The HoneyDew with Ryan Sickler - Lana Negrete - SMMC

Episode Date: June 29, 2020

My HoneyDew this week is my friend and owner of the Santa Monica Music Center, Lana Negrete! Lana was raised by a Cuban father (via Toronto) and a Trinidadian mother. She shares stories of prejudice, coming of age, and we discuss what happened to the store when it was looted. Lana is a natural and I’m honored to work with her! Subscribe to my YouTube channel & watch The Dew there every toozdee! https://www.youtube.com/user/rsickler/videos Subscribe to my Patreon show, The HoneyDew with Y’all, where I highlight the lowlights with y’all! What’s your story?? https://www.patreon.com/TheHoneyDew

Will you rise with the sun to help change mental health care forever? Join the Sunrise Challenge to raise funds for CAMH, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, to support life-saving progress in mental health care. From May 27th to 31st, people across Canada will rise together and show those living with mental illness and addiction that they're not alone. Help CAMH build a future where no one is left behind. So, who will you rise for?

Register today at sunrisechallenge.ca. That's sunrisechallenge.ca. The Honeydew with Ryan Sickler. Welcome back to The Honeydew, y'all. We're over here doing it at Studio Night Pants. I am Ryan Sickler, and I know, I know you want me to say at your mom's house. Hell, I want to say it. I said it for a year and a half.

Of course, it's difficult for me to even say it, but I tried something different. I had something different. I like studio. In the, what would you say, in the vein and honor of your mom's house with studio jeans, I thought we'd go studio night pants, okay? Let's try something, all right? I know you're going to say at your mom's house. I did make a nice little ringy catchphrase.

But anyway, thank you all for your support. Thank you for being here. Please go subscribe to the YouTube channel, youtube.com slash rsickler. Also, make sure you're subscribed to the Facebook fan page as well. Get over there. We're going to have content there as well. And if you haven't submitted your story or subscribe to the Patreon yet, please go do that. The new show is called The Honeydew With Y'all where I highlight the lowlights with y'all. You can submit your email at honeydewpodcast at gmail.com.

Go to ryansickler.com, honeydewpodcast.com. You can subscribe there. I've already talked to an old friend whose dad came out in his late 40s. I talked to a girl who had two pussies. I've talked to quite a few people.

We're going to be bringing it to y'all every Thursday. It goes up on Patreon. All right. And I can't thank you again for all of your support. Merch Night Pants Nation. I mean, y'all are fucking rolling out. I hope everybody's comfortable shit because I swear to you, they're quality night pants. Go to HoneyDewPodcast.com

or RyanSickler.com in the merch store. Get yourself a pair of night pants. I record here at the Santa Monica Music Center and I can't thank you again. There's so many of you have helped the messages, the donations, everything. The HoneyDew Strong shirt, of course, I can't forget that. That's also available in the merch store. Proceeds from that shirt go to benefit the Santa Monica Music Center. And if you're out there and you're looking for lessons, go to santamonicamusic.com. Get a lesson. Get a lesson for you.

Get a lesson for the kids. Hell, take lessons with your kids. Connect with your damn kids. Okay? Learn something. Y'all can play guitar together. You know, maybe you're into woodwinds. I don't know.

Maybe you like the clarinet. Grab the licorice stick. Go play something, okay? If you're in Indiana and you want your kids or yourself to be trained by a kick-ass Los Angeles musician, this is the place to go. They're a family-owned business. Been here for 50 years, serving the community. They do great programs.

You're going to hear about all that, all right? Because the show is all about highlighting the lowlights, and I always say these are the stories behind the storytellers. And today's guest is my good friend and owner of the Santa Monica Music Center. Ladies and gentlemen, Lana Greti. Welcome to the Honeydew podcast, Lana. Thank you, Ryan. I appreciate you being here. We're going to talk about everything that happened. You know, there's been a crazy time in our lives, beginning with Corona. So before we get to that, we're going to tell your story.

You're a great friend of mine. You're so good to my daughter's mother, family, my daughter, everybody. But you're, I've always fascinated, always made me laugh my ass off over there like when I first met you I knew you were cool when I was like I'm trying to stroll my daughter and you were like oh he's funny so I was like okay Lana gets it I'm just kind of strong

but anyway let's go back to the beginning for you you're born and raised here in Santa Monica and just talk tell us your story born and raised station 26 is what I like to say. That's not where I was born, but I was definitely raised by the beach, Station 26. Is that the lifeguard station? That's the lifeguard station, which, by the way, the original one got partially burned,

so they replaced it with another one. But, yeah, my mom came here when she was, well, she came to America from Trinidad when she was a teenager, 16 or so. By the time they went from Florida to Georgia, she experienced a lot of racism in Georgia. She was not allowed to swim in the pool. So wait, because I know your mom. Now, it's funny because Annie is also here, by the way. And Annie's going to be joining us for part of the story, too. Annie thought you were a white lady. No't know no no i know those highlights are good um i mean my mom

is from trinidad um and she's so she's west indian but your mom's not she wasn't allowed to swim in the pool she because i don't your mom doesn't look like you haven't met my grandpa okay so her dad's darker than any for sure and so they called them a straight-haired n-word and that's okay so so seeing your mom with your dad was like you're not with with my grandpa i mean grandpa yeah sorry her dad but it was actually just seeing my mom because she's dark she's just older now maybe i'll show you older pictures of her but my mom was dark long black hair and um and there was seven of them her siblings you do the accent i know yeah and the first time i heard you did i was like oh it's a good impression then i realized oh no that's not an impression it's a person of her mom no what i love about that is that we grew

up calling our vagina a pokey because that's what they call it pokey and toti and i remember figuring out that it was actually a vagina and so then i told my friends like we would go around and ask boys like so do you have a pokey or a toti and then if they answered it you know like i got a pokey or what do you like better you know they said do you i like a toti but yeah my mom we grew up with a little bit of the accent it was already fading away she really wanted to assimilate into american culture why why did your mom come here or why did her family come here? Well, they lived in Kearney Village.

So some people don't even know where Trinidad and Tobago is. It's a small island in the Caribbean. Have you been? I've been. Yeah, we went back. And I was like, this is miserable. She literally, they repaired patches in their, I don't want to say hut, but where they lived. It was like shantytown.

They repaired patches with, her job was to get cow dung and mud. And you mix it. And that's how you repair the patches in your house. She didn't get shoes until she was like 10. So, you know, she was from a little village. They bathed in a pipe in the road. She killed chickens. For real?

Yeah, for real. They went to the bathroom in an outhouse. Look up Cairney Village. Isn't it crazy that, like, it seems like so long ago, but it's not. None of this shit is so long ago. None of it. We laughed when she tried to be vegetarian. We're like, you used to snap chickens' necks.

She's like like it was organic wow but she so she came from a super rural background and she came here all smiles that's that caribbean smile and was horrified by american culture from day one so why did they come thinking for a better life okay i mean I mean, and they went, they got straight to Georgia. Well, they went to Florida first, so they had to go in sections, you know,

to find work. And my mom, my grandmother, my mom would clean motel rooms. And then when they met, they went to Georgia, they lived in the house in Georgia. I don't know if you know the film from the sixties and seventies,

big Ben where the bear. Yeah, of course they lived in. It was a rundown dilapidated, you weren't supposed to live in there. There was probably mold. We're later going to find out. Get your shit, we're moving to the Walton house. Exactly. They lived in that condemned house.

Yeah, right. So they let this poor little family come in. People just couldn't figure it out. After the show. After the show was over, it was like all rund all run downs like no trespassing disease ridden i'm gonna go see uncle charlie at the little house on the prairie house i'll be back you can make a living out of living off those old stuff there was parts of the house that you couldn't even go into so i mean they lived there my mom has some great stories crazy really they lived in they lived in that house it was all they could afford

i mean people couldn't figure out what they were racially. They were super dark, but they weren't black, but they weren't white, and they weren't Mexican, they weren't Indian. They're like, what the hell are these people with this Caribbean accent? I mean, I grew up a white kid, and I didn't know. I first

knew, it was all through soccer. Soccer in Maryland was where I started to see diversity and dominican kids and and we had and then with the baltimore blast they had this guy i'll never forget his name was richard chinapoo and he was from trinidad and that's when i learned because he was fucking good you know and i'm like oh and you look at the little bios and the magazine that's how they say it um but yeah my mom you know by the time that she got to california she was 18 and i mean i think she met my dad at 17 and a half but we won't go into that and my

dad's like 13 years older than her oh really yeah and she was into American culture. 17 and a half. She was. That's the truth. Can't arrest him now. Four wives later. No, but he was a musician, a drummer, and he was playing at Charlie Brown's. Anybody who's been around a long time will know what that is. My dad had opened up Clockwork Orange. That was the movie. Okay, so wait.

So hold on. So your mom's family relocates out here. Yes, and you know live at 18 or does she go on her own no the whole family they all came together first they all lived in the motel on rose and lincoln right next to la cabana yep five kids and two adults the seven of them they cooked they had a hot plate that you would or not a hot plate a stove thing you use for camping that they would put on the back of the toilet and that's how they would cook their meals in the motel and my mom my dad my grandpa seven of them five kids there's a whole history between like my i have a half black uncle because my grandma at 15 she was a little hussy. She had a kid young. And then so that he's also an additional uncle that we grew up with later on, like they sent for him. And then she has another half.

My grandma had a couple of kids before, like apparently really young. Back then it was okay. You know, you had your period and you were ready to have babies. That's what Mother Nature said. But the five of them, like my uncles and aunts, they lived in that motel my grandpa was a taxi driver um at some point he got a job i don't know how being in a driver's ed teacher one of those cars yeah i don't know how because he drives a two he used to drive a two feet he's not here anymore um but yeah my mom they live there right here and we still live right up the street from it then they lived on copeland court which is behind blick which now those

properties are worth like millions god yeah and they kicked themselves because they had an opportunity to buy back then they were so afraid you know immigrant family um my mom met my dad being a groupie at going out with her friends so around around the Santa Monica, L.A. area, your dad was already here. Oh, yeah. He was here. He came from Canada. And he has a crazy story. Yeah, I want to hear it.

Because your dad came from Canada, but he's Cuban, right? So he's born and raised Canada. But their background is Spanish, Spaniard, and Cuban. They had Cuban cigars. We had Fernandez. We have the little like labels. So his parents are from Cuba. They know Spanish Spaniard.

I think at some point somebody went to Cuba and so there was family born there, but it's really from like Spain. And then his his mother has English background and all that. So he's Toronto. That's where he was. And he had another great diverse city. Yeah. Toronto's Toronto. That's where he was. And he had another great diverse city. Yeah. Toronto's diverse.

So he had a son at 15, but I'll cut to that later on. Nobody knew about it. It was like back then she got pregnant young and her, the girl, he got pregnant that her mother ran a house for girls who got pregnant out of wedlock. And they would like... So they... So they like hid her away,

had the baby and quickly put it up for adoption. And so like my grandmother, apparently my dad's mom... Can we come back to that? I don't know if you've ever connected. Because he found us. He found you. Rolled up. It's a dog-going joke in the store.

Someone's here. Are you one of Chico's kids? He was like, Al Gore, tell me when that internet shit's ready, bro. I'm ready. Go. Oh, my God. So, anyways, my dad was a crazy musician, the black sheep of the family. We have a real Catholic family.

Everyone on my dad's side was pretty straight pretty straight-laced you know volunteer and in the church and my dad was like from the jump he was the drummer i mean he was the rock and roll kid of the family um so when he left toronto he went all over i mean my dad played on the stage when they used to have live drums for strippers to go out. You know, my dad played the, like, titty swing beat or whatever it was. That was my dad. And then, like, dated some of the girls. Like, boom, chico, boom. That was my dad's.

What size are these titties? Double Ds? I got it. And two, three, go! That was my dad. That's Chico. Chico. I love his name.

What's his real name? Paul. His first name. But no one's called him that. He got Chico. He's Chico Fernandez because of a baseball player. My dad's little. I mean name's name but no one's called him that he got chico is chico fernandez because of a baseball player my dad's little i mean he's at one point he might have been five two five three yeah so um but yeah he did photography as a kid he did um play drums by the time he got here he was still doing some photography um you'll see it if you ever go to

his place um he just liked capturing things, you know, like a homeless man sleeping or something like that, whatever it was. But he also liked to do headshots for any musicians he played with. So my dad's goal was, you know, to be in that entertainment industry. So he makes his- And what's he play?

