LIVESTREAM: Friday, January 10 2025 9am PDT
Published · 1:34:48 · 1,591 views
About This Video
A January 2025 Friday session. Van takes viewer questions and discusses what is on the workbench heading into the new year with the Patreon community.
Transcript
okay I don't see the the dots seem to be moving a little tiny bit
but it doesn't wait there's a volume knob here let me see if this does
anything it's good it's only one dot but it does sound like good it sounds
okay okay so okay so mute right here e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e
e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e okay so I'm just going to do a quick sound check can you hear me Braxton all
right okay patrons um in keeping with tradition the weather report wind has
died down and uh but there's not a cloud in sight and no sign of
rain um I'm gonna do this one a little different because there's just so much to talk about and so I might go graze
through the um grace through the questions and comments in the comments section from the announcement yesterday but just kind of
want to bring you up to speed maybe I'll go in like kind of reverse uh chronological order of like what this experience is and has been so I'm in the
I'm in the San Fernando Valley right now and I'm on the other side of the ocean uh and like my house is at the top
of the mountains the ocean's at the bottom of the other side of the mountains and I am on the bottom side of the valley on the other side of the
mountains so so I'm here my studio is here my house is here the ocean is here
and so uh we're safe we relocated on Tuesday early we relocated to a hotel uh over here in the valley and we got in early so they gave
us a three-bedroom suite for a very fair price and a lot of our friends are all there and
um as far as I know today our house is fine and our neighbors our friends houses are fine and the firemen are uh
doing a good job of of protecting Tanga right now um so what happened was on Tuesday there was a fire at like 10: a.m. that
started in the Palisades I don't think we know how it started but we're in the period of Santa Ana winds right now and
they're they go up to 100 miles an hour so Tuesday they had to they couldn't do the drops so usually what happens is
these fires start and they are on it and they have these special they have Chinook helicopters with two rotors and they have these things called super
scoopers which are airplanes that can dive into the ocean pick up tons like I don't know how many gallons of water and drop them and then they have fire
retardant that they can drop from like dc9 and they're on the spot unbelievable I have footages in some old video of I
was in Tanga there was a little brush fire chanook boom put it out and normally that's how it goes little a fire they they detect it they isolate
they go but what what happened was the winds were 100 miles an hour and they just couldn't get them up and that's why
the Palisades just went up and then and and it was just like hell it was just then we heard about um the uh the uh uh
Eleanor fire is that what it was called the I'm sorry the eaten fire I mean I'll just read you there's an app that we're all
on right now called watch Duty and so this is all the fires in Los Angeles right now it's just we're just
surrounded it's very it's what I've been saying to my friends my New York friends is that this is scarier than 911 this is
scarier than 911 2001 all right so what happened was Tuesday um Isabelle's at the house with
the baby x my son has been relocated to a different school they do this during the heavy winds so he's in the valley at
a different school and so he's not in Tanga but Isabelle's up in Tanga with the baby and
I get a call I believe from my friend Kevin who said there's a big fire in the Palisades and I'm here and I think I and
I can see the smoke from here it's that big and so you know the thing with Tanga I don't know what Paradise
California was like I don't know how the road system worked there but in Tanga there's two roads there's one road that
goes in and out and then there's another road my road that connects to that road that goes in and out so and then there's
a lot of people with horses and animals so I'm thinking worse case scenario is if there's a mass Exodus right and one
of those horse trailers gets a flat tire breaks an axle uh runs out of gas bang
the whole the whole the whole Canyon is locked up with traffic and no one can
move okay and there's a fire closing in on you and I don't know how fast these things move and there's 100 mile hour winds so I just said at the first sign I
was like get out of there let's go go down and meet me at the hotel check in get a room and we'll just wait this thing out and we were like we got there
at like 2:30 and then by I think by 4 the entire Hotel was booked up but we got in there and the hotel staff was incredible they were
really um sensitive to the situation and just helpful and competent and like
focused okay so that's Tuesday um it's too windy for the fire cruise to go
up um Wednesday morning um still too windy this is six o'clock in the morning still too windy
for the fire cruise to go up so I get in the Land Cruiser cause um I want to go
to the house because the although we were good at packing and we're very good at packing on the getting ready to be
sent out was the applications for the babies passport and my son's new
