Clean LA with Juan Naula

It is the John Phillips show at Johnny's on vacation. He'll be back on Monday. It's Randy Wang here and the phone number to join us is 800 222 5222. 1-800-222-5222. You can email us at Johnny. Don't like show at gmail.com or my personal email is Randy Wang radio.substack.com. Excuse me. Randy Wang radio at gmail.com. The sub stack is Randy Wang radio.substack.com. All of the show prep for today all 22 stories that I picked out that are important things that you need to know going on in the state of California. We've only got a three hour show and then I have the other one hour show. We can't cover everything, but I put everything up there at Randy Wang radio.substack.com. All the stories going on in Southern California, the Bay Area, Sacramento, San Diego and the central valley that you need to know about. And I do a full recap of all of those stories every day at five o'clock on the K ABC news blitz. You can hear it in Southern California on 790 K ABC. And if you're in the Bay Area, you can stream it at K ABC.com. Our next guest and I don't use this term lightly is a true hero in the city of Los Angeles because he is on a mission to clean up LA one trash bag at a time. You can go to his website and find out everything that he's doing at clean la with me.org. One Nala of clean LA with me. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much. Yeah, it's a pleasure to be here and thanks for having me at your show. So Juan, for people that don't know you, don't know your story, tell us about your background and how you got into the world of deciding to pick up all the trash yourself in LA. So I moved to Los Angeles 16 months ago from Virginia looking for investment for my tech company. When I got here, I started driving all around going like North or East, West and I see trash everywhere. So it kind of shocked me because when I was in Virginia and I'm Ecuadorian back in home, you don't see this type of trash on the streets, parks, all this everywhere. So that kind of shocked me. And because I'm used to see every street and sidewalk clean. And I was five weeks here in Los Angeles and I decided to start cleaning because it was a lot of things because I moved to Los Angeles with a dream to try to build this tech company. And then I had my wife also a sprainer but then they were living back in Ecuador and then my son you know, born in February and it was a lot of things. I got a scam with money and when I was three weeks in Los Angeles. So, you know, start cleaning and then keep going cleaning for me was like a therapy and I was really enjoying. So that's how I get involved in trying to make a cleanest streets in Los Angeles, you know. And you know, we definitely need it even though this is such an expensive city to live in and everyone who lives here pays exorbitant sales taxes and property taxes, business taxes, what have you. The city of LA does not pick up the trash that is illegally dumped all over and this city is filthy. Yes. When I started doing the cleanups, I didn't have to, I was, you know, I post on social media and I was asking people if I was living, I start with parks and I start cleaning with parks. It was easy because I would clean the park and I would just leave the trash bus right there by the trash can and they will come up and pick it up. But then I go into streets and then, you know, park, I mean, at least and then I was like, I need to know how I can dispose of this trash because I didn't know I'm new and then people started giving me the information I got to call 311 up and, you know, and put the request there. But it was a mess to be honest because I had a lot of problems with 311 up. I was putting the request, they were not coming to pick it up the trash and then the homeless come and open the bags and the trash was all over again. So many times that was I got to go back and clean it out. But, you know, and, and, you know, it was kind of a little bit, you know, like, okay, I'm doing the work, just come and pick it up and try it, you know. I mean, you were doing the hard part, you were picking up the garbage, you were sorting it, you were putting into bags and just having the city of LA respond to the app that they tell everyone to use 311 and they don't do a damn thing. I know and it was like that. So then I used to, you know, go back and I was used to another video that said, hey, I put the request, why you do not, you know, why you at the LA city, LA Sanitation, why 311 is not coming and pick it up the trash and then they will come and, you know, and I will talk to them, all the officials, all the websites, all the social media page, and they will start doing it. And then, you know, more and more and more, I went on news, I was complaining about 311 app, I was like, why don't you come just pick it up. And eventually, now when I put a request, believe me or not, it used to take about a week, two weeks to come and pick it up my trash. And these days they do next day. That is definitely an improvement. But like so many things with the city of LA, the way that you get an improvement is you