

• 1:15:31Speaker 02

  And now all the money's gone. I think she owes like 25 million dollars to her campaign fund, which was actually Biden's campaign fund.

• 1:15:39Speaker 02

  Maybe she couldn't run for governor because she doesn't have any money. She's 25 million in the hole or something. It's a grift. The whole thing's a grift. It's absolutely a grift. And also, in California, listen, guys, it's a runoff race. So if too many people are running, we'll lose. Because if you get 2%, 3% little bit here, okay, one guy's like running around following you, that's one less person voting for the one person that could run it. So if you see a clear leader, drop out. If somebody is really good, drop out. And there's not really, what do you call it, a primary? Because it's a runoff race.

• 1:16:16Mike Rowe?

  Right.

• 1:16:16Speaker 02

  So it's kind of, they can call it a primary, and they can say, we're gonna, the Democratic Party's gotta, you know, endorse someone. So they'll probably endorse maybe Katie Porter because she seems to be leading, but like, it's the, I'm gonna say something very unpopular, but it's like, it doesn't matter right now if you're getting 16% or 15% of nothing because no one else is running. When somebody really emboldened and really smart runs, then it'll make a difference.

• 1:16:41Mike Rowe?

  Is Gavin gonna run for president?

• 1:16:43Speaker 02

  Yeah. And the DNC, they're gonna, these dummies are gonna fund it.

• 1:16:48Mike Rowe?

  Who's gonna run the state?

• 1:16:50Speaker 02

  The state?

• 1:16:51Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:52Speaker 02

  Oh, gosh, that is, I don't know.

• 1:16:55Mike Rowe?

  I mean, I know this girl that had this shoe shine business. Once upon a time. And then, you know, it's this denim thing, and then this rags thing.

• 1:17:05Speaker 02

  Rags to riches.

• 1:17:06Mike Rowe?

  Yeah. And now she seems kinda cranky, and she's, her kids are grown, and she seems to be, she's got a pebble in her shoe, you know?

• 1:17:17Speaker 02

  I have a pee in my mattress.

• 1:17:18Mike Rowe?

  Yes.

• 1:17:19Speaker 02

  I am, what an amazing opportunity to seize if you're the right person.

• 1:17:29Speaker 02

  And

• 1:17:30Mike Rowe?

  In the right time.

• 1:17:31Speaker 02

  And the right time. And I can only say this, it's a huge job. And it's in almost impossible to be qualified to do it truly. And I think the difference between having success at being a governor of a state this size is through the participation of the people that you ask for help. There's just too much to fix. It's really big. And there are so many people out there individually that you could put together on a team that could right the ship if you were only willing to ask for help. And that's the problem that we have now. Karen Bash should have asked for help and

• 1:18:16Speaker 02

  not from Steve Soboroff. She should have said, she should have gone to Ron Tudor or somebody meaningful. And

• 1:18:22Mike Rowe?

  It goes back, I'm sorry, but it was like Jeff's point this morning. It's still the emperor has no clothes. It's still like, why didn't she ask for help? It feels like part of the reason is because you can't acknowledge the naked emperor. You can't look at unprecedented homelessness in DC and say, okay, that is a problem. Maybe we should do this to fix it instead of this. What you have to do instead is say, there's nothing to see. There is no homeless problem. There is no crime problem. There is no palisades problem. There is no debris removal problem. There's nothing to see here.

• 1:19:00Speaker 02

  Well, admitting that you have a problem is the first.

• 1:19:05Mike Rowe?

  My name's Elaine.

• 1:19:06Speaker 02

  And I'm sorry, but I have, I have a problem. Um, the, a few problems. I mean, first of all, I think that there's, we haven't had a lieutenant governor in three decades that really moved the needle either. And the lieutenant governor's job is primarily to bring new business into the state. And we've done the opposite. We are running business out of the state, California.

• 1:19:28Mike Rowe?

  I love this state. The, my office is in this state. My best friend moved here 45 years ago, or whenever you moved here. I don't know when it was. You've been here a long time.

• 1:19:38Speaker 02

  Chuck's stuck here with you in this state.

• 1:19:41Mike Rowe?

  Chuck's stuck here with me. I'm stuck. Eighty-seven, that's what I'm Eighty-seven. You know, now, look, I'm friendly with Joe Rogan. And when he talks about why he left and how happy he was to leave, a part of me is like, man, I

• 1:19:54Speaker 02

  He's not really, he's not. He's just fibbing you.

• 1:19:59Mike Rowe?

  You know, he's

• 1:20:00Speaker 02

  He's gaming. He's not either. There's no way. I'm sure he loves it in a lot of ways, but there is nobody that, look.

• 1:20:08Mike Rowe?

  Oh, you're saying he doesn't love Austin as much as he's saying he loves Austin?