passport because he needs a new one um and then with all of that was all their documentation so their social security
cards and their birth certificates so essentially all of the government documentation you need to prove that you exist and then Isabelle's passport was
also in the basement and the propane had been left on because you know the you you're leaving the house you forget so I wanted
to go to the house to turn off the propane and get the documents so this is this is now Wednesday morning so the
fire has been burning like this Tuesday night was the 100 mile per hour winds and the Palisades are burning down um
Malibu is on the coast is burning down so this is um Wednesday morning six
o'clock it's dark so I get on the bike I'm sorry I get in my Land Cruiser and I drive to my Road in this police block
blockade and I have my driver's license out and I say I'm a resident I just need to turn off some propane tanks can you please let he's like we can't let anyone
in he's like no one's getting in he said the people who are in the canyon right now are the people who are deciding to stay and I just said you can't let me in
and he was just like no it was adamant because the aircraft wasn't in the air yet so there was no suppression it was just a spreading crazy Wildfire with 100
mile per hour winds now thank God the winds were blowing towards the ocean but the fire well I'll get that I'll get to
that in a minute so I was prepared for this so I drove to this Road off of malland called stunt
road now stunt Road has a fire road that connects through the woods to Tanga to
Red Rocks State Park so you go you drive down moholland on the we're now on the valley side of the mountains you drive
down malland highway to stunt Road you take a left on Stunt Road and then on the left is a fire road with a gate but
you can get a dirt bike around it a gate to a back road that leads to Red Rocks Canyon Road which is where I do my run every morning which leads to my road
which I I've done with my son we've done all these stuff this is why you do Adventures this is why you do Adventures where you live so that you know all of
these nooks and crannies you know all this back road stuff but a copad blocked off stunt road so the road to the fire Road blockade you're not getting I'm not
outrunning the cops okay I'm not on a on an electric dirt bike I'm not out running the cops and they're prepared
for everything so um I saw them and I'm driving back I'm thinking I'm driving back to the hotel and I was like okay I
know one more spot I know one little secret private driveway that is the the the the Terminus of this driveway that
leads into the canyon and it leads into I won't say the name of the road but it leads into the main road into panga Canyon it's in between the Sheriff's
Department jurisdiction which is Tanga Tanga is Sheriff's LA Sheriff's Department jurisdiction and
LAPD Department jurisdiction which is uh calabases the valley that's LAPD La
sheriff and this little driveway first of all it's private so I don't think it's on the I don't think it's on the it's private road sorry not a driveway it's a road but it's private there's a
little sign on it that says end County maintained road so I don't know I don't know what's going on in the
canyon there's no news from the canyon I don't know if there's big ass trees down I don't know if it's on fire I don't
know if it's full of fire trucks and policemen and like blockades I don't know because there's no news and this is
the news is the news and they're in they're in um they're in uh Palisades the chop and there's no Choppers up
because it's too windy there's no news Choppers up so I uh uh I take my electric dirt bike and thank God because
I'm a prepared I'm I'm prepared I mean like the people that they call Preppers
when this [ __ ] goes down they're called prepared okay so I'm not exactly a prepper but I'm pretty well prepared and
um so I parked my car at the Terminus of this uh back uh this this secret um Road
this private road and uh there's a sign I didn't see cops there was no blockade and there's a sign says end County M end
of County maintained Road and I was like okay that's the one and I got on my electric dirt bike put my helmet on
backpack and just raced into the canyon down through the woods through lots of sticks down down through the canyon um
ghost town there were it wasn't abandoned there were people there were like young men not young young men but men in their 30s with like Tacomas and
big and trucks kind of watching and monitoring the situation I went right to my house I turned off the propane tanks
I um got all the documentation and I uh um and then
I I rode to the the the front to the f I guess in war you call it the front and it's where the action was to the fire I
rode my my electric bike to the fire and there was a pull out on Tanga Canyon Boulevard about a mile south of Tanga
Lumber and uh which is our hardware store and there was a fire brigade man
it said fire brigade something on the back he had a Bronco like a new Ford Bronco but he had those fire jackets that you see everybody wear which I am
going to get by the way um and I overheard him talking and he said that there's a blockade down at the bottom
and that's where he went but I could see the fire and I was there for maybe 10 minutes and I could see the fire now remember there's no air support this is Tuesday morning this is 8 7:30 a.m.