Drums, right? Drums and timbales. He plays Latin jazz and American jazz. So he ended up hooking up and having a couple couple kids with one of them stripper girls yeah and um she left him they lived they lived in a in a how many brothers and sisters do you have i have two half i have a half brother and a half sister another half brother the one that we found out about later and then my full brother and then we don't know we

were always like i've met your brother yes have i met anyone else i don't know. We're always like, I've met your brother. Yes. Have I met anyone else? I don't think so. It was Rhonda. No, maybe you might have met Rhonda. I don't think so. She's an Oxnard,

so she doesn't come down a lot. But when he got with her, they lived in a, like an RV thing that like attaches to a car. And she left him one night with the kids, with toddlers.

In that? Yeah. He's like, you got the car and now i don't have anywhere to go so he was stuck with two kids like babies changing he said he he was changing their diapers on the side of like the 60 freeway you know on the hood of a car can't change them on the toilet your mom's back there cooking she left him for one of the other guys at the strip club. That's right. I mean, he has stories about dealing with the mafia people and all this kind of stuff in there. She was connected in that way.

She was like Italian, whatever. So then he traveled with them a little bit. He ended up sending them to Toronto for a little bit to have my grandma take care of him while he situated himself. And then he met Lisa, his second wife, who's African-American. She raised my half-brother and half-sister for the most part. I remember talking to your dad about how he liked black girls. He has an affinity for black women.

I'm right there with you, Gina. And he likes to tell everybody. He's all, speaking of Black Lives Matter. I'm like, okay. I'd say all the time, i always thought i'd end up with a mixed kid i just didn't think it'd be somebody else's well my dad doesn't discriminate because we got my mom from trinidad um italian lisa and then elena who is with who's filipino so so his second wife this was a wife yeah second wife lisa and she pretty much raised umonda and Paul, who are my half-father and half-sister.

So they were together for a long time. And then at some point, I think they were. I'm sorry. Lisa raised the stripper who's bounced. Yeah, who's bounced. Kids. Exactly. And she didn't come into the picture till way later after death.

I think someone like found Ron and them. So then he breaks up with Lisa and he's now on the road again. He's in Vegas. He's playing, you know, nightclubs, whatever, all this stuff.

My dad's also, by the way, now been in bands that are open for Dionne Warwick at the time. I mean, he's played with a lot of greats. So he's played later on, even with, you know,

like in the same lineup with Tito Puente and Celia Cruz. So I remember as a kid being behind the stage at Hollywood Bowl with those people in the background. That's great because I went to a Playboy Jazz Festival one time and I watched Tito Puente and Sheila E. It was fantastic. I'll bet yours was years ago, but it was awesome. I always remember that one because my brother smoked some weed backstage and he passed out and hit his head and it like kind of fucked

up my dad's like interview thing we were gonna go in the thing for that he's like god damn it ray got high on the wrong weed and shit like it's like that's what he was concerned about but i always remember that i'm like i was too young to know like who got high on what like why is it okay that he gets to get high can we start there i couldn't even watch tv for I always remember that. I'm like, I was too young to know who got high on what. The wrong movie. Why is it okay that he gets to get high? Can we start there? I couldn't even watch TV for an extra half hour. But no, he...

So to back up, then he met my mom. She was 17 and a half. I don't know. It was easier to get into bars back then. But just from her, she was going out watching live music. She would go follow this band that my dad played with. Charlie Browns was the spot back in the day um and then there was clockwork orange which after the movie came out my dad opened up this bar club called clockwork orange with some friends and where

was that i don't know i think it was either between here and malibu it was like west la it's all on this side um so we have pictures of it in the store. It's kind of cool. He has a lot of history. You could do a three-hour episode on my dad alone. He'll throw out names you haven't heard of and big names. But they ended up together and they had my brother first. I mean, they lived together and dated and all that stuff. Had my brother, like he was six at the wedding. Yeah. My brother, like he was six at the wedding.

Yeah. He was in the wedding. My brother always talks about that. I realized when I looked at pictures and it wasn't any big wedding. It was a local thing outside. He's like, listen, this is number three, man. I'm done. Exactly.

Exactly. Lisa was still a part of my. Now, my mom, she was only a few years older than my half sister. That the crazy part oh yeah because he had her so yes and they used to go to blows like my mom they'd be fighting over stuff and yeah and my dad was playing late nights and stumbling and drunk and my mom she always tells us a story about how she'd get upset at my dad you know for being out all night and drinking so he'd pass out on the couch and she'd roll up newspapers and wake up, um, Paul and Rhonda and maybe my brother at that point. And they'd like beat the shit out of him with the newspapers, like you son of a bitch, like all this shit she couldn't say during the day. And that was when they would unite together, you know?

But my sister, oh my God, she stole the car. And, um, I, one time I think my mom was like, I was mad at your dad. i was like let's go together and steal his credit card like you know they were like the same age almost and my brother now they were dog town like it was right here and you know right by station 26 where we grew up um and that was when like the dog town yeah just coming up um i love that about california you guys i mean you really that's the whole culture out here. Skate. You were just telling me recently that there was some, was it a display or something where there were pictures of you that you took your daughters to see? Somebody had died, passed away that's like big in the skate dog town community.

And they were doing like, everybody was submitting pictures. And it was more about my brother. But I'm in it. And I'm like barefoot and dirty. I mean, I didn't get to have a lot of his time because he was so much older than me. pictures and it was more about my brother but i'm in it and i'm like barefoot and dirty i mean i didn't get to have a lot of his time because he was so much older than me but he did throw me in zuma beach and teach me you know how to surf um by literally throwing me out when there was a rib tied that was the scariest thing he's like you'll be fine it'll either carry you out 50 feet

or you can swim diagonal so um he was crazy but he was you know kicked out of every school he went to the alternative schoolhouse which is now smash it's called now as known for like kids get to wear their pajamas it's an alternative learning thing you wear night pants exactly i'd want to go but before it was for the kids who were like you know kicked out of every classroom that was him um i mean my sister was the one who sketched out on the beach the first beginnings of the Dogtown logo. He was a part of that.

Really? I love that. That is awesome. They were part of that whole surf shop on Main Street. Those guys starting it. He was part of that whole in the pools, getting caught going in the empty pools. I looked up to him because I thought he was cool, but he was scary, right?

He was scary. He was definitely getting into drugs. What's your age difference? God, we're probably about 13 years apart. Or maybe 11, and then she's like 13. She's older. So he eventually went so far off into drugs and stuff that we saw him less and less, unfortunately. But nonetheless, I looked up to him because that whole skate culture, that whole thing was super cool.

I mean, and I told you Lenny Kravitz lived across the street from us for a while. That was all their group. That was that group of people that live right there. So then, yeah, so my mom and dad are together, and my dad's trying to convince my mom's parents, my grandparents, to, like, you should buy a home. So they ended up buying this duplex property in Lawndale, not in a nice neighborhood.

I never paid attention to that until I became an adult, and that's where all my memories were made like my whole life i think about my grandparents house i mean my mom my my grandmother made traditional trinidadian food so it was like roti pilau curry chicken all the time she was just constantly cooking out of a huge big steel pot always had parties we had steel pan which is what they play in trinidad we had steel pan players live is what they play in Trinidad. We had steel pan players live. Like our, that house,

my grandma's house was the party house. We looked forward every weekend we went there. My aunt lived in the front or my uncle, depending on who was living in the front house. And they lived in the back house. And I just, that's for one. I also looked forward to it because we got to get McDonald's.

My mom was healthy before it was in style. So every Friday we go to Lawndale. And the first thing my grandpa would do is he'd get us a happy meal. So that's where for me, like if I think of my youth, I think of going to grandma and grandpa's on the weekend. It wasn't until middle school that I invited some of my white friends to come to grandma and grandpa's thinking like,

come check out my grandma's house. It's so much fun there. There's always parties and we have a DJ and there'll be like a steel pan and everyone's dancing. And I'll never forget when they were like, first of all, where's the utensils? And why do you eat with this tortilla thing? And why is there plastic that's sticky on your grandma's table? I was like, it's a lot of judgment here. And like, oh, the carp of judgment here. The carpet's like, my socks

are black. I'll never forget my friends like, my socks are black from walking on your grandma's carpet. I was like, it is? It always is like that. We wear black socks so we don't see it. Why'd you bring white socks?

We wear black socks. I remember for the first time, that was the first time I thought about race, culture. We had never talked about it. We weren't one thing. We're so eclectic. We weren't waving one flag in front of our house. There were so many people. That's really interesting.

You were already in such a diverse eclectic. Right. You said something to me one time. I wanted to to remind you i don't know if you remember but you said there was some someone made you feel horrible about your knees yes well this was around well that was elementary school actually that was my first um interaction there was this girl who i guess i won't mention her name um we all had a sleepover at her house and A white girl? A white girl. And she lived in the nice side of north of Montana. And there was another friend there that was African-American, and she was saying some things to her about,

like, she should put peroxide on her arm hairs or something like that. And then she got to me, and she was like, well, your mom's a wet back. And I was like, what? I didn't even know what that was. I was like, her back is wet? I really thought that it was because my was like, her back is wet. I really thought that it was because my mom would sweat because she did hair.

I'm like, are they making fun of my mom because she's sweaty? Like, I wasn't sure. I had to ask my mom about that the next day. And that was a whole other thing. But she told me, well, you're so dark in the summer. Like, your knees get so dark. They look dirty all the time. You, why don't you do something about it? Cause they look dirty. I was like, I don't think I can do anything about

it. It's just how they look when they fold. And I went home and she's like, well, you could bleach them. And I remember getting a quarter cup of bleach and scrubbing the, basically the skin off my knees. Cause it burns you. I did not know that. And trying to explain to my mom why I was doing it. And you know, she was like, she always felt a little bit like that about my dad's mom kind of would make my mom feel like about her. She'd always mentioned her dark skin. Really? Yeah.

Which is interesting. I mean. Isn't it crazy that, like, all the shit you worry about as a kid, like, and the insecurity, like, you remember that forever. I remember that forever. Forever. You'll remember that forever. remember that forever you'll remember that forever someone making you feel about your knees and then you look back at it now you're

like how how fucking i'm like how stupid i fucked up my knees i got a scar also how ignorant this girl is is being raised by these people you know believing that dark skin is is somehow bad and you gotta lighten it you know she also did some other horrible stuff which is maybe too deep for this show but there ain't nothing okay well this that was my introduction to molestation too at that girl's house she we were in the bath together we had a bathing suits on because that's what you do at that age and how old are you at this point 11 12 i mean 11 probably 11 and so yeah oh no wait it came out when it was 12 so 10 and a half 11 like me as a yeah yeah um and she's like discussing if her private parts and all this stuff and she's got the faucet on there and i'm kind of like well this is weird you know so she goes go to the kitchen and get a hot

dog and a zip and a sandwich bag and i'm like i'm okay, I'm going to... In my mind, we were as adults, we're like, oh... You scared the shit out of me right now. That's five years from now for me. I'm thinking, are we making hot dogs in the bath? I don't really know. Are we going to boil them? You want mustard? I was like, I do turkey dogs.

You want radish too? You put this on your puss. I was like, I do turkey dogs. You're a violent dude. You put this on your pussy. I was like, I do turkey dogs. Yeah. I don't really do pig butthole. Hold on. I know you're about to tell us this, but whatever you're about to tell us, what's blowing me away right now is this girl. The organization of it.

She's got a routine. Yeah, she's like, go get hot dogs. This is not her first run. And a sandwich bag. Heat it up until six to seven degrees. Bring out a ziploc bag the zipper kind it was just a fold kind but you know it was safe so so go get a so i go get it i'm like all slippery in the kitchen and shit like we get not done i come back in and i'm like okay and she puts it in the sandwich bag. Oh, my God. She's using it like a condom. But now, mind you, I have no idea in a million years where this is going.

And so she starts to put it inside. And she's like standing up. It's like halfway hanging out. She's like, look, look, look. You do it. I was like, that is so fucking bizarre. First of all, things can go inside that hole. I'm thinking you pee and you shit from the same area.

So that's your first time ever even knowing something could go. Why would you insert anything in there ever in your life, let alone a hot dog and a sandwich bag? I'm so blown away by all of it. So I was so uncomfortable and I felt sick in my stomach and I knew there was something wrong, but I couldn't figure it out. And so that's when she reached over and was kind of,

and I was like, oh, don't touch me. I don't like it. And I'm moving on. And I slept with my eyes open that whole night. Now, the reason I was there was because my mom and dad were divorced at that point. I know we kind of skipped over that, but she was working in the film industry. So she got a makeup job and it took her to Alaska for a week. She was doing it because you know, we were apartment to apartment all the time. So unfortunately, I always think back. I don't know why I didn't just stay at my dad's. He was up the street.