• 1:20:11Speaker 02

  Nobody could, I don't believe, Joe, I don't believe you. But I do, I believe.

• 1:20:16Mike Rowe?

  Well, look, I don't disbelieve him because I think that you can hit a critical mass of just exhaustion with a person you love, a business you love, or a state you love. Right? I think, I think you get to the point.

• 1:20:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, I definitely think you get like, and sometimes like I get basically what I would call extended deal fatigue. I'm just like, wait, are we at this again? But.

• 1:20:41Mike Rowe?

  I shot two series and a movie.

• 1:20:45Mike Rowe?

  One in Georgia, the other in Oklahoma. I would have loved to have filmed them here. I would have loved to have done all that for this community and would have wildly simplified my life. But the incentives, Elaine, it's just, I mean, you're a developer.

• 1:21:00Speaker 02

  It's so fixable, though. That's a fixable thing. This is the thing I always try to hang on to, and I wish everybody would. Nothing has changed here. It's the best topography. It's the best weather. It's the most beautiful. It's an incredible lifestyle. The ocean is insane. The animals are insane. The people are insane. The restaurants are insane. It's fabulous. It's easy to get in, easy to get out, close to everything. Going down to Mexico, we have this cute little island. It's perfect.

• 1:21:24Mike Rowe?

  When you say insane, you're just being.

• 1:21:26Speaker 02

  Beautiful.

• 1:21:26Mike Rowe?

  It's insanely beautiful.

• 1:21:28Speaker 02

  Epic, fabulous, wonderful. The only thing that's wrong is the management. It's just the government. If you get rid of the government and get in new government, we're back. We are back. We have got to get rid of the insanity.

• 1:21:40Mike Rowe?

  What the hell would Texas do?

• 1:21:43Speaker 02

  That's a good point.

• 1:21:44Mike Rowe?

  If California went.

• 1:21:45Speaker 02

  I would go back to be in Texas.

• 1:21:48Speaker 02

  They wouldn't care at all. Texas, the thing about Texans is they're pretty resilient. I don't know that they like the hoopla.

• 1:21:54Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:54Speaker 02

  You know, real Texans are probably like, oh, God, here comes the middle one. And by the way, be careful over there because you know what happens when you invite all the Democrats to your state? They vote Democratic. And there's a lot, a lot of examples of that. How's Montana, by the way?

• 1:22:08Mike Rowe?

  Big.

• 1:22:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:22:09Mike Rowe?

  Big sky.

• 1:22:10Speaker 02

  Big sky.

• 1:22:11Mike Rowe?

  Beautiful. Dakotas are beautiful.

• 1:22:12Speaker 02

  You know, my mom says that about Colorado. She's like, it has to be so conservative.

• 1:22:18Mike Rowe?

  Well, I mean, look, I think sometimes, and listeners have heard me say this a bunch. And I'm not rooting for it or wishing for it, but sometimes things have to go splat.

• 1:22:30Speaker 02

  We're splatted. You want it to be more splatted than this?

• 1:22:33Mike Rowe?

  No, I don't.

• 1:22:34Speaker 02

  We are literally like Humpty Dumpty. Are you kidding? It's like.

• 1:22:38Mike Rowe?

  Well, then where is the strom and drang? Where's the protest for that? Are people just so anesthetized?

• 1:22:47Speaker 02

  Well, Madison McQueen did a poll, my friend Owen, oh, my gosh. They did a poll and you get a line, I get a poll. It said.

• 1:22:56Mike Rowe?

  Craw that, craw that feeling fine, honey. Craw that, craw that feeling fine, baby. You get a line and I'll get a poll. We'll go fishing and crawl that hole, honey. Baby, oh, mine.

• 1:23:07Speaker 02

  Okay, so 48% of California is conservative. 48%.

• 1:23:12Mike Rowe?

  Is that right?

• 1:23:13Speaker 02

  That is correct.

• 1:23:14Mike Rowe?

  I heard 40, but okay, 48%.

• 1:23:16Speaker 02

  48%. The problem is registration. People have a hard time, and I'm one of those people. Registering Republican, when you register Republican and you're, you know, you're from California and you believe in California and you're at the driver's license bureau, whatever, and you check the box Republican. It's hard because you're like, why is it not working? But check the box red. I mean, just register red because it sends a message to Sacramento that we're done. It doesn't matter. You can vote for whoever you want, but stop voting blue right now because it's bad.

• 1:23:51Mike Rowe?

  Chuck, give me the Mark Twain quote again. Because, look, as you search for it, I agree with you. I hate the fact that the only way to talk about what we're talking about is to make it red versus blue or conservative versus liberal.

• 1:24:05Mike Rowe?

  But we have to call it something. And what you're asking people to do, sounds real simple. Just check this box instead of that box.