Tuesday morning and there's just a line of fire to the left I'm looking South to the left is mountains and on the other
side of those mountains is um Tanga Canyon or Tanga State Park and the
Palisades okay and I just see the smoke and then I see Flames like a it's just a a ribbon of flames and even though the
wind is blowing them towards the ocean at 50 m an hour 40 mes an hour the frame the Flames are creeping creeping creeping and it looked like they were
creeping at about uh 20 feet every maybe it was like a foot a
minute or something like this um and they're creeping up the canyon and they're creeping up towards
tapena to the town of Kena and they're about a mile away from where the civilization in Tanga starts and they're
about two miles away from my house two three miles away from my house and I'm doing the math and I'm going
back um so you know I'm I'm riding back up to can Canyon Boulevard to get back on this private driveway thing to get
into my truck to go kind of you know get the you know brief the family and everything I got the documentation and I'm just doing the
math and I'm just like [ __ ] this thing is going like a mile per hour We're three miles away it's just going to it's
just going to it's just going to [ __ ] steamroll the whole it's just it's just gonna be like the Palisades that's
what's gonna happen it's just gonna it's just a it's a line it's like a squeee of ink and the ink is fire and it's just
gonna take out everything and one of the things I remember from you know September 11th 2001 I was living in
Manhattan I was 26 years old one of the things remember is all of the rumors and that was one of the first things I learned was don't believe anything don't
believe anything don't believe your friends don't believe anything because people like to exaggerate people like to be people like to
um embellish and be dramatic so don't listen you know you got to verify verify verify so I
uh but I'm just doing the math in my head and I'm just like [ __ ] and it's like it's it's getting real
it's getting very scary and very sad because you know that's the house where my son was born and you know that's where we start
our that's where like Isabelle and I really started our life together and it's like a [ __ ] special amazing community and amazing [ __ ] awesome
awesome town it's like a town it's like an American town like from the 50s you know like it's a community and like when they have the square dance the whole
town go it's that stuff that's very hard to find and um so whatever it's a super
duper sad and I'm just like that house is gone that's it's gone and uh I'm going back
and I um I saved my son he was worried about his cash box you know his little I got
him a cash box to put all his little dollar bills and [ __ ] in because I pay him to do little jobs around the house and before I went up there he's like did you guys you know when we came and got
in the hotel room on Tuesday he was like did you bring the cash box and it was like all he talked about so I had stuffed that also in the back and I met
them and I met them at the at a restaurant I met my family at a restaurant here in the San Fernando
Valley and uh I walked in with the cash box and he was in the bathroom so when he came out there it was at his table
and he was just like you know it was like a little relief for him and so you know where just everything's on
the news and everything's on these apps and all this [ __ ] and it's coming like and they don't care about Tanga yet the news and this and you know the the local
news and the national news and the internet it seems doesn't care about Tanga yet because you've got you've got the bigger
fires you got the Palisades you got the the the one in um
Altadena so we're just kind of preparing ourselves for worst case scenario and we go back and I'm driving back to the
hotel and I like this the first time uh my son's ever seen me cry and I just was like I think our house is gone I
think our house is going to burn down and uh he took it better than I did you know the kids they're they love Adventure in the hotel he has like his
own room in the hotel it's like a little three-bedroom Suite so the baby gets a little or three room suite so the baby gets a little room he gets a little room
he gets unlimited iPad time so whatever but you know we had like a like just like a family mourning moment m o r n i
n g moment and um then we just had to be glued to the TV to see what was
happening and then thank God the winds died down enough for air support and air suppression and they just went and they've just been this is still
happening this isn't over there's no relief I don't know what's going to happen to my house they're just drowning
the the fire with you know and they've keeping it at Bay and I'm looking on my app and it's still the the fire is still
where it was when I was down there on my dirt bike it's still like a little like a mile south it's a little closer now it's a little bit like a thousand feet
