0:00 if there was a mass looting on Fairfax yes and hundreds was totally fine would you be offended if would I be offended all your competitors [Music] so um back during the riots that happened on um like on Fairfax and Melrose yes I remember you said something so uh insightful about that when you were like well we're the ones responsible for placing value on these things right yeah and I mean I think we have responsibility in that for sure because you have a store there right we do we do yeah where is it on Melrose or Fairfax we're on Fairfax just a couple blocks south of Mount Rose yeah so uh Melrose if you guys aren't aware has been going through a ton of like crime and uh the LAPD released a
0:52 safety alert just warning people not to wear high-end jewelry when you go to Melrose like when you're shopping or how about police better what the ████ dude yeah hey don't don't go to a high-end ████ jewelry shop and like wear jewelry or go into a high-end jewelry shop and be like and be like they put it in your bag you know they put in your bag and they're like yeah no I'm good this place is expensive I have to like role play as poor people to like get your shopping done yeah oh wow wait what for a watch are you guys out of your ████ mind thank you thank you the funny thing is that if you don't look rich and you go to these stores and the employees just go can I help you I judge you hey man they told me nothing you know but if you show up just like this they're like they roll out the red carpet
1:44 oh wait till he comes out sir may I offer you a charging station for your hat is it USBC or lightning yeah so there's so there's a ton of different robberies happening all the time uh even the kids walking to Fairfax High are getting like their phones jacked just like yeah everything you could think of um what do you think about that current state of Melrose because you've you guys if you think it's just Melrose I think it's La I think it's and then it's most cities in the country it's San Francisco too yeah it's Honolulu too right it's Honolulu right so a lot of major cities are it's definitely not just how I mean my car got stolen last week not right in front of my car it's the second time in three years it's fully checked yeah like a lot of like kids just pull up get out they use you know they have like
2:34 amplifiers and they unlock your doors and they put something up to the stream where was your car Flash in front of my house oh my God it's like so normal that in the morning my neighbor was like your car's stolen again and like again and I know the whole protocol I have to go to the police station father Port same guy and then I have to submit that to BMW just to locate the car because all the cars have locators down now it takes them a few hours of course you know and then they're like it's here and then the cops it's like a whole thing it takes over your whole day then you have to replace these which costs this is the biggest scam in the world these things cost like 600 now no instead of like we used to just have these right like this used to be your car key and this was fine like I was okay with this right but now they invent these which are like six hundred dollars and they're they cost like 20. it's gonna be a subscription service for that get it for sure and BMW is doing all these like add-ons whatever I know we're completely I knew a guy
3:25 with an Aston Martin and he got the Crystal Key which is like twenty thousand dollars or something for for no ████ reason and he was at we were at my friend's house and he loses the crystal course he does yeah can't find it anywhere we're all trying to look for it but also I'm not really trying to look very hard because I'm like ████ you getting the twenty thousand dollars you see it over there you're just like yeah yeah it's like when I'm looking for something for Nikki like I'm always like oh yeah no I'm just looking at all the area around me I'm like yeah no it's not here I don't ████ know where it is yeah it's not what I mean do you think that the uh the police are are responding well to the things going on in the area no I think they're doing the best job that they can I have a lot of friends that are on LAPD force and you know like they're up against the wall too right so a lot of people got there a lot of cops retired during the early
4:16 pandemic a lot of them were like I'm not incentivized to be here anymore yeah people blame the cops but it's really the prosecutors not doing their job I think there's like definitely an element of that too I think there's it's like super nuanced once you get into it and then there's also an argument that this has been going on for quite a while right and like it's been accentuated because of the last couple of years and we're like scrutinizing it more and now there's like more videos like watching everything and I see every single robbery that happens now and like Jackfruit is just stuck in my algorithm like anytime someone punches an Asian person anymore I'm like oh my god there was one that I was driving here and that someone's a jackfruit was like does anyone know this person and it's just like a Latino guy that's driving that's yelling at another did you see this it just happened an hour before I got here there's an Asian guy driving and he's filming this Latino guy pulling up next to me pulls his eyes back and he's just
5:07 like watch where are you going and jackfruits just like does anyone know this man and I'm like come on did I need to see like that one happened that one was almost comical right like I see that like 400 times any Asian he's like come on guys doing a bit come on yeah yeah come on it's a character I'm not saying it's good but we're so acclimated Asians like I grew up seeing that where I'm like oh my God we're gonna track this guy down like are we all gonna like we're gonna catch him I know because that's not the same as beating up an Asian Grandma it's like but they get treated the same it's like dude what the ████ Steve did that to us when he walked in yeah I did it yeah that's how I say good morning that's my GM that's my GM but I I don't know I think there's like systemically I think there's so many things that have gone wrong and are off the rails and like we're all hyper aware of them you know I think that there needs to be a lot of
5:57 Correction and things improved and there's like most of what I would say even back during the riots was just the wealth disparity alone and like the Haves and the have-nots I think that's a really significant issue that needs to be explored and addressed and that's like that's I try to address that a lot bring it up a lot you know like there's a reason why a lot of these things are happening and you can't blame a lot of people without means for wanting to steal things that you're constantly dangling in front of them being like you can't have this right like Jerry Seinfeld and kit it's really cool but how does it feel to someone who will never have that and you're like you'll never be enough unless you have this you'll never be as cool as this yeah they can only take so many generations of that before they're like you know like ████ this like this sucks I'm never gonna be set up for Success can't they just get some kith socks though and be happy I don't know I'm sure kids thoughts are like 150 dollars which is