• 1:24:14Speaker 02

  It's so easy. It's the first step.

• 1:24:15Mike Rowe?

  The business of checking is easy, but what you're asking them to do is abandon their identity and admit, admit the thing that Mark Twain says they can't, which is, "We were fooled. We were lied to by the people that we voted for. And we participated unwittingly perhaps, in a grift." And now, the only way to fix it is to have a little talk with myself. I gotta, you know, I can't just check the box until I go, "You know something? I was fleeced." Right? And that's gonna be hard for people. And, I mean, I've talked to some people who live in the Palisades and one in Altadena,

• 1:24:57Mike Rowe?

  who have changed their political worldview, precisely because of the mismanagement you're talking about. But they lost everything. That's a splat.

• 1:25:08Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:25:09Mike Rowe?

  I don't want for everybody to have to lose everything in order to, to have that kind of, you know, peripetia.

• 1:25:17Speaker 02

  Okay, here's an easy thing. Right now, there's a lot of scuttlebutt going on with Texas and with Gavin Newsom and the Democrats that walked out over the redistricting and relining the borders of certain districts.

• 1:25:32Mike Rowe?

  Jerry Mandarin.

• 1:25:32Speaker 02

  Jerry Mandarin. And my message to people in California is this. If Gavin Newsom is proposing it, say no to it, because Gavin's leaving. And we've been, under the, you know, guise that Gavin Newsom has done a fine job running the state. He's leaving us with $300 billion of debt. And our state is burned down. I don't know how we're gonna do the Olympics without help from Trump. And my guess is he's not going to leave us a parting gift. That is a present that we want to open. My guess is the pushing of this agenda and many other things is really bad for us and

• 1:26:15Speaker 02

  and for the state because it's pushing us further left when what we need is to try to find our center. We're off balance and just vote for absolutely nothing that Gavin Newsom wants us to do at the end of this. It's a special election too, and he does not have enough time. It's 120 days super majority to do this and he's going to do it in 90 days and it's just not right. So, don't vote for that. And yes, you guys, the Democrats might lose some seats. So what? We need to, we're out of balance. We're not checking balance.

• 1:26:46Mike Rowe?

  Well, it's certainly not. How many seats does the state have in total?

• 1:26:48Speaker 02

  Um, well, this is for five.

• 1:26:51Mike Rowe?

  52?

• 1:26:52Speaker 02

  And this is for five, I think five more Democratic seats.

• 1:26:57Speaker 01

  Right now, it's 43 to 9 Democrats to Republicans.

• 1:27:00Speaker 02

  Right. And what people need to understand is that, you know, our farmers and our supply chain, our unions, our pay and all of these things, they require conservative management. And the further we get away from that, the further we enslave ourselves to the state debt. And that's the problem. And people don't understand, we cannot afford it. We have got to have some conservative reins on our checkbook.

• 1:27:23Mike Rowe?

  Well, look, I'll tell you this, if you're right, about 48%.

• 1:27:27Speaker 02

  It's true. The problem is, you know, 25% of California is not registered to vote. They'll vote conservative, they say they're conservatives, but both Democratic and, yeah.

• 1:27:37Mike Rowe?

  So what's the percent? If you've got 52 seats.

• 1:27:40Speaker 02

  Oh, that's...

• 1:27:42Mike Rowe?

  Right, so, and not...

• 1:27:43Speaker 02

  That's a good question. How many of the 52 seats are Democratic? I think it's almost all of them.

• 1:27:46Speaker 01

  43. Yeah, 43 and 9 Republicans.

• 1:27:49Mike Rowe?

  So, if you were looking at what I think a lot of people would agree is kind of a rational reflection, the basic makeup of a state, uh, per capita would be reflected in their seats. So, that means 48% of 52 would be on the right and 52% of 52 would be on the left and that margin would be more like 6 or 7 instead of 43.

• 1:28:18Speaker 02

  But that's not realistic if you're gerrymandering and screwing around with the books all the time.

• 1:28:22Mike Rowe?

  And, but what are we going to be left with in the country?

• 1:28:24Speaker 02

  We had 2 million signatures to recall Gavin Newsom the first time and he wasn't recalled. Do you know how hard it is to get 2 million signatures?

• 1:28:31Mike Rowe?

  I do. I do.

• 1:28:33Speaker 02

  It's challenging. We've got some serious problems.

• 1:28:36Mike Rowe?

  You know how hard it is to get 2 million listeners?

• 1:28:39Speaker 02

  Not for you.

• 1:28:40Mike Rowe?

  I think I just lost about half of them. Thank you.

• 1:28:45Speaker 02

  Hey, you're gonna get new ones that are really, really nice people.

• 1:28:48Mike Rowe?

  Look, man, I think, you know, people listen to this-

• 1:28:51Speaker 02

  You're gonna get all the farmers.