or 2,000 feet closer to the to the lumber yard so it's a thousand it's like two or three th000 feet from the the
lumber store the lumber Tanga Lumber can't I don't even know what that is Tanga Lumber um it's it's 2,000 F feet closer but
it's hours days later you know a couple days later and it's still they're still beating it back so you're glued to the TV and then
you're seeing this fire and that fire and this fire and that fire and so yesterday uh which is
Thursday yesterday is Thursday the planes are up the winds have the winds are still gnarly but they're the planes
they're not they don't ground all the aircraft and uh Isabelle's at the H
hotel with the kids and I am here at the studio um preparing for this preparing my footage backing things up preparing
to do a video about my experience in a video about the about the thing that I'm having trouble with with the Palisades
is Paradise keeps coming into my mind because Paradise California burned like a few years ago right so I keep doing
paradise and then I have to stop and like re no it's called the it sounds like parad Palisades even though the
palisad is like basically our second home you know like but I was just with Casey and his family in the Palisades right around Christmas time right on the
like second day of Hanukkah we were we were up at the Palisades hanging out
so I'm here I'm at the studio this is yesterday this is yesterday in the afternoon I'm at this studio and
Isabelle's at the hotel and I get a call from my friend Kevin who's I he might be up in the canyon I don't know where he
is but he's been kind of my news guy he's a single guy no kids so he's been kind of keeping me up to date and he's like he's like he's like there's a big
fire across the 101 from where you are right now so now the winds aren't blowing the fire away from me like they are andanga the winds are blowing the
fire towards me towards the Hotel this is yesterday I don't remember two three something like that 2 or 3 p.m.
something like that and I'm here and I'm within walking distance to the hotel I'm I'm not far but now at this point
yesterday the wind the fire I'm seeing out my window I am seeing fire suppression teams just like dropping the
red um fire retardant dropping Choppers dropping the water and the smoke is just and remember the wind is blowing the
fire at me and the at us and the and the smoke is just horrific it's it's the
whole Sky it's the whole sky like you get to the Ground Zero of the fire
and it's the whole sky is dark smoke it's like it's like it's not night but it's like six o'clock in the morning that's
what it looks like it's it's horrific so I'm throw everything all the essentials I've been packing and unpacking you know
I'm throwing all the essentials in camera bags uh I was when I got the call from Kevin I was in the process of
bringing the battery and the charger for the battery for the dirt bike that is mounted on the back of the Land Cruiser
in case of extreme emergency where you have to abandon the car I was in the process of doing that when I got the call from Kevin so now I get the call
from Kevin I'm rolling on the fire I'm rolling in the experience I put a 600 millimeter lens on the um Cannon I put
it on a h on a on a tripod with a fluid head and I'm recording that and then I'm on the earphones with Isabelle and we're
talking about it and I said I got to go outside in the Street and see what's going on because I don't know how severe this thing is so I run out into the street I run back and I was just like
okay pack up we have to get out of here pack up and so now I am in the studio and I have to this is how I make money
man this is my living I have to [ __ ] grab [ __ ] I gotta grab stuff I can't do this and thank you patrons because this is your
money is paying for hotels and gas everything because you know I haven't done it I haven't posted anything
anything in a month I haven't had you know sponsorship money because I was on vacation and then I had you had some personal we had some like Health stuff
and then I had a a loved one not family member but a loved one die like it was and it's been a whole bunch of of unrelated to the fire it's been a whole
bunch of just interruptions and it's winter break so I have to pack all the stuff this is yesterday two or three PM
when the um Kenneth fire starts and it's blowing towards us and um we got in the
car I got to the hotel Isabelle we packed all this [ __ ] into the car Isabelle had gone uh on Wednesday after the air
support came Isabelle had taken the Tacoma up to the up to the house and like filled it the bed of the Tacoma with like Essentials and brought it down
so we're stuffing all that into her station wagon we're stuffing stuff into the Land Cruiser and we're driving uh
to um family members house in um Sherman Oaks um and I just again the angelinos I love these people so much unbelievable unbelievable because we don't know that