6:49 outrageous ████ crazy right like this is the nature and that's really like the overarching statement of what I was saying was like we all participate they don't participate in this it's called veblin Goods which is like you're essentially making something expensive just because right and then that makes it cool and it's not necessarily this doesn't cost 600 to replace but it's a status symbol for me to have it and so we're constantly indoctrinating young people especially in consumers to say oh I need to spend this month much just to keep up with the Joneses and to feel I'm of value and it's not real I mean Jordan's bro like look at all the kids who like waiting for Jordan yeah and people like get killed or they get into a lot of fights over that stuff and it's like can you really be that surprised when we architect marketing and branding to put people into these positions and then where they're forced to do that who's the basketball player who came out with cheap shoes and all the kids sort of naked for the kids jacket from
7:40 Payless they made like 20 30 shoes hey ████ your Shaq shoes it's like yeah like to like solve it yeah yeah because accessibility people see it as cheap yeah exactly when it's for everyone then it's like all of a sudden not valuable because anyone can get it there was like and I talk about this a lot but in Street where in the early days the whole point of Street where it was you wanted to wear something that nobody else had right and you want to feel special because that's fashion was being heavily commodified by Old Navy and GAP and everybody was in khakis and there was people like us that were like I don't want to be just like the rest of the people in khakis I want cool baggy denim or do I buy that and so streetwear was set up in a way where it was like there was a scarcity of goods but it wasn't about how expensive it was it was just geographically Out Of Reach so it's like you can still get it but you actually had to try you had to like go on to the
8:30 right message boards you had to know the right person you had to like be involved in the culture know a guy know a guy no girl that gets you into the store and then they would validate you and then you would actually be able to buy the pants and so there was like you could actually earn it and it wasn't about you were priced out but then the internet happened and then all that stuff ended up being accessible to everybody and so the only differentiation of whether you can get something or not was how much you priced it at and so then streetwear went from being to me more about for the people and for the culture to like are you rich enough to be able to afford this and it's not even designed well it's just it's expensive which is again the bevel and goods thing which is which is what nfts half of nfts like that too nfts and art and luxury goods and the luxury market and a lot of what we do now it's like is that coffee necessarily better than McDonald's coffee was fine when we were growing up and now there's like a 10 coffee that you're supposed to
9:21 drink a cafe yeah I would say that in in human nature though everything has that Evolution cycle so for example all Rebels become institutions right so like all Rebel groups which is like a Counter Culture group or whatever they'll take over they'll become the dominant group and then they'll become the Old Guard and then a new group has to form to break that so it's like it's also like a sign of Youth right to be rebellious like streetwear was rebellious or subculture counterculture yeah being Punk whatever what all becomes commodity uh Commodities or whatever yeah ████ Kamala commoditized because it gets arrested for a minor drug infection the people of that subculture become older and they need to pay bills like hippies yeah like all like and this happens inside and they want to turn that back to the
10:12 future love into a Back to the Future business right right yeah like like the Surfers they they were lower they were the first real counterculture yeah and then they they turn it into a business you know it's all consumerism and like having this conversation the other day because someone was talking speaking of like being involved in activism and social justice when I was in high school someone's like how'd you get it or were you always this way and I was just like yeah when I was 12 years old 13 years old I was going to Black Panther rallies because at that time that was a real subculture and it was this really subversive effort to be involved in these movements and it wasn't cool or mainstream to me into politics at all most people in the 90s like the 90s generation really didn't stand for anything like Woodstock was kind of like the biggest social movement of its time which wasn't just like Limp Bizkit and people moshing in mud well we had we had
11:02 Nickelodeon as a big help yeah yes oh yes we were crushing that so to be involved in like to be hyper aware of politics was like you were like a real outlier yeah that's true right but now to be involved in politics and social justice and activism it's like so mainstream and now like it's expected and every celebrity every Big Brand does it and so it's always puts me into a weird position where I'm like I'm really interested in stuff and I think it's important but the way that a lot of it's playing out is like through signaling or you know it's being corporatized or it's being sold as like a product and I'm like that's such a weird relationship to have with activism social justice to where now it's almost like a logo you wear that's right and there's literally brands that are built around like the name of the brands are about like being socially aware and I'm like that's cool but then it's also like really counter to the ethos and like the the spirit of
11:52 what it's supposed to be because then you can you're conflating Commerce and money with actual like I'm doing things because I believe in it you know or because I want it I remember seeing celebrities at award shows like in the 90s for example or 2000s and they're all wearing ribbons and ████ like for whatever cause and I remember like thinking like okay so that's what they're doing they're wearing it on camera so to them they're doing something about it and that was kind of the early pre like virtue signaling that we all have on Twitter now I retweeted a bunch of ████ I'm the ████ man today I did a lot today for this ████ but I think I did a lot today you're tired the material version of that like that we had growing up I saw that a lot and I remember thinking how weird that was like that means you've done something for it hey we're spreading awareness we're doing something here my last my last final question is if there was a mass looting
12:42 on Fairfax yes and hundreds was totally fine would you be offended if would I be offended I had competitors some of the stores on Fairfax did get looted ours wasn't touched for a number of reasons but um I mean sure like I'm like okay guys the door's open we got good ████ real good ████ it's expensive real expensive how the ████ did Ross get taken foreign [Music]
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