But for whatever reason, it would be like I'd go to a friend's. And all of my friends... And you'd stay for like the duration. Yeah. So her house was the worst. I mean, her brother would like shoot paintballs towards us on the outside.

Yeah, she had a snake and would make it regurgitate she would like Watch this feed it fish and you would Watch and then she'd like make it come back up And I was like oh my god Squeezing shit out of the snake She would tease You like the snake might be in the bed with

You so like and I'd be like oh fuck I can't go to sleep What happened to this girl are you still talking to her No she's my daughter's Godmother She's probably a subscriber she's probably like this is sounding familiar thank you for your subscription we appreciate your part of night pants nation but i mean the crazy part is at that hey hold on real quick we do have a whole an opening in the in the pussy hole area you want to slide your hot dogs in without taking them off. I got you. Make sure you use a sandwich bag.

Be safe. You don't want to get salmonella in your footbag. I can't get over that. Do you think that was taught? Oh, well, do you remember the McMartin case? Okay, it was a preschool in Manhattan Beach that supposedly had molested all these kids and they took them to an underground

thing and cut her she was supposedly one of those kids okay and her mom was like on heraldo behind a screen but then they found out that it was all lies they like ruined these people's life what yeah like two-year-olds were like being like did they cut off bunny ears and they're like and then you know these this whole family's life now listen anybody watching or listening listen mcmartin's if you subscribe i'm not this is her opinion i don't know what's true or not true i need your five it may be that they did or didn't i don't i remember it coming out that they didn't so all these kids had lied or whatever so we're wrong a lot on this show but obviously something happened yeah clearly something happened so but cut to, we're at a sleepover again.

God damn it, I can't. Because you're young and you don't know. I was going to ask you, you didn't go home and tell your mom? I didn't. That's what also scares me. Not every, but I would say nine out of ten people that sit across from me always say nothing. The trauma happens when you're scared to tell somebody. And it's like, oh.

It seems so obvious. I tell Stella that all the time. Like, I think i think you're gonna come tell me but you may not but i want you to know you can i always tell her if you're if you're honest i'll you'll never be in trouble if you're honest and this is the crazy part because it's a everyone thinks if some old man asks you to sit on his lap or that's what it right right so if it doesn't look like that then you're not sure what just happened like Like, how do you go tell somebody? I just told you, we're dying laughing.

Like, well, we were in the bath and then she said, get a hot dog. And everyone's like, wait a second. So, you know,

the whole thing was where, and it was embarrassing. You feel shame. Sure. Cause you're confused. Like, why was I in that situation? She was just mean.

And she was the ringleader, but she lived in a rich part of the neighborhood. As did all my friends. I was the only one that had an apartment. Maybe there was one other girl that did. But in this group of friends, you know, my mom made sure I bused to that school because she thought, hang out with rich white people. Hang out with the Jewish kids.

You'll be better off. She wanted to expose me, right? That's the mentality. Coming here, she was like that. Like, oh, okay, let me make friends with American culture. Yes, go meet everyone. Go meet everyone. Don't isolate.

Just keep to yourself. Right. Don't be hanging out with these kids in the apartment. We got enough of that. So she was like, go over here. And I will attest to there was great things because I used to go with the same girl's family to the horse races and learned about betting on horses for a dollar or whatever. And I never had the stuff you're supposed to wear.

They're like, do you have nice flats? I'm like, what are flats? So there was good things to it. But she, one night when we were all having that sleepover, said all those racist things. Cut to a couple years later, there was drama, as girls have in middle school. And I told a school counselor, finally, what had happened. With the hot dog? With the hot dog with the hot dog and she

apparently did her due diligence called the police made a full on report interviewed like half of my friends and then i was like oh my god like this was a long time ago so things are probably different now so how long again i'm sorry how long from the time it happened until two years like a year and a half okay because it was fifth going into sixth grade and this was like around seventh grade that she's you know said something so now my friends know so but we were all like trying to we everyone had figured out on their own like she's not nice we don't want to be friends with her and the counselor was trying to like get in it and i just broke down and was like well let

me tell you why i don't like her it's not because she did this at lunch she tried to stick a hot dog in my vagina they were like this is like a movie because what ended up happening is what 11 year old is going to keep that a secret even your own friends sooner or later that got out after the whole it was supposed to be quiet they got the cops interviewing and i'm having to tell the story like 27 times because it's so bizarre i guess i want to make sure you're not lying i go to school after three days of like interrogation on it and everyone's singing oscar that oscar meyer but then people went by her house and threw hot dogs on her front lawn. It was like, fuck.

And everyone was like, what are they doing? I was like, it was like in protection of me, but I was like. We stand with a lot of hot dogs. Exactly. Hot dog in your face. It was like, oh, shit. It was horrible. I was like, I'm never going to live this down, dude. But I did somehow.

Holy crap. So that was my, like, and I remember, I'll never forget. I don't remember so much my mom. I think she felt really guilty. Like, you should have told me, like, why do you want to keep going to that asshole's house? I was like, I don't know. I mean, I used to pretend like I was having nightmares in the room with her. She had a trundle bed.

And I'd run across the house and crawl in bed with her mom. Because I was scared of her. Like she was either going to put the snake in my bed or or hot dog up or a cheeto in my butt. I don't know. That's safe. Open a bag of snacks. I'm like, shit, where's that going? Are those spicy?

I just want to make sure. I got a hemorrhoid. I don't know. So, yeah, I mean, that was my first experience with i guess it's even to this day it feels weird to say like molested but they're like that's what it was i'm like really like somebody touched you or whatever tried did something that you didn't want them to do so so now do you eat hot dogs today i don't that's exactly why i don't i'm telling you i'm not a big hot dog fan either i get about two three a year and usually it's at a sporting event that time you saw me

crying it wasn't because it was spicy i'm gonna be out there grilling one day at your place looking at you smile are these too big you got plastic oh i'm sorry got some extra hot dogs somebody get a ziploc bag like oh my god well she she then everybody found out about it was more she's mortified okay so she's mortified she yeah she leaves the school she goes to a private school local now less than a year later i'm at a bus stop on 20th and pico and she rolls up with m's which is if you're not Mexican, you don't know what it is. That's how we'd spray our hair if you were trying to be a chola gangster back in the day. She rolls up on me and I'm just like, doo-doo-doo, waiting at the bus.

And she's like, she claims, I don't want to say it on here, the local gang, but in Spanish, in my face. So she's like, Santa Monica 17, putan. I'm like, oh my God, you speak Spanish? Like, this was, that was my first thought like you said my mom was a wet pack i'm so confused like you speak spanish so she rolls up and says that to me and she's with these like gangster girls and i'm like what is happening right what happened to you like you went to private school and this is what happened to you so she had turned what are you putting up your pussy these These. Is that a burrito?

She. So then she tried to come and roll up on me at school. And that went my first fight. And all the kids, the whole school. You got into a fist fight with her? Not with her. Because, of course, it was like the other people that she sent. Yeah. And I had a box cutter knife.

And that was not a nice moment. But you got cut. No. This girl told me. I guess I want to say her name, but I can't. She has such a cool name. But anyway, she was like, listen, she's not around anymore. We don't want to say her first name Consuelo. So she was like, listen, they're outside for you. Here's this box cutter.

She was helping you tip open. And when you put it in your hand like this, and when you soccer just bam from the side, I was like, okay, I was was i wanted to shit my pants i had like full-on choro which is like diarrhea i mean i just was like like my whole stomach sounds like you were in a like like uh what do you call it um when they send you away to school yeah like what do you call it boarding reform school or whatever yeah it was just a regular local Santa Monica. It's just a bus stop. It's actually one of the blue ribbon best schools here.

So they're like, you got to go. That day after school when they came, that was separate from the bus stop. I already was like, uh-oh, something's happened to her. Like, she's changing. I was trying to like stay late because I knew they were trying to jump me outside. I was asking the teacher. So on question 92, it was like, you've been here for a long time. Are you okay? I was like, I was just wondering trying to jump me outside. I was asking the teacher. So on question 92, it was like, you've been here for a long time.

Are you okay? I was like, I was just wondering if there's extra credit. Do you need help organizing? So that's when Consuelo was like, you're going to have to face it. Like these girls were in high school. They were like five years older than me

and they wanted to be. Listen, I'm either getting stabbed or I'm getting a hot dog. Yeah, exactly. I don't want either one of these things because you take me to my car.

I ran out with a hot dog in the night. Like giving a dog meat and then running i was like so mortified to go out there because i didn't know what i was gonna run into but i dealt with it head on and that story got twisted it was so funny because people were like oh she came out there and like i did it all gangster and i was like really i was scared shitless it got stuck and i was like oh my god i like let it go and ran but it wasn't in her it was you know another girl that was with her so that subsided with it you did yeah but it just got right there and i was like you know and i freaked out so i didn't want anything you know i didn't want to have that fight but the following year that my middle school year was so crazy the following year i have another group of friends here's this cut to these rich white kids. I was like, thanks, mom. So I'm hanging out with them and

it's nutrition. Seventh grade. Yeah. End of seventh grade. And I'm like, can I have a sip of your soda to a really good friend, a guy friend. He gives me a sip. He's like, you can finish it. I drink it. Next period, I'm feeling weird. I'm like poking some kid. By the period after that, it's computer class and every time you started the computer these little wheels would go and they fell off the screen onto the floor and i was like oh shit that is not supposed to happen i start sinking into my seat because i think i'm melting he put a bunch of tabs of acid in my drink and i'm 12 i'm like i got hot dogs and acid holy shit and i don't know what's happened to me You're tripping at 12

I'm dying I think I'm dying So they So was he also Was he drinking it too He was in the classroom And he sees me And I'm running up to the teacher

But was he tripping too He was too Okay so he He thought I wanted it Or it was funny I don't know why he did it But it ruined his life after that Because that's

I mean He put so many tabs That it could have been attempted murder No That was the problem They had to like pump my stomach And the whole thing Wait Walk us through So I'm in that computer class And that's, he put so many tabs that it could have been attempted murder. That was the problem. They had to like pump my stomach and the whole thing. Wait, walk us through.

So I'm in that computer class and now I'm like, this doesn't feel right. I feel like the floor is eating me. Now, mind you, I've never done drugs. I'm a little kid. So I'm thinking I got food poisoning. I'm really dying. So I run to the teacher and we're up on the top floor and I grab him and I'm pulling his shirt down. I'm like, something's wrong with me.

Help me. And the kid who did it is in the class with me. And I'm like looking at him and he's freaking out. I go straight for the window, which is the roof over the school. And they jump, can't just run. I don't,

I just had to run. So they were pulling me, pulling me. They tear apart. They're going through what I ate. They're tearing apart the cafeteria, the, you know,

cause I was on free and reduced lunch. Um, I had to get the free lunch oh my god everyone's like why do you only pay 35 cents i was like what i had a coupon code i used to get the green they may just take a green ticket and have a special ticket everybody so shitty it's so terrible that chocolate milk is bomb and so i'm over there at the vending machine they're like you know what did you have in the vending machine they're checking it out the cops are there at the vending machine. They're like, you know, what did you have in the vending machine? They're checking it out. The cops are there. Try the hot dog. Make sure you get a plastic bag. Oh, my God.

They end up getting it out of somebody and they open his locker and he has acid in there. More. Well, like someone snitched on him. Yeah. But I'm saying he's got more in the box. Right, I guess. Jesus Christ. I didn't even know these kids did that. So how old was you're 11 12 okay we're both in like seven great and you

know these are the kids that like nutrition were bending over listening to nirvana and like like trying to asphyxiate themselves for like a quick high i should have known i should have known better i didn't know i'd be putting shit in his drink but so he gets he's like zip tied and my mom comes from trinidad okay wait so they figure it out figured out he's zip tied the police come and get them right they're coming to me now they're looking in my eye and they're like yep yeah and i'm thinking like they know something it's all crazy you think like everyone's talking about you around you or whatever and they're like yep yep it's you know acid or whatever lsd it. My mom, they're trying to talk to my mom.

My mom's like, I'm not going to do anything to him. I know him. Seriously, it's fine. Let me just say something to him. All of a sudden, my mom is sliding across the administration table to reach him to just attack the shit out of him. And they're like, Ann, you can't do this. So my mom's gone crazy.

And that was not the first time my mom in the school district, when my brother got jumped, my mom was like, I just want to talk to them. Just give me five minutes. Where's that box? Exactly. So what happens? He gets taken and he's young and my parents knew his parents. And it was a rough situation because my parents believe in mistakes.

Listen, my brother had made tons of mistakes when I was telling you about and went to juvie. And I think many times my parents probably wished that someone gave him a pass. He got in trouble. He got expelled from the whole school. I think he had to go to a boarding school. And his mom was horrified.