have to, unfortunately, embarrass the city into doing their job. I see that's the only way to do it. And I was like, I don't want to do this, you know, embarrass the officials. I'm used to something else, you know, the officials do the job, we don't even have to do this. And East Coast, you know, I was 28 years living in the MB area, and then back home, same thing. But here you have to go on social media, tell them, and then eventually they start doing it. But they don't like me at this time. Now, Juan, when you're doing these cleanups all throughout the city of Los Angeles, I'm sure people are curious to know like, what are the things that are being illegally dumped? Is it food? Is it stuff that people are living at? Is it stuff from contractors? What are you finding at all these dump sites? So the most illegal dumping is contractors, food vendors, fruit vendors. And eventually, people when they're leaving, they're moving from one apartment to another apartment building, I mean, one building to another building. They are leaving all the furniture, they don't want to take this, leave it outside. I'm not really sure if those people doesn't know they can put a request on 3111 or the 311 doesn't come and pick it up. So what happened is, you know, when they leave all this furniture outside, the homeless come and pick it up and just take it with them. That's right. You see mattresses, chairs, tables everywhere, because the homeless are taking all the stress that's being sitting outside. But, you know, it's also the people, when people see a trash, other people come and just put in there. Normal people. I'm talking about normal people. Just they see trash and just come and put it right there. I was like, come on, everybody has to do their part, you know, everybody. To have a better city, everybody has to do their part. But the most illegal, illegal dumping is contraction, food vendors and fruit vendors. And it's disgusting. I got to imagine, I know in the produce district, there are just pallets and pallets of pallets of fruit and vegetables that are dumped on a street corner every single day. And we obviously know where it's coming from, but it seems that there just really isn't any enforcement going on for people doing this. It should be like, it should be many, like, you know, I'm right now, I was going to dump the trash that I picked up. You know, I got it, I got a one truck donate, but one, one guy from Long Beach, he don't make a pickup truck. So now I can put it, put all the garbage and back on my truck and go dump. So I've been emailing back and forth with the city, city hall, the mayor offices and public workers over, I don't know, every 40, 50 emails, I think. And I asked them for grants, I asked them for funding, I asked them for some help so I can stop paying this fees, because $115 every time when I go dump this trash. And then also, I'll find out that right now, I can go dump at the city field, it's $87. But it should be, I don't know, a program where people said, okay, you're going to go dump over there, we're going to give you 50%. So that will, that will eliminate all the illegal dumping with the contractors, you know, what's the problem, because they're not making enough money, so they don't get enough money to go and dump the trash, because it's $115. But if they said, okay, you're just going to pay 50%, I think all the contractors, they're going to go and dump, but you know, there should be more programs or it should be cameras, because one time I wasn't, I wasn't looking for parking lot by city hall, and by accident, I was standing by the bus line. So they took a photo, send me a bill for $300. I had to pay, and I was like, why don't you have these cameras for people who are doing illegal dumping? Why they don't do that? I was in the wrong place, but I was like, for two minutes, and I got to take a $300 ticket, but they don't do any other enforcement for the people who is illegal dumping. There's many other spots, many other spots that have clean it, two weeks, it's even worse sometimes. You're totally right about that. And we have the technology to do this. We know where the spots are, because the same spots seem to pop up over and over and over and over again. But it seems that two things can be true at the same time. Enforcement is very, very, very seldom. And what you see in cities where the cost of dumping trash is so prohibitively expensive is some people just say screw it, I'm dumping on the street. The same exact situation is going on in the city of Oakland, and Oakland has some of the most expensive trash fees in the entire state of California. Yes. So I should, yeah, that's what I'm saying. Some people, I'm on the contraction, there's a ladder, a lot of competition, because I've been 20 years doing contraction, but I don't do anymore. So I know it should be a program where the contractors are discounted and also for the food vendors, because the food vendors get it, when they get the license, they should be like, you know what, this is the place where you can go and dump all the waste. And it's 50% discount. There's