if it's going to jump across the 101 and just burn Calabasas we don't know if they're going to shut the 101 down and everyone is merging onto this freeway to
get the [ __ ] out of here and no I didn't hear a single horn not one
horn no one was tailgating you could change lanes they were letting all the the drivers were letting everyone merge
onto the onto the 101 and on the Google Maps the whole damn thing was red and God bless these angelinos just letting
people in and just chill about it the workers at the hotel just stayed there they were fixing the fountain outside the hotel they just stayed and they were
like still paintting reminded me of these painters on September 11th 2001 I was there's this little Park on 13th
Street in 8th Avenue called Jackson Square and there were these like Po guys painting the RW iron fence and the [ __ ] Trade Center is on fire behind
the I wish I had documented this but I wasn't as mature as I am now I you know I was 26 and um they were just painting
that fence the whole time while the buildings are coming down everything the end of the day they were done with the fence it was unbelievable anyway these
guys were doing that and the angelinos and then we got to the house to our refuge where my family is right now this
is like yes you know this is I don't know uh 16 hours ago or something and
um thank God we're safe there they're on vacation um the family members are on vacation but there's a uh there's a
house sitter that's there who knows all all the how to do all the you know houses are complicated they have
thermostats and this and security and all that so that's where we are now and it's all happening in real time the
fires are still burning the there's and so you know it turns out that the the um
Kenneth fire the one that was burning across the 101 yesterday that was being blown towards us I think they have that pretty much contained it turns out that
was an arsonist and the local news I don't know where you guys are but the local news here in Los Angeles they're they're
showing stuff that I don't think they're the international news and the national news I don't think is covering it but there are like homeless people lighting
huge fires underneath overpasses and there are like people in Venice that Andrew huberman posted something I think it was this morning of these like
arsonists lighting fires in in Venice Beach California which is not near any of the fires and like I think there are people
um I want to say deranged but then I want to say embittered I want to say evil I want to say evil people who are
seeing this as like an opportunity as like let's just burn it down you know like the Joker that movie The Joker the
one with waen Phoenix I think there are people like that and I think that we don't know what started it in
and and in um we don't know what started the Palisades I've heard rumors but I don't know what started it in the Palisades maybe it was one of these
these encampments These vagrants are everywhere and another thing that doesn't get reported is these guys light
fires all the time I've been I've driven through other underpasses where the whole homeless encampment is just a blaze and there's no fire suppression
there yet and the homeless guys are just kind of sitting around like watching it as entertainment no nobody's frazzled nobody's trying to put it out um and I
don't know maybe and I'm I'm finding out I'm learning from firsthand accounts of people eyewitnessing that oh yeah no there's secret little encampments in in
the in in in in in in Tanga Canyon State Park behind your house van um yeah there's a bunch of you know
and these are drug addicts these are michael shenberger michael shellenberger wrote an entire book about this called San Francisco and these
99.99% of these people are drug are drug addicts that are you know not recovering drug addicts and these people are not
responsible with their cooking fires and their camping fires and so forth and so we don't know what started
but we do know that this one it was called it's called West Hills very beautiful neighborhood I believe that's where Rogan lived he might have been
Bell Canyon I don't remember but it's kind of the same area it's the same b b area West Hills that they burn there's burned there's [ __ ] burned there you
know yesterday um I believe that's where Rogan Joe Rogan had one of his houses or maybe a couple of his big houses before he moved to
Texas um uh so that's kind of you know it's hard to sleep with this so you're exhausted all day you're just addicted to the phone addicted to the TV because it's real life I mean the Hollywood where we're
staying now is near the Hollywood Hills which also burst into flames on Wednesday night you know like if say we were staying there we would have had to
have our eyes glued because you got to be awake for the evacuation order and it was like a movie we were out at a restaurant on
uh Wednesday night and all of the phones all everybody's phone sitting
around us everyone getting the evacuation you know warnings and evacuation orders and all of this