The whole thing was a sad thing, but we could have made it worse with litigation. We just didn't. I was going to say, were there charges? They didn't have anything to take and he's a minor and so he dealt with legally having possession on his own but so my mom of course being the hippie that she is she's like we're gonna journal this experience so i'm like having to journal and i'm like the orange is talking to me my friend was supposed to spend the night that night do you still have that fucking journal i do and it's crazy writing looks all, it's all going

off to the side. You're still tripping. The best part, though, is my friend Samantha's supposed to sleep over and she's standing there. We had worn like matching like cross-color, you know, overalls that day. And she's like, am I still spending the night? I'm like, bitch, I don't know. I'm gonna be tripping for three days.

I don't know if you're supposed to. So she had to stay. It was crazy. But he came back to school a couple months later to visit. And the entire school chased him until he peed his pants in his house. They were like, we got you, Lana. We're chasing. It just became like a movement. I didn't even know what we were running for.

I'm like, why does everybody want to kick his ass? You know how that goes. Everybody's like, somebody's ass to kick. They felt like, damn, you did her dirty. I didn't want to have that. I don't know if it was a prank or he thought I'd like it, but that probably set me up for not needing to try hard drugs. I was cool. Alcohol. I'll bet. Yeah. Never tried cocaine. Me either. I mean, I've done clearly. I don't need it. Um, no, you don't, you got, you've got cocaine. Exactly. So I just never, I don't know if it was that experience, but it was bad enough for me to

be like, I'm good. Like, I don't need to have, I don't like that feeling of being in control, not in control. So that was that. And that was after my parents got divorced. So, but while I was going to say, but while I was still having sleepovers at the other one's house. What was it like when your parents were divorced? Because you're close with your dad.

So was he good about going back and forth? Or were you with your mom most of the time? It was weird. In comparison to what people have these arrangements with days and weekends. You mean like me? Yeah, exactly. With 2-2-3, 5-2-2. I hear my friends talking about that.

I'm like, I have no idea. Are you talking about days of the week? So I was eight. My brother was like 13 or 14, probably 14. Anyways, when I found out, it was like, what?

I remember I got out of the car that day and like ran towards Patton's. There used to be a Patton's on Montana and a TCBY. And I was devastated. My whole world, first of all, a friend had just told me that Santa Claus wasn't real we were about to jump up

she said and divorce she told me before my parents got divorced she had said and divorce is when your dad moves to Oklahoma and you gotta see him like only on the break so I'm like dad's moving to Oklahoma and there's no Santa shit so my mom it. So my mom,

it was devastating. My mom got up one Saturday morning and like left, but she didn't leave us. She just left. And like, I think talk to my grandparents. We were in her van, like her minivan.

The bizarre thing was the way it worked out was my mom felt like I was still little. So I would go with her and my brother was older and maybe it would be better off with my dad, which as a mother. Now I look back and think, I wonder if that was hard for my brother. I've asked him before. And not knowing that that time my brother was struggling with coming out and being gay.

So he was doing acid and all kinds of drugs at that time. So it was crazy. I felt really bad for my dad. I remember feeling really sad for him. Like, you're going to be lonely. Cut to a year later. He's like, I got me a new wife. Don't worry about me. Was it a year?

Something like that. He likes to get married. He just gets married and he stays. My parents were together 15 years. They've been together. Him and Elena have been together since I was 30 years old. Then my mom, we slept on the floor

of my grandparents. We slept on the floor of her friend Tina's apartment building. I always remember it smelled like rotten milk in there. I was like, did they spill milk on this carpet? Right here. Right where I'm sleeping on this air mattress. I mean, we moved around, and our first little apartment was behind what is now a Starbucks, a drive-thru Starbucks on Pico.

It used to be a Kentucky Fried Chicken. Oh, that one right there? That one right there. It used to be a Kentucky Fried Chicken, and that wall that's there used to be a kentucky fried chicken and oh that one right there that one right there it used to be kentucky fried chicken and that wall that's there used to be a chain link wobbly fence and we would hear people ordering all night and i used to love to get on my bike and i would go over through the drive yeah i remember yeah that wasn't that long ago it was at a kfc yeah yeah and i used to live in those apartments they're like they're uh it's like a not a duplex there's three little units little one one bedroom, tiny units.

Our first night there, there was a drive by. It used to be a really bad neighborhood over there. And then, you know, all night long, you know, cause I lived where I lived all the time. You know, we were in an apartment before, but now I'm in this new environment. It felt scary. The guys next door used to fight all the time.

You'd hear them fighting and screaming. There was always cops there. They would beat the shit. There were two. There were guys that were dating each other. And there was drugs and cocaine going on in there. Someone broke in and tried to like. The neighbor broke into the other neighbor's house and stole a TV.

Like it was scary to live there. It was definitely scary. And I just remember always going to. They used to get so mad at Kentucky Fried Chicken. Because I would go through the drive-thru with my bike. And be like, can I get those little baby McChickens? It was like scary. And I just remember always going to, they used to get so mad at Kentucky Fried Chicken because I would go through the drive-thru with my bike and be like, can I get those little baby McChickens? It was like nannies and fried chicken. And they're like, you can't. They'd stick their head out the window from ahead.

You can't do it for me. I'm like, why? Just let me order. So that was my experience there. And then my mom was just always like, she dated someone and that was the thing. I was like, my whole thing with her and she knows this so i can say it if she listens to this like i just wanted to be enough like i'm going

through a family breakup could you just could we just be us you know i'm already dealing with the going back and forth happened but it was like every sunday my dad would take my brother and i bowling at the the bowling alley which has now turned into a ridiculous, it's like $80 a game. I know, it's stupid. I still have my own bowling bag and shoes that we got at a garage sale to this day. Do you? Yeah. Now it only saves you like $1.25. But I'm always rolling there like I'm a pro.

I got my bowling bag. They're like, okay. I'll see you all in Belain. Exactly. They're like, it's $40 though. I was like, oh, fuck. So we used to do that and my dad would take us for a chocolate malt at Callahan's which is now Ingo's Tasty Diner that our friends that grew up in the you know community in Santa Monica owned forever

when my friend passed away not that long ago her dad couldn't take it and keep the restaurant anymore but they kept the Callahan's look so it's still there so that's I grew up right here like this was all yeah you're born and raised when we were sick, we slept on the couch

at the music store. You know, we had Nana's blanket. Like we did our homework here after school. There used to be an Arby's. It was always like we'd get the potato triangles

and a Jamocha shake from Arby's. That's how I think of, you know, growing up here. It was just all in this little 10 block radius. But that experience

with my mom and being divorced was, you know, her first boyfriend, Wally, who she knows to this day, I swear to God, he used to hug her and look at me and go and wink his eye. And I was like, are you fucking with me? Like, and he probably, maybe he wasn't, I don't know, but we were vying for my mom's attention. And we all lived in a one bedroom and they slept in the same room. And then it was like, just the next person. That's when we had to live in one of her boyfriend's houses that was nice it was my first chance to live in a house but it was never my space he didn't like the way i tapped my toothbrush when i brushed my teeth because he could hear it through the wall i felt like i had a tiptoe all

the time i mean i just always felt like everywhere we moved i'm like can we just be just us? So at 18, I moved out and, um, wow. I was lucky though, because I mean, that's not why, but I just, I worked from the time I was 15. I started, I was a sample lady at Vons. Would you like to try this ranch dressing? And I took my job serious and they saw that. And the guy at the Vaughn said, I want to offer you a bagger position. I was like, yes. Um, I was a little too young, but he gave it to me. And then I got a job at the same time at the warehouse when people used to buy CDs. Yeah, yeah. I remember the warehouse.

And then I got 100% customer service because people were always floored that I knew every type of music. I was going to say, you really do have. Yeah. Really. I mean, that's a great positive to have you have such a i i saw one of your posts not too long ago i think your whole family went somewhere and you were all doing you had something about jethro tall oh yeah lana teaching them about i

know yeah the little boys think that the flute is lame or for girls i'm like have you heard of jethro tall but i'll never forget a customer came in old white man he's like you can't help me and i was like he was trying to name a song i'm like that's lou reed and he's like, you can't help me. And I was like, he was trying to name a song. I'm like, that's Lou Reed. And he's like, how do you know? I'm like, please. I was over in this section. But if you really want a good album. So I knew everything. I mean, I had grown up with all of it.

You know, I grew up with my dad. Every time it was like Martin Luther King Day, we would sit at the table. He would talk about the I Have a Dream speech. And then we listened to Aretha Franklin and he'd sob at the table. My dad was so connected to every movement that ever happened. He just loves people and it all relates to music and music has curated my whole life. Like I could curate my parents divorce to Fleetwood Mac.

Like there's certain songs that to this day break my dire straits. Um, and then as I got older and angry it was like Wu-Tang Clan see for me creatively I love the lyrics but whenever I listen to music I start to see like scenes I want to put together in yeah in promos or movies or clips or shows like I love I just love my first breakup like the cure I remember recording the same song over and over and over so I didn't have a double cassette yeah try to get that shit off the radio yeah I mean I mean during that time when they got divorced it was so traumatic but now when I look back I could never imagine them married like that's the crazy thing like I don't remember going through a long period of being like I wish they were together I was the same way at my parents like it was a shock at first because change was about to happen.

But then it was like, Oh yes. And then you're like, wait, I could manipulate the situation now. Like I'm gonna ask him for $20. You know what I mean? That type of thing.

There was a little bit of that, but I will say to this day, my dad never talked shit about my mom. He always, and they had fights and blowouts. My mom during that time, she left with her pride. Her thing was she didn't have much.

She came here. She finished her high school diploma thing, went to SMC to learn how to do hair. She worked at what is also a coffee bean on Main Street. It used to be the First Banana Republic. That was a little part-time job. And she wanted to prove to my dad that she could save money. And one time after Thanksgiving or something,

she had saved up on her own from whatever little stuff she did, from clipping coupons. It wasn't even from working or anything. $1,500. And she just wanted to be recognized as an independent woman who could do... My mom just wanted more. And she was a stay-at-home mom, basically. So when she divorced my dad, all of that,

now that I'm older, I can look at her as a human being, came to fruition. But I was a little girl who just wanted my mom to look at me all the time. So she was struggling being this individual and growing. And I was in the crux of all of it, too, dealing with now I got two houses, two places to be. I can't see my dad every day now. That was weird. But we got through it. But I will say that the unfortunate part is that

she had to work all the time now to make ends meet. So there was more freedom and it wasn't like today. She didn't know where I was at the time. I was a good kid, but I was definitely running the streets. So 9th Street right here in 9th and Pico, there's a liquor store and

we used to hang out on 9th Street and it was like all and Pico, there's a liquor store. And we used to hang out on 9th Street. And it was like all the taggers. That was our little crew. And like drinking. My mom had a Subaru. And every time we would come by, they'd whistle. And they'd be like, the Subaru, Lana's mom. And we'd all duck.

And she'd be rolling down her window trying to look for me. I'd be like hiding. You'd be back there ducking. I was like ducking. Oh, my God. She found me one time, pulled me by my hair, slapped me, and my friend's following me because she wants to sleep over tonight.

I'm like, bitch, I just got slapped. It's not looking good for either of us. Slap her around the world. So we moved on from the hot dog, and everyone would do this to me at school, like mimic the slap. My mom was crazy like that, but she was out there trying to do her thing.

But that's when I started to dabble because after that sleepover that I told you when the kids were making fun of me that my grandma's carpet was too dirty and we don't we eat on paper plates. I'm like, well, it's better. You just throw it away. That's when I started to realize I hung out, started hanging out with different friends. I made friends with all the Mexican kids and I felt comfortable because their grandma's house was like my grandma's house and no one was judging. And I had a great group of friends, but that led to like, my attraction was always probably towards more of the bad boy anyways. But then it turned into like, I was getting, I was attracted to the gangsters. And so I was over here, all cutesy, my shorts rollerblading down to the Marvellous projects. Like, what's up?

Not thinking like anything about it. I was hanging out and going to these parties. I just wanted to dance. I wanted to listen to hip hop. I wanted to like go to these off-site Wu-Tang. We used to go to these little, when Wu-Tang was just coming up, these little Wu-Tang concerts. And I was in that scene and it came with its other stuff too, right? Sure.