many things to do it. They just don't want to do it. I think, I'm thinking like they don't want to do it, these things, because they can do it so many, the office, the city, the LA, city hall, they can do it, these things. Very easy. And they just, they see me as like a threat. Like I'm the bad guy, you know, no, like you guys, you have to do it. There's many other programs. I've been at city hall, I talked like two, three times, I went there, like you have to do this, you have to fix it, three, one, one, up. It's easy for me to use it, but many people doesn't know how to use it. And they haven't, still people have been problems with the request, because at this time right now, I have hundreds of addresses that I have to go and clean and the people are sending me on my social media, but because they had to put a request on 311 up and they never show up three, four, five months. They never show up. So people now, I'm the 311 up for LA, like they're sending me all their requests. You know, it's kind of, it's kind of crazy. Well, and it is, it is just wild what has been going on out here. You know, you make a really good point about the street vendors in that, you know, these are supposed to be permitted in regulated businesses. And we have so many of them that if they're using any kind of oil or grease, they're sometimes just dumping that on the side of the road. And then that's going into our sewer system that's going into the ocean. Exactly. You know, I'm not, I'm not Latino. I'm not against anybody though, you know, everybody needs to make money, but it should be some regulations for everybody, you know, small businesses are paying so many taxes, rent and all that. And, you know, it should be all other regulations for everybody that's selling stuff in the streets. You know, I'm not against that, but it should be regulations with trash fees, taxes, you know, all this kind of stuff because they are, they are making the city, it's so sad to say this, you know, because sometimes it's my people in my community, Latino community, but I'm not, again, I'm not against but it should, it should be education, it should be like when they get the permit, when they get in, you know, the permits to do a vendor, we can get real, I mean, it's like, I think it's $120 and you can get a permit to sell the stuff on the street. At that time, when they get the permit, it should be some regulations like, you know what, if you do this, we're going to cancel your license or your permit. Things like that, that is going to help to educate to the people, you know, who is illegal dumping everything on the street and it's really, really bad, actually, it's really bad because everywhere I haven't picked up meat, chicken, and it's stinks, been there for weeks, fruits, been there for weeks and really stinks. And you know, it's not just illegal dumping, we got to understand that it's not just illegal dumping. When we have the all the trash right there, it brings rubs, it's not healthy, it may look bad, the city, it's everything, it's not just a try, it brings many other problems for the city, the health, it just makes looks really ugly to the city. So people, we have to understand those things, you know, and I'm trying to see if I can educate my community, my Latino community, you know, everybody, because I've been to see people driving cars, really expensive cars, just put the window down and they just throw it trash on the highways, you know, on the freeways. I was like, what's going on with the people in California? This is, this is like, I don't even like, you know, the governor says we are the four economy in the world, but it doesn't look like the people, the officials is like a mess, everything is a mess. I'm sorry, but is it true, you know? It really is. We're speaking with Juan Nala. His website is cleanlawithme.org. Now there was a really strange moment a few months ago where as Mayor Karen Bass is looking to seek reelection, she held a state of the city address and she actually gave you a huge shout out and says how she wants to partner with you and talked about what a great job you're doing. But ultimately, if the city was doing its job, you wouldn't have to be doing this. Yes. That's what, at the first place, right? I wouldn't have to do this if they were doing, you know, the work. But after the, you know, when I went, you know, the Mayor Karen Bass invited me to the state of the city. They give me a big shout out. They said, they're going to help me. They're going to support me. They're going to partnership with me. But after that, we've been backing for like 30 emails. I'm not sure. The other one is all the addresses that I have it on my list, on my data. That's all they want because they want to go and clean it. So I don't have to place to clean. And I've been again, I've been emailing with seven, eight people at City Hall, public workers and other members from the City Hall over to 40 emails. The last email that we, I had with them, it was about six months ago, six weeks ago, they said they're going to look into grants or funding for clean LA with me. I