• 1:28:52Mike Rowe?

  You know what? Farmers are always welcome here.

• 1:28:54Speaker 02

  You're gonna get the Central Valley.

• 1:28:55Mike Rowe?

  I mean, that was dirty jobs. Farmers and miners.

• 1:28:57Speaker 02

  You're gonna get everyone in railroad. And railroad's the biggest real estate holder in the United States.

• 1:29:01Mike Rowe?

  All the live long day.

• 1:29:02Speaker 02

  That's the... And there's nothing really, really loosey goosey liberal about railroad and farming. They're just conservative people.

• 1:29:09Mike Rowe?

  The muscular trades is our friend Victor Davis Hansen.

• 1:29:12Speaker 02

  You can get all the ports.

• 1:29:13Mike Rowe?

  Any port in a store.

• 1:29:14Speaker 02

  Import, export.

• 1:29:16Mike Rowe?

  Um, okay, look, I gotta wrap it up. Where do people go to learn more about specifically, I'm talking to Californians now, where can they go to learn more about what you're up to with this shoe shine girl has turned into? And, and how they might help if they're so inclined in your Sisyphean task?

• 1:29:34Speaker 02

  Well, I'm working diligently in the Pacific Palisades to put together a Pacific Palisades Building Department, the City of Pacific Palisades Building Department on Sunset in the Village. What we're fighting about right now, this is so great, this is so epic. The landlord who wanted to donate the space gets lost use insurance. And the insurance company wants to take away his lost use while he donates the space. So, we're working through that and then we're gonna have a nice spot there in the Village. I'm very easy to reach on Lipstick Farmer, hashtag Lipstick Farmer on Instagram, because I am a baby boomer and Lipstick Farmer is easy for me to operate. And I have a website, of course, that I link to, and you can also find me on everything Twitter and the norms.

• 1:30:20Speaker 02

  And now you can find me if you just ask Mike, he has my number.

• 1:30:23Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, oh, wow, I know how to find you. And you will officially or unofficially begin referring to the third swan as Gibbons?

• 1:30:30Speaker 02

  From here on out. There's no question about it. And I'm gonna start reciting poetry, so the next time I get in here, I can one-up you.

• 1:30:36Mike Rowe?

  Final question. It's a layup, but- In a sentence or two, what would you tell people who know in their bones that Donald Trump should not be leading this country? They know it, and they'll never come around to his way of thinking, but who live in this state and share your basic concern? How should they think about what to do?

• 1:31:02Speaker 02

  Ooh, okay, I'm so controversial today. I want to say that it's really going to be wonderful to have the Olympics here. It would be amazing. I would prefer that it's not embarrassing, and there's so much work to do for that to happen. I would prefer that we have somebody who's put together already an Olympic task force, who is willing to show up here and invest money in our state. We are out of the federal conversation, and I don't think people understand that. Because of the rift between Gavin Newsom and Donald Trump, we are completely left out of the conversation, which means we don't have federal assistance when we need it. And we need it.

• 1:31:44Speaker 02

  And it might be very hard, you know, to swallow your tongue and whatever, kiss the ring, whatever you want to say. We need federal assistance because our current administration has lost, or stolen, or who knows, all of our money. We don't have any money. If you don't have any money, you don't have any power, and if you don't have any power, you don't have any way to solve your problem.

• 1:32:08Mike Rowe?

  Spoken like a true hybrid, an undercover billionaire, a lipstick farmer, a former shoe shine gal, from rags to, I'm tempted to say, riches, but I'll just say it. You're living a big life. I'm really glad you did this. It's a pleasure to meet you and know you.

• 1:32:23Speaker 02

  Thank you for giving me the platform, and I really appreciate it.

• 1:32:26Mike Rowe?

  My pleasure. Elaine Colletti, see you next week.

• 1:33:00Speaker 06

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• 1:33:30Speaker 07

  Hey, man, I have a question. Okay, tell me. Can you count to one? Can I count to one? What are you talking about? Is this a trick? No. One is the number of local law enforcement officials who have endorsed Shannon Taylor for Congress.

• 1:33:46Speaker 07

  One? It's one. The sheriffs in our district endorse Rob Whitman instead. They know Shannon Taylor calls herself a progressive prosecutor. Progressive prosecutor? What's that even mean? She founded a group that backed a bunch of nutty, soft-on-crime stuff here in Virginia, like ending cash bail. Yeah, man, that is nuts. Taylor's group also opposed harsher penalties for assaulting cops and backed "defund the police" candidates. Mm-hmm. Now it makes sense. Shannon Taylor is with criminals, not cops. That's why the sheriffs in our district are for Rob Whitman. Yep, Rob Whitman all the way. I'm Rob Whitman, candidate for Congress, and I approve this message. Paid for by Rob Whitman for Congress.