It caught up in other things. That's the crazy part when people look at me and I'm working with this underserved youth and I have my hair, it's my PTA hair on as my kids would call it. They look at you and they judge you right away. It's like what we're dealing with today. Everyone has biases. Like you don't know me. You don't know what I've been through or just because the shade of my skin or you have no idea i feel like that all the time when people try to like cut you off or get

silly with me at a place i'm like oh you think you know but that's how it is even nowadays like people have their biases and we're like that towards other people um it's the same thing on the flip side people assume you know if you look a certain way so cut and clean that you don't have any history or yeah any perspective on anything it's like well maybe i don't have the same perspective and i'm not taking away from yours but i do have my own perspective i mean i'm judgmental these days as a parent i see a guy with a braided belt and a shirt tucked and i'm like this guy fucks kids you know i go now you're gonna start looking at little girls for sleepovers this girl gives out

hot dogs hey listen no hot dogs at their house that's gonna be my rule no bath time there better not be no goddamn hot dogs at the house it's funny because i tell my kids all the time when they were little did anyone touch your pokey like we still call the poke in our house anyone touch your pokey and i'll never forget the one time you know my daughter was like i think so i'm like who touched your pogey? Was it with a hot dog? Was it with a hot dog? Or a cheese sandwich.

So what age are you when your dad gets the music store? I am just semen in his ball sack at that point. Oh, you are? Because it's 1972. Oh, okay. Born in 79. I thought it was 50 years and you're only 40. So I guess it would be. Thanks.

What are you trying to say? Not bad. I'm thinking you're 10, but it would have been. No, no. That's not bad. Well, he actually started before that. So 72 is like 1970, I guess. Right.

That's exactly the 50 years. He started it on Lincoln Boulevard, right across from the Boys and Girls Club. It's still the Boys and Girls Club now, down the street. He started it with a film. He was doing photography in one little studio, and he had his drum set in the other studio. And really, he was trying to have a... He wanted to be a booking agent, like for musicians. So he'd take your headshot, then he'd find you gigs, which cut to my dad still does that today

and he'll be 80 in July. Really? Yeah. Wow. He still books bands. So then he started doing, you know, he's trying to make money,

drum lessons. So he's doing, you know, one drum student now doing his photography, using two of the offices up there. There was a weird little apartment building behind it, and there was a blind guy that lived there that he used to help.

Eventually, whatever was down in the retail area opened up. So it was five years of him doing that by himself. That's why our corporate entity is called Fernandez Talent and Associates. Fernandez Talent, because that's what he really wanted to do. That's what he started. He wasn't trying to have a store or anything. My uncle came with his degrees. My dad doesn't have any of that, so he's got his.

That's his brother? Yes, my Uncle Victor. It was a way to get him here from Canada to get his papers and all that stuff. And he was like, come help with the business. Because you had a show, you had a job, and I think he had to give $ five thousand dollars and invest in it so he was like i'll do accounting and help and my it was my uncle's idea victor that they have the retail shop and that is what birthed the store where you could buy instruments and rent and rent to own an instrument basically um and then they started doing repairs for instruments in the back

the school grew from my dad's one drum student to now we're teaching piano and clarinet and whatever so it was run out of this tiny little space and the boys and girls club was across the street so those kids would skateboard over hang out play guitar i mean we that spot was a hangout like my dad used to be the old man that was kind of like, shoot, all right, that's enough on that guitar. No more stairway to heaven. Get out of here. Whatever. So, you know, bums would come in there and play on stuff.

And that's where I, like, grew up. My sister Rhonda had her first job there. All my, both my brothers. All at that location. All at that location. My mom slept pregnant on her back in that location all at that location my mom slept pregnant with on her back in that location with my brother when she was pregnant with my brother with me one of them she always tells that story she likes to point that out i slept pregnant on my back before we got an apartment

she found the apartment on fourth and ashland which my dad still lives in which is rent control it's the only reason that he still lives there since he lives there and it's like eight hundred dollars a month it's crazy but it's why the business is still here we wouldn't he says it all the time it's his retirement and my uncle lives in the building too it was like melrose place so there was mr hayes who lived across the way when he passed away my dad took that build that unit over for like 380 and that's where we all lived in our first apartment. I see. So anyway, so that's how they started the business and they maintained it with inexpensive rent. And it just kept growing.

And eventually about 25 years ago, the space became too small because we didn't have enough lesson rooms to do lessons and stuff. So they found this space on 19th and Santa Monica. They never quite had enough money for a down payment to buy a building they kick themselves in the head now over it and i definitely do because it's real expensive here um so they took but it was five we went from like i don't know maybe

2,500 square feet max maybe less to 5,350 square feet and it was enough room to finally really build out and do what they wanted to do so all this time it's only been two locations i mean except i know you have carver city as well but for santa monica music center it's only been the two wow whenever people go come in and they go i remember you guys when you were on lincoln we're like oh you're like an og customer like they remember the old days but we there for, they were there for a long time, like half, half the time. And then maybe 15 years ago, they ended,

they were doing really well and they opened up Culver city, but never bought a building. And that's what's been the big constraint on the business. I mean, it's, as you know, over 20 grand a month here, we used to sublet this back area.

There was already like a law firm here. So they sublet it to them. And then one day, one of the ladies, a few times in a row, according to my dad, didn't pick up her dog shit. And my dad would like leave it on their door like, pick up your shit. My uncle's always like, they're renters. We need that rent. My dad's like Larry David, like on Red Bull. So they ended up leaving.

And then we struggled with this back area. Like we always had hodgepodge renters. And then, yeah. So I never wanted to work for the family business. Everybody in the family worked. I was like, no. Meanwhile, you know, I'm bagging groceries, working at whatever, the record store.

Then I got another job at Foot Locker. I'll never forget when I showed up. I showed up to Foot Locker. They're like, you're not scheduled, but I was supposed to be at the warehouse, so I had to wear my Foot Locker referee. You wore your Foot Locker shirt at the warehouse. I was like, they're like, could you put an

apron on? Everyone was all making fun of me and blowing a whistle. Time out, time out. Dressed like a referee. That was a cool job back then we used to get paid cash out the register at footlocker at the end of the day and if there wasn't enough for you you got paid an order then you would have to like wait the next day and the next day to get paid but yeah so i didn't want to work here i was in fashion i eventually got a job at you know charles david and i wanted to be you know in fashion i was like i don't need a job

here i moved out at 18 i was paying my own bills all that um i was going to college full-time working full-time and just never really wanted to work i didn't it wasn't that i wasn't connected to the music store anything you're a hustler i love it i was just like i don't want to work at the family store you can't afford me. That was always the thing, right? So then as time went on and I had kids, that's when my whole world changed. I mean, I was on planes. I was flying. I was doing, you know, I have my six, my 63, my seven, doing insurance and all that stuff,

making good money. We had bought a condo because they offered me to move out of that rent control department. We were already, Louie and I had just got married. We were already in escrow in a condo and they're like, we'll give you $5,000 to move. I was like, no, we were already going to move, but they didn't know that. And I was like, $25,000 and I'll move. They're like, no. I'm like, I know what you're charging for rent. So then they came back $10,000, then $12,000. Louie's like, just take it. So I amortized it on a sheet for him over five years i was like this is what you're gonna make in the next five years he came and gave us 25 000

wow i was like we're getting wood floors fake wood floors exactly but we bought a condo in inglewood at the right time we bought for 306 two years later we flipped it for 382 that's nice and then we've gotten to a house in Lawndale. And I was like, keep up with the Joneses. My husband was just like, oh, shit, hold on. I'm getting my bags. He grew up one of 10 in the projects. And he's like, I'm fine in a one-bedroom or a five-bedroom.

I just don't want stress. So if it's stressing you out, let's not do it. So eventually, that was when the market crashed and all that. And my company got bought over by a big bank and they laid the account executives off first. But I was the last person because I was pregnant with my second kid. So they were kind of like, and my boss was trying to help me out. He's like, I know Brianna's birthday is in December. So we're going to wait for your layoff to like mid January.

And then they kind of gave me a package at the end. And I said, you know what? I'm going to wait for your layoff to like mid January. Um, and then they kind of gave me a package at the end. And I said, you know what, I'm going to step out and be an independent broker. I just didn't like waking up and watching the stock market real early. I was breastfeeding with a headset, trying to keep my kid quiet. You know, the whole experience was like, this is not what this was supposed to be out. I mean, when Brianna came out of my body, I remember I was like, I had a Blackberry back then back then i was like i'll be back in 72 hours as soon as this shit heals up and i'm gonna drop her off at louie's mom's house she raises all the grandkids and that's it the minute she came into this world i didn't want anyone to touch her no one knew better not

doctors not i don't care if you had a thousand grandchildren i'm gonna make my own baby food i became one of those people and it changed my whole life i was like i want to see every little thing that she does i would yeah you're super mom dude i would sob in the car like a little bitch when i would leave for like a 20 minute meeting i was the worst salesperson after that because people would be talking to me like all right well this is great they're like well we want to hear a little bit more i'm like you know what fuck my product go with else. I think my kid needs a nap. I don't think you're really. My tits are all leaking in the meeting.

I'm like, oh, shit. Bye from the other guys. I would just like die to come home. There was an earthquake one time and I'm in the Aeon building in the big elevator. And usually none of that shit scares me. I used to make fun of people who get scared, like scared of whatever oh my god they like make an announcement i'm like oh my god i got kids i got a baby like everyone's like everybody does i'm like no but i have a baby like i was like the only person who had had a child but i just wanted to be there with her so i finally

told louie because i was working from home and i would drive into an office, but I'd have to fly here and there. We were like, all the shit I said I was going to do, we're going to sleep train the shit out of her. She's going to cry for days. She sniffled a couple times. I was like, there's another book about sleeping in the same bed is really good for you.

You morph it all around your kids. Once that happened, I told him i said listen i just i don't know i feel like i've always wanted to have this non-profit i know it's lame i'm not going to make any money but i want to help kids who are underserved find their passion through music because my whole life could be curated by music and if i could help one kid find themselves through music that'd be cool and he was like i grew up in the projects without shit i don't give a fuck we i don't care about this waterfall in the backyard like we can bounce out

of here at any time it's up to you so we were also like i had lost that job so it was also like and uh we're a couple months behind so you know so we we moved to an apartment it was so sad because all i wanted was a house i didn't live in one my life. My parents didn't own a home and I had finally got to that place. It was like the white picket fence. The house looked cool, but when you zoomed back from the neighborhood I was in, I could never afford it in the right neighborhood. The gangsters

next door were like popping guns in the air at night on Saturday night. I'm trying to breastfeed. Tagging your fucking white picket fence. They're actually cool with us, though. They were like, somebody tried to steal your bike and I fucked them up. And I'm like, okay, that's not pain. I was like, cool.

There was a house down the street that was like a hud house. So we would have rotating families. And they were always selling dope out of there. And I'm pregnant one time. And this guy, I see that we lived at the end of a block of two schools. He was filming little girls behind them and i'm eight months pregnant and i'm karate kick the shit out of this dude in the balls his lady comes out she's like this crazy pregnant she calls the cops on me

crazy pregnant lady's like fucking up my husband they went into his home and she ended up coming to my house crying saying they found pornographic videos of he had naked pictures of her daughter in there so i feel like i saved a life yeah you did um say more than one but i was like fuck we can't be in this ghetto and then i had this so much but like my uncle had come out of jail my mom's brother and he was in a rehab program where is his rehab of all the places i'm not kidding it's at the end of the block Of my new place and I'm like shit He's gonna see me walking the dog Sure enough he was like could you wash a load of laundry

I was like okay I had meth addicts tapping on my door Do you know I was like oh shit Just do my whites It was crazy And I was like why can't I just Like I get there but it's never quite there I get there, but it's never quite there. You know, it's like it's never quite there.

Hashtag overlooked. But I overlooked. But yeah. So then we gave it all up. And he was like, honestly, I attribute it to Louis just saying stuff doesn't matter to me. You're on some crazy trajectory of when and how and what you got to be. We're keeping up with the Joneses. Fuck it.

So we moved to an apartment on Sentinella and it had an elevator. So that was nice. But it was way smaller. We had to get, we had two living rooms at the other place. We had to get rid of a whole living room of furniture. I had sold all these like suits and things

because I was like, I'm giving up a whole life of wearing Gucci shoes and Prada shoes and carrying fancy handbags to just be something totally different. And I was so rough. I'll never forget. I had bought some sandals at Ross and he had a rough, like he was just asking me nicely, like, Oh, did you get some new sandals? I'm like, what? I can't buy $7 sandals because it's your money and not mine. It was like so hard for me. So I mean that whole time where I was just going to be with the kids and live simply lasted for a second.

I quickly saw that as I'm taking to Brianna to these Mommy Me classes, I'm like, well, shit, I could do that. So this space in the back, I took a little bit from every little Mommy Me class I did. We would paper the walls. Kids would come in and paint to like Mozart. Then we would read them a story that would be a tactile event afterwards and then we would have a 30-minute music class. And it was great. It was called Pitter Patter Studios.