haven't here since then. So if City says they want to support me, you know, it will be finalist one, you know what, we're going to help you with the fees to dumping. You don't have to pay any fees for dumping. You know, I'm not, I'm not saying give me a couple millions. I'm just asking for simple things, you know, and they are not, they are not helping. I don't know because to be honest, I don't understand sometimes what they want to be a part of them. They try to, I said, no, I want to be doing clean LA with me. I'm not going to be part of shine LA. We can partnership. Yes. Great. But they all they want again, they want all my addresses that I have in my phone because I think they want to go and clean it before I get. And it's been happening already because about two months ago, I started posting like, okay, I need to help. I'm going to be in these addresses tomorrow. I'm going to be cleaning. If anybody has some time come and help me. And guess what? The city is showing up and cleaning a fire clock in the morning, 5 a.m. in the morning. They show up and clean it. Oh, that is wild. It's like they're, they're trying to be in competition with you right now. At the same time, they're the ones that say they wanted to partner with you, but they, they obviously don't like that you are shining a light on what is a complete failure in the city of Los Angeles. Now, Juan, if there's anybody listening that wants to help contribute to your organization or join one of your mingas where a bunch of volunteers come and clean up together, how can they do that? Yeah. So they can go on my website is cleanla.org or they can go on my social media and all the platforms, same name, clean LA with me. There is a link tree with all my links, donation links, all my other social media links, every, everything they can find there. And then they can go, they can go from there. And then I post every, I was posting every Wednesday with the addresses for the mingas on Saturday from 9 to 11. But now because the city is doing this, now I'm not putting every Thursday every Wednesday. I do sometimes on Thursday, sometimes I do on Friday, because people know already me that we have mingas every Saturday. So they just wait for me to, to see the address and then just come, you know. So now I post sometimes on Thursday, sometimes on Friday morning. The website is cleanlawithme.org, cleanlawithme.org. Well, the city is not going to give you the proper things that you deserve, but I'll do it here. Thank you so much Juan for what you were doing every single day with your literal hands trying to make LA a cleaner place. Cleanlawithme.org. Juan Nala, thank you so much for joining us today. No, thank you so much for having me. I was a pleasure. And let's make a change. Hopefully in a couple of years we can see a different LA. Juan Nala, everybody. You like to comment on what you just heard. Give us a call 800-222-5222, 1-800-222-5222. The Hammer Alley Podcast, an 80s flashback mockumentary. Back in the 80s, there were a thousand bands trying to make it in the world of rock, but there was one band that had it all, Hammer Alley. Whatever happened to Hammer Alley? How did they go from top of the rock? I'm looking for a music video. They're a band from 1987. Hammer Alley ever heard of them? To rock bottom. Dude, I was born in 1987. I can't believe he's doing this. Hammer Alley. Follow and listen on your favorite platform. It's Randy Wang here on the John Phillips show. Let's take some calls. 800-222-5222, 1-800-222-5222. Let's start with Anka in LA. Anka, hello. Hi, Randy. I think it's the first time I'm talking to you, but I'm a long time listener. I talk to John and I talk to a lot of different Al Wantel. Over the years that I've been listening, I've been in LA now 46 years this year, originally from Germany. What this man was just describing, I felt every inch and frustration that was coming from him because it's like kind of disbelief. It's just totally disbelief when I drive through the streets, when I see things and I said, this is impossible. People living in a bus stop, you know, like building a little house and I'll pass by here every day. My grandkids on their way to kindergarten, the guy, the naked guy, rolling in the middle of on the way to school, a lot to hear. This is a nice neighborhood. This is like single family homes and people don't understand. That's what LA was built for, single family homes with fairly small streets. And when they start building and developing and this is not the infrastructure for LA at all, it just might bring in more people and more people into condos and but it really makes life miserable for everybody else. It took me like five minutes to get out of my neighborhood, now we're stuck from here to the 93 wedges to go over to like something should be 10 minutes away. Okay. People are cutting each other off. It starts early in the morning. It's just the vibe is gone. Like LA had a vibe from the ocean to sunset where you could go. I was actually just driving from there and a few things that, you know, so there that I remember like the diaper room