stuff and uh so now today you know after lying in bed and sleeping badly and
talking to people and watching a little bit of news and maybe excuse me looking at a couple of you know opinions from
people who've lived here um and you know talking about leadership and
what why this happens in 2024 when we have one man who can build a rocket and put people up in outer
space and bring them back we have a guy who owns a company who can do that when our national government our federal government can't do it and um there's things I've known
there's you know forestry uh Forest Service money has been diverted to a light rail project in
California that they haven't built they've been working on it for 10 years I believe they spent something like 19 billion bucks they haven't laid a single
foot of track it's just a graft and they're taking that money from the there's a whole bunch of little things like that and those little pieces of
information which I've been hearing about for six years um they're all starting to come out and I I think that
people are going to wake up to a lot of these policies that have led to this there's no reason for this I was
listening to Dr Drew you remember that guy Dr Drew from Lov line it was Dr Drew and then Adam Corolla and you'd call in
it was like a radio show and it might have been a TV show too and You' call in and be like Oh my girlfriend doesn't have orgasms what should I do and then they Adam CR would say something funny
and Dr Drew was the MD and he'd tell you exactly what was going on like anatomically so Dr Drew is you know he
lives here in Los Angeles and he was on he was on one of these podcasts and he was talking about look in the 70s when I
was a kid 50 years ago they did um he had a word he knew the word I wish I knew what it was it's a type of controlled burn where they just burn
little they burn little uh I think they're called blocks or something blockades block they burn little ribbons
so that if a fire does start there's no fuel after a certain point and it's just a maintenance thing and they do it and in I would last time I was in Yus
National Park I was stayed at a campsite at about I don't know 6,000 feet and uh there was a controlled burn going on it said do not leave the road do not leave
the paths controlled burn in process progress and uh you know it was just like smoldering little Fields just to
get rid of the fuel and it's just something that that that they do from time to time it's part of the thing but
you know I I'm I'm being told that the budgets for that and the politics for that are that they've diverted funds and diverted
energy uh I'm sorry diverted resources away from that and now you know they they they want to Outlaw or it might
even be outlawed that you can't have a gas stove in your house a gas stove it's like a cigarette lighter okay because of
the carbon the CO2 emissions how much CO2 has gone up into that sky over the last three or four days I mean the whole town is black with I mean the whole town
is orange with smoke it's like um so you know I don't you know artists shouldn't be I I don't think
real artists should be politically public about things and be this team or this team or this candidate or blah blah
blah blah blah but I think it's important for us to criticize leadership when it has failed us and our leadership
has failed us and I I I I saw this clip this morning and I can't believe it's I can't believe it's true but I saw the
clip so I it is true so Anderson Cooper who was in Palisades he's interviewing
our governor Gavin Nome and he says to the go he asks the governor how come these fire hydrants in the Palisades by
the way I mean Palisades you you walk around the Palisades and just it's just ordinary nice houses these are what you
would call a modest home in their two million six million eight million that's just like a regular house like a Cosby Show House you know or like a The
Simpsons kind of house and these are $2 million houses like that's the minimum buy in in the Palisades the Palisades is more expensive than bever Hills it's an
absolute Jewel okay and so Anderson Cooper says to the governor of this state he says how come there's no water in the fire hydrants the firemen are
telling me there's no water in the fire hydrants and you know what this guy says the governor of the state of California he says the local guys will figure that
out then what do we need you for pal the local yeah I'm the local guy we're the local guys but no this isn't we pay the
state to take care of this stuff we pay the city so so and you know what God bless uh Anderson Cooper because he as
far as I know he's the only national news desk guy to go into to panga and do a little he did a little like thing on his phone and said this this this you
know thank God bless him for that because to panga there's not that many of us that live there and uh and they in