Yeah, you're always really great about that shit. I just hustled it. And I was like, well, if I'm taking her to class, may as well make a thing out of it. Then as they got older, I was like, I don't want to fucking open this studio on Sundays to do that class. My dad started seeing me like,

could you just help us a little bit with marketing? You're so good. I'm like, no, I'm not helping the store. You guys are whatever. And then it was like, I finally realized I needed to get out of the house and I needed something. But I say get out of the house. I brought them to work.

I mean, Mia grew up in a playpen at the Culver City Music Center, me trying to work the store. It was just to make a little bit of my own extra income. I would ride a bike over there. And I said, I'll just help at the Culver City Music Center, me trying to work the store. It was just to make a little bit of my own extra income. I would ride a bike over there. And I said, I'll just help at the store. And once I dug in and saw what they were missing, I was like, I need to be a part of the family business.

So I started helping them with marketing. Slowly, it was like, why don't we have the school account? Like, we've been here a long time. Well, your dad pissed off the main guy. That's what it was. Of course, your dad did. My dad's like, you want a discount? Get the the fuck out of here i don't know who you are my uncle always had to do the cleanup he was like ah you know it's just don't worry about him so

that was the dynamic my dad had lost his finesse of the days of the handshake and all that were far gone and my dad still runs that way today like he's a good guy so don't like he gave me the eye contact and that's enough so i went in and just finessed that relationship and it just grew from there to my uncle saying you know what there was i've been wanting to retire and i think this is the moment and so i was here for like five seven years i mean it's kind of crazy yeah because mia was like a baby. And then finally like October of 2018 was when we did the official

paperwork. So like a year and a half ago of buying over. But it was already happening of like the official buy. I bought out my uncle's portion. And when I say I bought out, it was like an arrangement through the business. That was always the thing. Like I don't have any capital or whatever. Because by then we had already moved to another apartment in Santa Monica to be closer to the kids, which is now where I live next to Donna and Stella, which that was all meant to be.

It really was. Look, I want to say this because I say this to you all the time, but I want to say this on here. And I said this in the post too. I love, well, first of all, I love you. I mean, you were such a sounding board during the split. And you always talked to me so calmly. And you always made me feel so good about my anxiety of being a new dad, a new single dad at the same time. And not knowing what the fuck to do. And I was like, I think I'm going to come to some of those female meetings you all have.

And I'll be the one crying all the time. Like, get the fuck out of here. Right. But you've been great to me. You've been great to my family. I just I love you. I love your family. Louie, with all the help, with all the other stuff in here, too.

But also, I love you're a boss. I love that you're a female business owner. I love that the money I pay for the space back here goes to a family-owned business that serves the community. I'm not giving it to fucking Remax or some corporate entity that just does whatever the fuck they do with it. It really gives back. And we have a lot of ideas and plans for things back here in the space. I'm really excited to be a part of it um because i want to see this business get back on its feet and grow so why don't we talk about what happened the other

day uh and he's going to join us grab your headphones put your headphones on so we can do you have your headphones any you back there i'm here with you man i can hear you i'm here with you man i can hear you you good so why don't you i i want to tell it two ways because i'll tell you what i'll start with my what happened on my end and the first time seeing you and i want you to tell us why you got there. You know what I mean? So for me, what was happening during, this was Sunday, the day of the riots. And again, I fully support the movement. I'm not, you know, this is just what happened. People want to know there's been a lot of fucking shit going and flying out there that's been false information and stuff. So I want to clear up some things on my end.

But it was probably around 2 30 in the afternoon i'm on that citizen app and i get an alert that the shell gas station a block away where still and i just were before that was robbed at gunpoint then uh they set a place on fire not a block away now i live off of santa monica boulevard which is an easy street to go destroy if you're just looking for destruction they were people weren't really going into the residential neighborhoods as much and then there's another armed robbery right there so i texted don i was like hey this shit seems like it's getting crazy and it's close can i just bring her to your place and she's like sure so on my way to her place i figured well

let's just swing by the studio and see what's going on there but i'd seen smaller groups gathering at the cvs and all these things i'm like huh and when i pull up you're already outside and you're like get her the fuck out of here you were crying you're like they're here they're circling there's a guy behind you right now They've already said they're going to come back. So at that point, I listened to you and I leave. And when I drive down Santa Monica, I see what the guy told us today. I see 30 people tearing that 7-Eleven apart and they're tearing all the businesses in there. And I just know at this point, it's definitely going to happen. It's a matter of time. So I get Stella over. Your girls are with Donna. I tell them I'm coming back. I get here. And now you've at this point it's definitely going to happen it's a matter of time so i get stella over your

girls are with donna i tell them i'm coming back i get here and now you've got people out on the corner and i just start running up into the studio to grab what i can grab i call any and i'm like any can i just rip this shit out of here and leave the cords what fuck equipment up and then and he's like i'm coming and he and ash both who are here now um show up which i cannot i know i'm looking at the wall over here but i can't thank you both enough for coming to help out so you know we're out there and what made you come when you came because you you i didn't think anything was gonna happen we're so far up east well first of all they started peacefully and and then when the the trouble started the peaceful protests went south

to venice the people that weren't so peaceful came east but i never thought it was going to get past lincoln like right and and the thing is i just want to point out that i'm very much aware of the fact and if people aren't the peaceful protest and the people protesting maybe that weren't even as peaceful had nothing to do with the looters and the opportunistic there's like multiple groups happening here there's people who had it organized and then there's some people that may even be in the community that saw an opportunity to get a tv or whatever and um so that's the unfortunate thing i an idea, like most of us who had been watching it on the news, that something might jump off, but it's going to be at the mall.

I mean, maybe they'll get to Lincoln, but it's going to be west of Lincoln. Maybe they'll get to Main Street. I don't even know if they'll reach Abbot Kinney because now you're LAPD. So we took our kids to the beach because the choppers were out. It was loud. It was all hovering right where we were. Now, I didn't realize that it was hovering because stuff was happening. But we walked down to Station 26 with our bikes. We rode our bikes, actually. And Louie had walked. So we're there. And he's like, this is eerie. We filmed it. We're like, oh, my God, there's so

many choppers. It's kind of hard to enjoy the beach. But it was weird on the beach that day. It was like everybody was in a bubble like we didn't know what was going on. I get a FaceTime call. Well, let me back up. Louie's boss had said the day before lock up packages in the back, customer packages. And he's like, you should board up your windows. I'm like, I'm not going to board. We're in a doctor's office district, 19 blocks from the beach. So when we're on the beach, my friend Darlene FaceTimes me. She had drove down, was in the scene. She's in front of the van store FaceTiming, crying. She's screaming at looters, don't do this. Don't do this.

This is not, you don't want to disrupt what's the protest. Like, please stop. And she's showing, she's like, there's shooting M80s. There's tear gas. There's people looting. They're smashing everything. I'm like, oh my God. And we're all sitting there talking to her like, this is horribleoting they're smashing everything i'm like oh my god and we're

all sitting there talking to her like this is horrible what they're doing to the mall but again i not that the big box retailers deserve it but i was like that's probably where they're going to loot the michael kors store the north whatever i if that's also who the national guard drove down my local street to go protect the nikes and the nordstroms and the bloomingdales the people who have more money than God and insurance out the fucking ass. Right. And they're using all their resources. All of them.

And they're also tear gassing and using like aggressive force on like the protesters. Innocent people. Yeah. Arresting people on curfew. Like, oh, you're going to arrest that guy on curfew? But not this guy looting right in front of you? It was just crazy. I mean, if you watch some of these videos that are out there, like, people are dropping merchandise

in the middle of the street. Like, they're just, and they're pulling up in cars, and they don't even, they're not even covering their faces. So, anyway, so as that's happening, I'm like, the people start talking about the curfew had just bumped up. You know, it was like five and it got to four. And the lifeguard's like, hey, like, he's starting to tell people there's a curfew. So I'm

like, let's get going. So we're getting our stuff. We go to unlock the bikes, and we're trying to ride our bikes and i hear protesters and i start to panic because they're coming with signs but then they're fine i'm like i was just protesters okay then i hear smashing and yelling in the background but i'm like is that smashing what is that brianna can't ride her bike now because the tires have been slashed like sliced which is bizarre and maybe has nothing to do with any of this, because why would they just slice her little used kid bike that has saran wrap on the

seat? But it literally has saran wrap. Not from a hot dog, though. There's no hot dog juice on it. I made sure of that. But we're walking now. We have to go 14 blocks. So we get to Main Street, and it was so bizarre. There was this beautiful African-American woman

that's all decked out like a model, being filmed with a professional camera, like, walked sauntering across the street. They're filming something, and then these five, like, white boy skaters come by, and they're like, fuck 12, fuck 12. And I'm like, what does fuck 12 mean? Yeah, what's that mean?

It means fuck the cops, I guess, but I'm not really sure if they're counting the letters. I still haven't gotten into the details of what the 12 is. But they're yelling and screaming right in Brianna and me, like right in my kids' faces, and they're scared now. Louie's a block ahead because he had went first to check out, like, let me

go ahead of you guys and see if there's like... People are throwing M80s, so we are hearing boom, boom, and people yelling. Then I hear glass shattering and the surf shop on the corner and all that. And people are like running now. And I'm like, oh, my God. So I just said, girls, I'm becoming like the crazy mom that I am. I'm screaming at them.

Avert your eyes. Do not look at anyone in the eye. Just follow me. One in front, one behind. Walk tight. We have to walk all the way up the hill with the bikes and stuff. So we just start hustling at home. And they're getting tired. And I going all, we have to walk all the way up the hill with the bikes and stuff. So we just start hustling at home and they're getting tired. And I'm like, we got to make it home hearing all the sirens. So we get home and Louie's like, let's go check

on the store. And I'm like, I don't really think we need to. He's like, let's just go check on the store. Did you call them and tell them? I said, well, I told them to like move some stuff by the window or whatever, but so it should be fine. We get here. It was like the craziest timing. We're coming up our route. You know, we take 17th. I make a right on Santa Monica. I look left west and I'm like, there's nothing going on over here. I look right. I see like a straggler woman talking to some homeless people near the store. She's handing them something. Then now I realized she was giving them a brick or whatever, but she's looking, she now I go to make a U-turn to come back around.

I'm kind of checking out the scene. And I noticed that the pharmacy has been smashed on one door and she's peering in the window of my store. And Louie's like, Oh, look, look, look.

I'm like, Oh, it doesn't look abnormal. And then five guys, it was like perfect timing are running towards the back window with the crowbar to just take it. And I just start laying on my horn. I'm screaming.

It was like watching someone break into my house and my kids are inside. Right. And I'm screaming from a primal place. My phone is at 1% trying to be charged. I'm going, stop, please. That's my family business. Don't do this. And they have masks on.

They've got two middle fingers up. They're running towards me and can hear, fuck you, bitch, whatever. So Louie's like, go back. And I'm like, no, I'm scared now because I don't know if they have a rock in their hand. You don't know what they have. Yeah. Honestly, I was like, I don't want to get, it'll be my luck I'll get hit in the exact spot in your head and I'll be talking out of my left nostril for the rest of my life.

So I'm like panicking. I'm also trying to tell Siri to call 911 and it's like, call nom nom. And I'm like, no, bitch. Save my motherfucking life. It's like, am I calling 911? It's like, call your mom. I'm like, no. So he's trying to, I'm like, film them, film? It's like, call your mom? I'm like, no So he's trying to

I'm like, film them, film them And we're like shaking So I come back around And I notice that there's like a Range Rover Who's following and honking at them So they ran away So we come across to the Maserati dealer And the owner and this other guy

He's like, hey dude The one guy's like, get out of here, man We've been shooing people away But they're coming And they already hit the pharmacy And the other guy's like, don't get out of here Go stand in We've been shooing people away, but they're coming and they already hit the pharmacy. And the other guy's like, don't get out of here. Go stand in front of your business, go get some friends, get over there. And I'm like, oh my God. So the other guy starts telling me they just hit my pharmacy. He's already got guys on the way with like boards. So as we're doing that,

two cars block me. They're like racing around, like coming fast. And I just heard the detector just told me the other day about a call that someone else is calling in seeing me be blocked in it's kind of scary hearing it from the perspective like she's like we got a call they're like she's being blocked in by two cars and it was scary because he was behind me and i was out of the vehicle like talking to them like oh my god so we go over there and louise like all of them you like, oh my God. So we go over there and Louie's like, all of them are, you can see everything in there. Like if you put your face in, you see all these saxophones and guitars and everything.