and some of those things that I don't go with that, you know, to anymore, but I tried to the whole city and I'm seeing all of these encampments, some of the most biggest cities, travel sake. Well, I think you're, you're totally right. And I love what you said there. The vibe in LA is just gone. I totally agree with you. I'm born and raised here and I feel it every single day. Thank you so much for the call. Appreciate it. When I go to other cities, I feel a vibe. San Francisco has a vibe. Santa Fe has a vibe. LA does not have a vibe anymore. It is a loose collection of neighborhoods. So, and there's a giant mountain in between all of it. And the only part of it that technically you could call a city is downtown LA. And that is some scary stuff right there. It's got a Thomas in Lakeport. Thomas. Hello, Thomas. What? Hey, you want to talk? Oh yeah. Yeah. I'm up here in Lake County and some time ago, the board of supervisors were trying to include the garbage fees and the property taxes. And I think they're trying to do it again. I think it failed some years ago, and, but they're trying to do it again. But I think that would be one helpful solution to put it on your people's tax bill. So they'll put the garbage out. Well, and we've seen an increase in, they do that here in Los Angeles. In fact, they just increase the tax, the trash fees. They're doing that in San Diego, although they're getting sued over it. But if you're going to charge the owners more, you got to start picking up the garbage. That's what people want to see. I think people wouldn't mind paying for it if the streets were clean, but in LA, the streets are filthy. Thank you so much for the call. Appreciate it. Again, I wasn't in any of the bad neighborhoods, but for the most part, San Francisco look pretty damn clean. Let's go to Henry and Whittier. Henry, hello. Hey, Randy, how are you? Doing great. I'm just wondering that you're not, I'm a chief engineer in downtown LA at one of the high-rise buildings, and that man is a saint. You know, Karen Bass and the rest of the board, they should be ashamed of themselves that this guy's got to come from Virginia and clean up our city. You know, I told him whenever he's around my building and he's got trash, I always, I let him throw it in my dumpster. But you know, we need more guys like him, or actually we need Karen Bass to do her job. You're totally right about that. We should not need a one Nala, but I'm so glad that we have one. And at the very least, when the city makes him a spectacle at a Karen Bass campaign event and wants to talk about it, they want to partner with him. Why wouldn't they at the very least wave the dumpster fees for the guy who's doing their job for them? Exactly. And donate trash bags to him as well. You're totally right. Thanks so much for the call. Henry, appreciate it. Let's go to Armando in LA Armando. Hello, Randy, how you doing, man? Glad to see you're handling that show so perfectly like a professional. Thank you. Yeah. Um, yeah. Well, yeah, gosh, man, look at these doing for the city of Los Angeles. And he's, he's even trying to make contact on 311 and I feel his pain because you don't know how many times we have to go through that just to get our parking provincial preferential permits honored that we pay for that. There's no parking enforcement. Never. It's insane. And you wait hours for, you know, you're calling number 99. By the time they answer the phone, it's like midnight, you know? So no, kudos to him. Kudos to you, Randy. Appreciate it. You're doing a great job. You need five hours. So five hour. I'm already doing four. Thanks so much for the color. Mando appreciate it. 311. It's almost like by design and it's not unique to Los Angeles. San Diego has something called the get it done app. And guess what? They don't get it done. Let's go to Wes and Willets. Wes, hello. How are you, Randy? Doing great. That's great. I'm glad to hear that. When I was, when I came in this world, we did have, we did have some pretty darn good transportation back then. It was rail, we had the railway and we haven't got it anymore. And I know why too, because of the, because of the, uh, oil and, and, uh, rubber companies. They went to put buses on there and we lost our, we lost our railway. It's something that's wild to think about, but, you know, not that long ago in human history, we're talking about, you know, less than a hundred years ago, Los Angeles was known as the city with the best public transit in the country with the red cars. Yeah. And we had the, we had the old street cars and everything else. And it just, it just went to the dogs. You're totally right. It is fascinating to watch. If anyone has those old videos of what LA looked like back then, thanks so much for the call. Or you can watch Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which is a hilarious movie that is also a history lesson about the end of the red car. Let's go to Steven, see me Valley, Steve, hello. Hey, Randy. First of all, I about spit my water out when you said the thing about the high speed bus. That is, I mean, my God. Second