the news obviously you have to concentrate on the highest concentration of people and that's that's Altadena and
that's um uh there I want to say Paradise Pacific Palisades and
um and you know I've had you think about this stuff and now that we're like out of immediate danger thank God for the
time being start to think kind of the big picture of this and like what are you what what are you gonna do what are you
and your family GNA do and like you go through I'm a I'm a creative person so I go through all of the options I could move to I and I can you know thanks to
you guys uh I you know I could move to Europe I could move the family to Europe you know we have family in Europe we do
uh I could and Europe's very cheap right now for Americans Europe's cheap you can buy big houses they population Decline and like they're paying like Western
like independent people like me in Portugal and in Spain they're paying us to you know to to move there I could go to um one of these Southern you know I
used to live in West Virginia could I could move to one of these southern states that are really really cheap and just buy a huge with the money from our
house just buy a huge place a huge spread I have I have thank God thanks to you guys I have um I have all of these
options we have all of we as a family we have all of these options and I'm just the only thing I can say I I I can't I'm
just like we're gonna stay and fight stay and fight and rebuild stay and fight and rebuild and like use your
platform to encourage a lot of you guys you say uh they call a lot of you guys are like I'm 24 what should I do I I'm
supposed to go to college blah blah blah and I tell all you guys learn a trade learn a trade if you want to be an
artist you can be an artist but you're going to need money you're going to need resource you're going to need to know how to do stuff and I'm G to start telling all you guys move here we need
you we need electricians we need plumbers we need Builders we need Engineers we're going to have to rebuild
it's it's it's [ __ ] 5,000 and it's this is conservative they don't know they don't know how many buildings but
when they look when you look at the Palisades in that footage they say like 5,000 structures and stuff the whole town is gone the whole thing is burned
down and um you know my I guess my purpose is I have this voice and I have I know all of
these people I know a lot of you know I know a lot of people in um like powerful um kind of uh
um powerful uh what what is it called uh media people and um I don't know what to do I
have to keep doing what I'm doing but of course you know the context has changed now but you know we're gonna I hope our
house is saved and we're going to try to get in there who knows when the electricity is coming on one thing I didn't mention when I'm talking about
these arsonists one thing I didn't mention is that um you know after the
woy fire which was a which was in 2018 and we had to evacuate toena for that one 2018 that was a big fire the woy
fire and I'm pretty sure it was started because of like a a uh obsolete or over um burdened
Transformer like up in the mountains it was the Santa anas Again these Furious winds one of those things like exploded
and started the fire okay and um I don't know how the Franklin fire which was a few months ago the Franklin fire in Malibu I don't know how
that started right um we we we don't know how this P
Palisades fire started I think there's rumors but I don't think we know for a fact how it started but these things one they're not exactly easy to light it's
not like you drop a [ __ ] cigarette and the whole Canyon goes up it's not like that although it is illegal to smoke cigarettes in Tanga Canyon
it's not that it's not that it's it's some big thing it's some big like maybe if you're cooking on a
cookout if you're cooking on a charcoal grill right and it's all those charcoals and it's like a big Furious fire that you can't dump water on and like the
wind blows it over and it spills it and you don't have fire suppression or you're a [ __ ] idiot and you don't and you just take your time and you don't
panic because you should panic in that situation um that's the kind of thing that ignites
fires I was up in um this was in 2016 on a motorcycle ride with Isabelle I was up north like near
uh uh kind of like between yosee and um giant seoa National Park and there was like this just huge burn scars in the
mountains and thank you firefighters handmade signs hanging from people's houses and stuff and we found out I think at lunch at a restaurant that that
fire was lit by someone lit a Dodge Charger on fire and pushed it off a cliff that's how these fires get they
don't get lit by some you know they're not just like a little accidental and and the thing was with with with with
the Santa anas on Tuesday and the Palisades is that we were all warned we all know and everything had been
fortified since since the 2018 woy fire that nearly came to Tanga and burned a