So he's like, we got to get in there. So I do this, I have this group text called Hot Moms. It's all my like PTA moms. And I'm like, 9-1-1, somebody help. And I love them because they will come. I mean, you could be like, I got diarrhea. And they're there with a modium to cut to like, we're being looted. And they're like, they're there with a baseball bat and a bicycle helmet. So they ran over right away to my close friends, Adi and Ashley. They were

like, do you need us there now? We're in the car. So they show up. And then two more friends come and I'm panicking inside trying to scribble on a piece of paper. Do I do I say out of business? And then, you know, they're like, my friends are like, say minority owned. I'm like, well, that's something a minority probably wouldn't put on the window. But, you know, what do we say? Do we say there's nothing in here?

We're drawing the blinds. We're like trying to paper it up. We're also trying to move stuff as much as we can. And then now there's these little groups coming. And I have pictures of it from me inside of a car pulling up and they're straight coming we're tapping on the window and there's only three friends outside they can only do so much my one friend god lover Raquel she's yelling she didn't give a shit she's like get out of here go home you know she's trying to shoo them away and at this point they seem like

groups of five young punk kids who if you're're standing there, they're going to go away. And that's kind of what it was at first. Backpacks on the front and the back. They're ready to loot, but they're not trying to get into it with anyone. Cut to cars are zooming down the street full speed. People are sitting outside the windows with crowbars, hammers, whatever they can tap windows. It's coming. It's like, so my friend, my friend's husband, Patrick is like, meanwhile, I'm still in my bathing suit and like my Daisy Dukes and my flip flops. He's like, so my friend, my friend's husband, Patrick is like, I mean, while I'm still in my bathing suit and like my Daisy Dukes and my flip flops, he's like, okay,

if you're going to stand out here, you can't be wearing that. So go change. So we get in the car, we're going westbound on Santa Monica Boulevard. We get five blocks west on 14th to make a left. And there is pandemonium. It's like 60 people looting the crap out of the adult sex shop.

We're like driving over dildos and shit. Get the hot dogs, man. We don't need the sex shop. We got hot dogs. And sandwich bags. I was just thinking, like, how do you resell that on the market? Slightly used. Like, might have been ran over.

It's so weird. Just so you know, if you bought them. Somebody said they saw them with, like, like a plastic one of those dolls or whatever just carrying that carries it out but they were hitting the vape shop in there and i talked to them and i just found out that they broke the guy's wrist at the vape shop and apparently the the guy from the sex shop like had just left and was like hiding in the back or something for an hour so that's scary but my friend owns truckston's our favorite restaurant we make a u-turn and i'm like oh they're they're looting places you can get stuff but then i see them smash the front windows of truckstons and i'm like oh shit they're coming like they're just smashing shit now yeah um so

i call my friends and i'm like you guys they're already panicking hey they're coming this way and i want to say this too real quick not to interrupt you but this is coming off the heels of being closed for months for like everyone's forgotten about the coronavirus like we've been out of work we you and i both for months because of this and honestly how many days were you open when friday they said we could be two days actually it was friday night when they finally said it. So you're like a day and a half open to the public again, and maybe you can get some business rolling back in. And then this happened. And boom.

And not to mention that curbside for the music industry doesn't exactly work. We're not hamburgers and pizzas. I'm not throwing a $3,500 saxophone in someone's window from the curb. That is not how those purchases happen. So anyways, we see them coming. We call them to tell them that they're coming and they're like we know there's a group coming the opposite direction they just looted cvs and they've got carts and the whole thing and there's car he goes there's lots of cars they're circling so i'm like don't i don't i don't want anybody risking their life for the whole thing. At that point, someone brandished a gun.

And that's when my friend was like, I just had a gun shown to me. Yeah, he told me. He said, I didn't see that gun. He said somebody just got out of their car and basically showed the sidewalk the gun. Like, we're coming. He just said, because he had a bat. I think it was more to protect me if something happened. And a bicycle helmet.

He was probably like, just go to T-Ball. Was was there something happening is this that smash and grab sale they said so he's like um you know what are you going to do with that you're going to end up getting shot so that's when it got real like you know no one wants to get hurt anyways but guns come out you know you know the pharmacy that's across from us smc pharmacy within minutes they had guys with bulletproof vests the israelis almost around and ar-15s and i was like please come across the street and help me i was like well also you're a pharmacy you know they're coming for your shit you know they're coming i'm not thinking because it's compound pharmacy for like hormones i always think i'm like what i want them there a bunch of estrogen i was like all right there's probably like some codeine ibuprofen i don't know

and then you're gonna go the dildo shop i'm so confused it took me a minute they did have ar-15s they did they were ready to go but that's what you needed if you and listen after 17 calls to 9-1-1 they basically said listen if you own a registered firearm a we're not coming out i don't care if there's said, listen, if you own a registered firearm, A, we're not coming out. I don't care if there's guns being shown. And if you own a registered firearm, you are more than welcome to protect your own property. And that's when I was like, right. I mean, I was texting everybody like, if you have a legal registered firearm, we need help.

Well, that's when I came back. I started hustling what I could out of here. Annie and Ash show up doing the same. And it was impending doom. It felt like zombies were here and we were all about to go under. So many things were going on. Back to what you were saying. There were five helicopters low hovering all day.

Cars left and right. This 19th Street's a weird wide street. It's almost like a three lane. And they were rolling in five, six deep. And I want to make it very clear. It was not all black people. Bullshit. Every race was represented.

Mothers with children in the back seat. Yes. I'll say this this if i'm going to generalize anything it would be age and the overwhelming majority of the people i saw were young young people and it started getting crazy at that point you had left yeah um louie took you home and you i called you and you were like just get the fuck out of there it is you called me on the way you're like it is madness they are coming they're coming they're coming you went home we're still doing our thing um and then you could see the crowd get you could see a crowd getting bigger and bigger and bigger and your friend uh that drove the subaru oh raquel she got her window smashed so she came back yelling they're coming they're

coming get the fuck out of here and i go what the hell happened to your window and she's like two it was two white girls yeah one wearing pink fluffy slippers and a brandy melville shirt so what happened was when when the cars are pulling up they start looting the stereo alarm store a few doors down but they're just cavalier in the way they're doing they've parked in santa monica in the middle of the street and now they're clogging traffic for people that are coming through that don't know what the fuck's going on and they're terrorizing people in the street these little white girls with hammers busting through windows and shit and you just see more and more people rolling up and i'm telling you and and it's getting closer and closer. Louie has come back. He's standing on the corner.

He and I are out there. Annie and Ash are still hustling things out, too. And at that point, when they finally got out, when she came back with her windows all smashed out, and then it just seemed like 100 people on foot. And again, five, six deep in car after car after car. I mean, they blocked the fire truck. Nice cars, by the way. Nice cars.

And they blocked the fire truck by the way and they blocked the fire truck from making a left and tagged the back of their truck yeah that's what you told me tag that truck so you've got fire sirens going on it was so disorienting it was like a war zone here but nobody helping us no one helping us it's it's it's going to happen yeah it's inevitable and the um i keep circling to tell louis like i'm right here the car is right here i'm done now i'm in the car you're telling me to get them i got the door open i'm like you can jump in i swing to the other side and i purposely position myself up front so i can't be blocked in right because i see people coming behind me and everything and i go to get um like anything i can of this yeah on

camera and a guy sees me and i've told i've mentioned that there was a gun pulled on me there was but i want to make it very i if you ask my friend back home they held me down at the bottom of the steps with a bazooka on my neck and made me watch while they took all my shit out like it did not go down like that i've talked to the detective a guy saw me he took a gun he had it right here against his chest like this and he goes get the fuck out of here and i'm sorry to use that word but i am quoting but i just circle around and i tell louis like look because he was still on the corner and didn't see it it was between him and me and i get the fuck out of

here every there's guns just get the fuck out of here and that's when I left I left before and he still didn't leave which pissed me off I was crying he drove across right at that point I left because it was happening and you were like get the fuck over here I went home to get a bag and but there was no gun pointed in my face there was no anything like that it was just a suggestion of

like you want to try and I was like yeah that's a good idea you know and then I also part of me when later I was like yeah that's a good idea you know and then i also part of me when i later i was like what what's screaming like is it my glasses look i'm i'm a little insecure about growing this quarantine hair out is this screaming like because i can cut this shit but um you know it and the detective she asked me, I go, listen, it was like the purge. It was like Mad Max. Normally, you stand out with a mask. Everyone had masks.

Halloween type shit. The skeletons, intimidating, scary shit. And the gun wasn't, I know it sounds crazy, but it wasn't that big of a deal. It was the groups, the size of the people. You were overtaken. And that's what the cops are saying. Yes, I've seen it in Baltimore one time. And I've told the story of the people you couldn't you were overtaken and that's what the cops are saying in baltimore one time and i've told the story on the podcast it was a it was a bar fight that rolled out about 15 people but it moved down the street and all of a sudden more people and we were

like holy fucking quickly it grew to like 40 fighting and angry people to see that to see remember i drove stella to her mom's first so i saw 30 people when i saw what looked and felt like a hundred fucking people on foot out there and then the cars coming everywhere and people exiting the cars on and you can see it on the videos yeah like they look we talked about it it felt very organized it felt like i talked to a friend in new york i didn't mention anything to him he said the same thing it felt like the first wave was sort of hitting the shit. And then the next wave comes with the backpacks. I saw people with suitcases.

They left the everyone's like, oh, this is a great trash can to sweep up the glass. Yeah, it was on wheels. I was like, no, they were using that to move merchandise. I mean, yeah. So I saw everyone represented in there. But and again, if I'm going to generalize, none of these people. I understand what's going on with the anger and the rage and all of it. I get it.

I do understand why. These people weren't a part of that cause. They weren't part of that. People say opportunists, but that almost sounds positive. These people were just out for destruction and mayhem. And again, I saw probably a 19, 20-year-old white blonde girl driving an Acura SUV. Like, this was not a, you know. You couldn't racially profile anybody.

No fucking way. And also, it's so difficult to identify anyone. People that did it right were covered. You couldn't tell age, race, sex, nothing on some of these people. So, you know, it was a fucking scary thing. And all, it it was that's what i told the detective the mob of the and i mean that like literally the group of people that moved almost like a fucking amoeba up the street but then on top of it you've got helicopters going

you've got sirens left and right you got screaming and yelling the place was the one who shot the who shot the gun in the air two times. We didn't know that, though. He told me after he was hiding in the alley. It didn't scare anybody. No, it didn't scare anybody. Annie, I want to hear your take from when you pulled up here. First of all, you thank us for coming through.

We built this with you, man. We know all the time and the effort and the money that you put into this i mean we we had to save it it wasn't it wasn't a question when we got the call it was the craziest thing to hear you didn't even say hello i said i i started to say hello and you said the looters are here they were you're like at your house where are we talking uh so i mean it was it was instant for me it was like uh the decisions already made you know it's just a matter of how far did you get and what more do you need and you obviously needed our help and we came through immediately and i mean you did i can't

again i love you guys for that you really do you did not have to and i know what you're saying but man thank you no for sure man like for sure we we didn't feel like we had to but it we felt like because it was crazy when you got here it was pretty heavy yeah it was it was really starting by the time you pulled up yeah by uh before we even got here, I put it on my Instagram story. At the gas station, right down the street was the armed guards. And there was just 40 of them just casually in there. We saw them in the back of the truck just sitting. In Santa Monica?

Yeah. And not coming down here. And you know what's crazy? At the Maserati shop, Louie was like, there was eight cops in there at one point, and there's nobody in there. No one broke into the Maserati shop, which is across the street, you know, catty corner. And I'm like, why are they in there? But just not looking over here.

And I was on the call with the police chief, so there's some insight, and I can see. But I just, to me, it was crazy to see what it feels like to have no, I mean, you're calling and they're like, we're just not going to come. I mean, you got guns across the street. You got the owner here saying he's got a gun. I'm seeing a gun. Richard saw a gun. Let me tell you something.