thing is I hope Spencer wins. I sold my house in 2022 in North Hollywood and last October, for some reason it burned to the ground. Oh, 50 years we lived in that house. My family and I did and it's a pile of ashes now. And that's, they put those little, those tiny homes in the park behind where I used to live. And my neighbor tried to tell me, oh, it's going to help the homeless. And I said, no, it's going to draw more. And I was right. You were totally right. You got out at the right time, Steve. Thank you so much for the call. Appreciate it. All right. Doesn't look like he wants to get on these high speed bus that's going to be on the five freeway someday. At least it'll get done before the high speed rail. But yes, would anybody feel safe on a high speed bus? We'll see. Hey, if you'd like to email us, you could do so at Johnny don't like show at gmail.com. Mark writes in on the street dumping that's going on. LA should really take the title of the city of dumpy. The city should change every, should charge every contractor a dumping fee when they go to get their demolition or construction permits. The fee is based on the scale of the project. They would get a voucher to local dumps to get rid of the junk and street food vendors should have to pay a $200 a month dumping fee to dump their old food at designated places. The food can be used for mulch. That is the most common sense thing I have ever heard, which tells me that our politicians are never going to go for that. But yes, based on this is the one takeaway that you should have from all the great things that we heard from Juan Nala and clean LA with me. The majority of the garbage is put there by contractors and sidewalk vendors, street vendors. So you have contractors that don't want to pay the dumping fees and you have street vendors dumping their old food, their spoiled food or the food they don't sell right there on the street. We know in West Hollywood, you have street vendors dumping their grease right there on the street as well. We should have mechanisms to enforce that because we're not, these aren't the piles of trash that are caused by the homeless. That's a different thing. And that's also a disaster, but a lot of the illegal dumping that we're seeing in the city of LA is being caused by people that are supposed to have licenses and permits. Myel writes in at Johnny, don't like show at gmail.com. So it takes an immigrant from Ecuador to clean the trash in LA. So basically the city is paying people to do nothing. Thank God, I live in Orange County. You know what this show is sometimes, sometimes this show specifically for everybody that listens, that doesn't live in the city of Los Angeles or for our Bay Area listeners. If you live near Oakland, but you don't live in Oakland, you know, even if you live in San Francisco, I feel like sometimes doing news about the city of LA and all of the dysfunction that we see, it's really painful if you happen to be people that live in the city of LA, which I do inexplicably. I still live in the city of LA. If interest rates were lower, that might change. But it's almost like we are the, the radio version of what married with children was when that show first got on the air in the late 1980s. Because when the Bundy's were on TV, you knew you were going to laugh, but also you knew that no matter how bad your day was going, no matter how bad you thought your family was, you knew that you weren't as bad as the Bundy's. And if you live in Orange County, if you live in Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura, even if you live in San Francisco and you're thinking, you know, San Francisco's got a lot of problems, well, LA's got a lot more problems. Jim Rome takes on sports. Why? Because I have a job to do. With rapid fire takes. So I don't want to hear from you lava pigs on this notion today. No idea what you're talking about. You're complaining more than you like to breathe air. It's like you get up in the morning only to complain and cry and moan on social media about things that you don't even understand. He's the spitfire of sports smack. Take advantage of it, but get up in here. The Jim Rome show podcast. What's your beef? Follow and listen on your favorite platform. You've been warned. Well, this is still really cool. It's not as exciting as yesterday, but I still really like it. It is. It is a nice little thing. So yesterday I told you that I got an email near the end of the show of somebody that videotaped themselves listening to us while they were driving on the Golden Gate Bridge. And in the over a year that it's been, since we've been live in San Francisco, it never hit me until I saw it that people can be listening to my voice right now while they're driving on the most iconic bridge in the world. So that was pretty darn cool. And I really appreciate that. And it's always nice to know that people are actually out there listening to the things that I am saying because physically I am talking to myself in a small box. It looks a little crazy if you think about it, but Chris writes in at Randy Wang Radio at gmail.com. And it's not San Francisco, but he did send me a video of what it looks like when he's listening to the show in his house with his lovely patio outside of Vegas. And yes, it looked very hot. That's cool. That's great. It's not San Francisco. It's not the Golden Gate Bridge, but you know what? If you want to videotape yourself while you're listening to the show, show us what your background is while you're listening to the show. I think that's kind of fun. I'd like to see it. You can email me at randywangradio at gmail.com. That's my personal email address, but all day long I'm checking both email addresses. The latest email to come into Johnny, don't like show at gmail.com will writes in with the subject line as if, as if the illegal alien unlicensed contractors and the illegal alien sidewalk Salmonella stands would cough up a dumping fee when the whole point of LA is to make it a dumping ground. Well, there you go. Now, I gotta say I'm here to criticize Gavin Newsom every chance we can because Gavin Newsom has been quite a disaster as governor of California. Gavin Newsom has increased the budget by over 50% and nothing is really any better in the state of California. Gavin Newsom is the king of major proclamations with little follow through, but there is one little nugget in Gavin Newsom's budget may revise presentation that I think is a good idea. So whenever a politician, even it's one that you don't like has a good idea, it's okay to say that it's a good idea. I wish it was something that maybe they did a long time ago, but they're talking about trying to make it easier for small businesses to open and operate. And if you've ever tried to incorporate in the state of California, if you ever tried to start a business and escort in the state of California, even if you make no money, you've got to pay $800 to file for that business license. You got to pay $800 for that fee to be operating as a business in the state of California every single year. In the new budget revise, they're looking at changing a couple of tax giveaways to the bigger corporations and they want to for small businesses in the first two years, you can get that fee for $400 instead of $800. That's not much, but that's something, you know, a very, very, very, very, very long time ago. I was, I guess you could call me a small business owner. So when I was in between radio jobs, I started a podcast all on my own. This is way before, you know, there was any money in podcasting and believe you me, I found that one out the hard way. But, you know, we had, we had a little bit of a listenership. We had a lot of people that used to listen to 97.1, the FM talk station, which now is going to be a sports station. Hey, if they flip it one more time, it'll be talk again. And we were doing live events and getting people to show up and it was a lot of fun. And a buddy of mine told me, you know, you're really starting to become a business. I mean, most of the money we were getting was like, you know, PayPal donations, which pretty much everyone now has like a Patreon or a sub stack, what have you, although my sub stack is a hundred percent free. And I was encouraged to incorporate like, you should become a corporation. You should become a business and, you know, you're, you're going to have so many write offs and you're going to have so many advantages to you. And I thought, all right, this thing's only going to go one way. We're going to move upward. It's going to be great. So became a business, got our S corp, paid that $800. And that year we made no money. When it came to money that we could actually claim as the business, we made less than the $800 filing fee. So it was quickly decided that this was pointless. There's no money in podcasting. So we ended the company still continue to do the podcast just as a, you know, sole proprietorship, you know, sole proprietorship. Cause again, we were only making money on listener donations. And at one point I created a website. I was like way ahead of Mark Zuckerberg. I created a website where people could buy fake real estate on the website that we would shout out at the end of the podcast. That is a real thing. And we made a little bit of money doing that, but never made enough money to incorporate. But if that annual fee was $400 instead of $800, maybe I would have kept it going and maybe I would have stuck around in the podcasting game long enough to wear now and make it all the money. Hey, I was a pioneer in that industry. Thank y'all so much for listening to this show. Johnny's back on Monday, but I've been having just such a blast doing these three hours. And now you know my routine. I'm getting on the freeway. I'm going to suffer on the 405. I'm going to have a little lunch and then I'll be back on the air on K ABC at five o'clock right after Frank Motek. If you're in Southern California, 790 K ABC, that's all you got to do. If you're in the Bay and you want to hear my five o'clock show where I do the California report, just go to K ABC.com and you can stream it or I heart works too. It's Randy Wang here on the John Phillips show.