I never saw that in Baltimore City. Okay. This is liberal ass Santa Monica. So think about that. Exactly. And that's, you know, that's a whole other thing. Politically, people are like, you know, I got everything after that uh news report came out people were commenting that's what you get you liberal ass how do you feel about guns and i'm like you don't even know me first of all i'm gonna say this loud

and clear republicans don't own guns i mean excuse me don't own the second amendment they don't own the second right they don't own the second amendment there was plenty of liberal ass motherfuckers that didn't get looted because of it and you know well then the next night was van eyes when that that family was out on the on the sidewalk but there's that was out by you guys any on the sidewalk what do they protect yeah they had a liquor store so they just stood out front with their shotguns and then the police show up now look i know it's got to be weird and confusing to roll up and see a family of people with shotguns telling you they went that way you know what i mean what the fuck are you all doing though but the news lady was there the whole time saying the looters are running it's not and they remember they cuffed them and everything else so once they saw what happened to santa monica and that's the other

thing i want to mention too is i've told a lot of friends about this who live here. And they're like, didn't hear any of this on the news. I said, I know. Well, I can tell you we didn't because there wasn't a fucking news crew around. You don't have a news crew to see shit on the news. Down there talking about the white girls robbing the surf stores and fucking Nordstrom. Right, and the van store. Listen, and I feel sorry for the couple

that has the optometry place on 4th Street and the sake house, but let's not get it twisted. If you can afford property down there, I mean, you're probably doing a little bit better than those of us that have to be east of Lincoln. This part of the community has always been overlooked. We pay the same

taxes. We pay all that stuff. You know, we have a homeless issue it's like we got to wait longer 1999 south bundy is right there that is the fox news and contact right there all they had to do was that but no one and they're like i mean not till after then but also the story that we're sharing is our story and i'd say maybe it's a five block radius imagine what was going on in every neighborhood across this nation that fucking during all this but during but our police so much uncovered it was so much uncovered and our police was they said you know we weren't prepared and apparently like and this is all public because she the chief went on a zoom call with the

community and i was upset because i'm like how could you say that it you did you heard information that it was canceled and so you didn't feel like you needed to have tactical groups if one thing tells you that it's still happening and 10 say it's don't go with the one that says it isn't now to her defense apparently you know she's working off of a budget restriction so every 30 minutes of overtime they gotta log it so she's not wanting to put together some overtime tactical crew. I'm like, who the hell thinks about fucking overtime when you're, I mean, if that's your job. When we were on the phone, she's like,

look, I'm at 28 minutes right now. I got to wrap this up. I was like, I haven't even got to the hard part yet. I mean, this is like, you know, this was like the crazy thing that, oh, you know, they're like, not a life was lost and that not because of you. It's because of some of these motherfuckers had AR 15.

I mean, that's why I mean, and maybe because we're liberal Santa Monica, nobody popped off their gun because it could have been an exchange. Also, the people that were destroying things again, I don't think they were out to kill. 95% of them weren't even armed and didn't really have anything.

I think there was a couple who knew that they were coming to a town. That was scared to death if they even flashed it. Yeah, they're like, let me. Which is what I saw. They saw Birkenstocks and tie-dye shirts. They're like, let me show them my water pistol. You know, I mean, maybe that's what it was. We were taken advantage of because, you know, there's this ideology of like who we are.

Because people were definitely coming from out of town. I think they were looking. Look, there's that last video that the neighbor gave me the girl is like the one dude's running up the street with two guitars well this is a different one where she's parked waiting and she's texting another car comes and then they hand her something with liquid in it and i'm like damn we probably could have got set on fire which would have really destroyed everything inside but it was so much planning i don't think they really knew the area. So they'd drive around, find a spot, and then you'd see cars come zoom, zoom, zoom.

They'd give you something to break the window. What was so sad about it is like, when you're watching it, people kept saying, it's just stuff. Just be glad that you're okay. I'm like, but it's not just stuff. It's my whole livelihood. Like, I don't think they understand.

They might be under the thinking like, oh, they have uh insurance and it covers it well as we know it's not that easy and even if it does you're still left with stuff that insurance just doesn't cover you know interruption of business and things like that plus all the time we've been down for corona and not having any money come in for three months so now it's a delayed another however many months. And it's at least six weeks of the windows. I mean, come on.

And then just the zero percent. I wanted to tell these people I had to put on a zero percent credit card and get Megan, my friend, and haggle with guys. I slept in this whole place for two nights when they redid the carpets. Louie and I moved things because we couldn't afford to have a crew. We had to pay people cash to do it after work just the sweat equity that went into it and the sweat equity that then had to go into cleaning it goes back for decades with your family in this neighborhood serving the community and that's what i've said to you too there's so many good people coming out of oh my god but that's those are the seeds you've planted and now the fruit is bearing and let people

help you i mean listen when i came here first of all my friend's husband's like lana um do you have another broom or whatever i'm like where are you he's like i'm here they were there before me sweeping the glass up at six o'clock in the morning and i had coffee brought to me and i mean from food and water to friends coming to help clean off the graffiti and just everything i well annie go back i want you to tell your your side of things too please um so so so once we got here honestly my biggest fear was getting mistaken as one of them because we went around and like you said they were like kids and little white girls and boys and stuff so i mean the fact that you didn't

know who was who who was the good guy who was the bad guy you know me carrying around a gun it felt safe against looters it did not feel safe against anybody else so right that was probably the craziest part but um by the time we got here you you were already hustling so our our main uh our main agenda was just to just to hustle with you i mean this room behind me used to look real nice it does not normally look like that it looks like a little casting couch behind me but uh don't forget those sandwich bags gotta keep it safe keep it clean keep it clean but yeah we we took everything man we um you know it went from what is what's vital you know what what should

we take first to let's let's take it all so it was just up and down the stairs and and then it was like and vulnerable like a motherfucker i mean it it's still, the windows are boarded up. So it's, yeah. We were able to salvage almost everything, which was really great. And then barricade. And then we barricaded like a fucking tornado was coming.

We put every goddamn desk. I told Eddie, I was like, if they want it, they're going to have to earn it. All right. They're going to have to earn it. You put like two desks and a table in front of the door. I didn't know how we were going to get in there.

I know. We didn't know. That was funny. That was good, though. Well, now it's good because you'll be able to have that 24-7 security. I mean, a guard. You're going to have cameras, all that, rings, all that shit is here now. It is a fortress.

And then the cameras that we have already like all the footage are zooming in right and that's that's the other thing it doesn't matter you know what i mean like people are like did you have an alarm yeah it went off when they cracked the fucking glass like if they're coming in they're coming in there's alarms and cameras don't matter yeah um but also that night too like i it was about, I don't know, it was like 1130 and I was out front smoking a joint. It was everyone had gone to bed. And then I saw you pull out. I was like, I wonder where Lana's going.

You call me. You're like, hey, my friend's on a construction thing and I'm going to go board up. So I went in and told Donna, I'm like, hey, I want to go help. And I was it was I was glad I wanted to come here and help. And that was crazy. Board up. It was because also you didn't know if anyone was still coming around or if anyone was still in here. It was only a few hours after.

But the other thing, too, that was crazy about all this is we're talking about 435 o'clock. It was broad fucking daylight. Bright as shit. It was. And it was scary. And it went on until sundown. It was a long. That was the thing. It wasn't like a one and done it was like an ongoing it just got started and then when we were driving home they

were gunshots they were driving around the neighborhood burning cars yeah so we weren't sure if they were going to start hitting and that was when i was like thank god i live in a shitty apartment building i was ready to get a hotel i told my kids i was like we don't need a security gate that's why they don't paint it keeps people out that's exactly what we thought when uh when when it went to van nye's the next day i mean we definitely don't live in a super nice place so we heard nothing but gunshots the entire night but we're like i mean they're not coming here though so right i know that's what kind of made us feel safe as my husband growing up in the projects he's like shit i used to warm up the car and go back in the house and put hair gel on

ain't nobody stealing my shit everybody knows my family well i want to um please will you mention the go fund me um let's plug everything uh right now and uh get it all out there so i mean some amazing parents from the they they're called SMAPA. It's the Santa Monica, the visual and performing arts, like parents together. They put together like, that was a crazy thing at eight o'clock in the morning.

They're like, we got a URL. It's help Santa Monica music.org. I'm like, wow, it points to a GoFundMe. There's two GoFundMes and they're both legitimate and they both are needed because one friend started one Holly right away,

then another group so they reduced the amount so that together maybe it'll make a portion now we realize now i was like damn i should have left it for more but because you don't know until you get a forensic cpa person in here from the insurance company to tell you you're fucked so even after so um that's help santa monica music.org also we didn't mention, but the lab that I was starting back here with the Logic Pro and the Ableton Live and the DJ stuff, the DJ coach with DJ Hoppa, we were just starting this partnership, which we had to pivot and move things online. So we have the DJ coach, which is a class you can still take. That's a great way to support us. Sign your kids up for the summer camp we got going on our website. There's a link for the DJ coach, which is a class you can still take. That's a great way to support us. Sign your kids up for the summer camp we got going on our website.

There's a link for the DJ coach. It ranges from age to six and up, you know, to the novice, to the person who's been DJing and wants to learn more from a professional. But Outreach Through the Arts is our nonprofit arm where we serve kids on free and reduced lunch through private music lessons after school we do group ensemble stuff we have other classes i've been on site at schools helping kids who are you know underserved youth that maybe college isn't an option for them so if i could introduce them to music production to make money to have a real job that was my goal and 16 year old ryan sickler would have killed for somebody like you in my life.

Yeah. I mean, like we were just a hop and I were talking today cause I made a comment about like, well not that, you know, DJs, the career,

he's like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, a band maybe gets 300 playing and they got to split it with six people. Yeah.

A DJ will for sure make $300 and we can show you how to get there. And it's, it's about finding something for kids that make them want to do it, that are happy, they're passionate about it. And even here with the podcast and teaching them how to do the control room. Well, we're going to do that. Look, I am a huge fan of the underdog,

the hashtag overlooked, and obviously the fucking honeydew. OTTarts.org, that's the other, that's the nonprofit that if you want to, O-T-T-A-R-T-S. Oh my God. Not hotdogs.com. Oscar Meyer.

No, it's O-T-T-A-R-T-S.org. That's OTA, which stands for Outreach to the Arts. If you want to donate to that non-profit, it's all directly funded to that program. And that will help continue the program. Because the store store needs rebuilding but we were housing the nonprofit in here so those this is where these kids came for their well that's what we talked about like

we want to have these um kids come in and learn how to live switch and edit and shoot cameras and do podcasting is only growing and growing and growing so i'm very excited to be um part of that because i want to help and and that's not just to be cool and be like oh learn this cool thing this is a reality it is so expensive to live i've got two stepdaughters that are struggling you know they've got great setups with apartments luckily but it would be a struggle to live with two or three rooms i know know. I mean, we're stuck in a rent-controlled apartment. So I want to give kids an opportunity to be independent. Listen, as someone who's, this has been a humbling experience to having people set up a GoFundMe. I revel in the fact that I can do for myself.

I've always been independent. And people keep telling me, just say thank you. Let people, they want to help you. But I want to give these kids that independence. If you own a, if you have a trade, a skill, and you're passionate about it, you're going to be successful. And if I can harness that passion and give them a real skill that you could actually make a living from, that to me is like helping in so many different ways. It's not just the feel goods ofods of like oh come play some music it's like no let's let's really hone into that and have you build a life for yourself where you don't have to depend on anybody you can set your own schedule it's a legit skill you don't

need to be in college debt afterwards i mean you know what let me say this if anyone's out there in the la area and you want to help out reach out email me. Ryan at ryanstickler.com. We're going to get this thing going here shortly, hopefully. I'm not sure how long it'll take before everything's back up and running. But if you want to help out, email me and we could use the help. Yeah, maybe you can come in and help out the kids and everything else.

I think it's great. Yeah, sponsor a kid. Well, Lana, thank you for coming on here. Annie and Ash, thank you as well. I keep looking at the wall because you're on that side. I know, I'm like looking. That was a broad range of topics. One more time with your websites. Give the website to me.

Okay, well, we're SantaMonicaMusic.com. So that's our website for the store. We own Culver City Music, too, and you can access the GoFundMe from there, too. There's a pop-up, also the nonprofit. But HelpSantaMonicaMusic.org is helping us rebuild right now. We need way more than we thought because interruption of business

is the biggest problem. And OTTArts.org is Outreach Through the Arts. That's the nonprofit. So if you want to help sponsor some kids, you want to help us rebuild, it all coincides. It all leads over.

I love you. Listen to me. You're the shit. shit thank you for doing this i know this wasn't thanks for having me of course i know i'm like damn should i have told that hot dog story i'm not gonna you're gonna get packages of hot dogs and shit they're gonna be delivered i like turkey dogs by the way chicken apple sausage is my my go-to now it's bigger it is bigger and fat uh well thank you again i love you for everything and i look forward to all that we're gonna do back here we're just getting that's the other thing i just got the first episode recorded we're just getting started so i can't wait to see where i look forward to working with these guys yeah we're gonna have a good time and help a lot of people. Keep pointing at the wall.

Ryan Sickler on all social media, ryansickler.com. Make sure you subscribe for the Patreon show and submit your story. And make sure you subscribe to the YouTube channel so you can watch The Honeydew there every Tuesday. We'll talk to you all next week. Thank you.