lot of Malibu that's when the Department of Water and Power and the utilities associated with it they went and they
replaced all the poles they replaced a lot of the infrastructure of the of the um of the the Transformers and so forth
they periodically send drones up and do little reconnaissance to see where there's uh where there's vulnerabilities and so forth everyone's really careful
they started sending our kids down into the valley for school on really windy days because they know that they're gonna that the the utility company they don't take chances anymore they're going
to shut the power down because there's a risk that if a power line goes down even though they're new and freshly built and fortified um there's a there's a chance
that they'll go down and and and so they turn off the electricity when they they probably have detectors I don't really know I'm making that up but they turn
off and they they will tell you they'll send you like an email or a text message we will be shutting your utilities down blah blah blah due to high winds my point is in these neighborhoods these
neighborhoods full of responsible people these I'm sorry but expensive neighborhoods these aren't careless people these aren't irresponsible people
these are the most careful the most responsible people they're not accidentally igniting these
fires so paradise and Malibu and and and and and Altadena these are the big big
ones okay I don't know I just don't buy and there's a rumor going around that it was some resident in the Palisades and they
had some they were burning leaves or something doing yard work I just don't buy it I just don't buy it you're not going to do that responsible and your
neighbors aren't going to let you get away with it in the Palisades I know the Palisades I know these people I know them this isn't what they're like
anyhow I just think that we're gonna see a kind of a like a cultural like like a I think we're going to see like a kind
of a revolution and I think we're starting from scratch I mean a lot of people are
starting starting from scratch and a lot of you know Palisades those are powerful people those are those are those are leaders those are wealthy people those are
people those are people with influence and I think we're going to take a look at the policies that have been going on for I don't know 30 years
or something and we're gonna start new voices are going to start making rules and I think we're going to
start we got to get you know it's possible for some disenfranchise vagrants that are mad at the
system and they're drug addicts and they get delusions it's possible for them to just 10 of them this is we're talking about five fires or something like that
it's possible for five of them five to destroy the entire city you know they get the days right they get the winds
right it's possible and maybe they just want to do maybe there's you know accidentally or in unintentionally
you know you have a little Coleman Stone heating up your crack or whatever or your heroin or your soup or hot dogs or
Ramen or whatever it blows over and lights your you know your tent on fire and then that blows and then that blows
and you're dude man I don't know um you know I understand that I'm scapegoating here but they caught this guy and he lit a
fire and I had to flee with my family yesterday because of him and well I don't know who this person is I don't know what the hell it is but um you know
I've been exploring every kind of nook and cranny around here with my son every Sunday for about two or three years on dirt on electric dirt bikes looking for
just having fun and I've seen some things I've seen I've seen the you know I've seen these people and I've seen how
they live and I see how they trash and leave their garbage and they just camp out where there's children and big they
make a lot of these Parks like not usable because you know they're not in a rich neighborhood so they know they can get away without the police or private
security or something coming and sweeping them away and they caught this guy yesterday and I'm furious because I had to this
scumbag you know we had to pack up and flee and he endangered all these people because of what he lit why why did he do
that and why doesn't why aren't we protected from that kind of a those kinds of people um I'm going off the rails here I
should just be doing a report of it but um you know it's very raw it's like it's it's happening it's Dynamic I don't know
what the hell that's GNA happen with my house um our house you know my kids are
stressed out the baby's fine but she's you know moving to a different place to sleep every night and
she's not sleeping through the night which keeps All of Us open my poor son is just um he's basically like just
glued to his iPad watching Simpsons after Simpsons and he gets really stressed out and freaked out and this is a tough kid this is not one of these this is a tough kid I'm raising him genx
style he's tough and um um you know he's glued to his iPad
that's his comfort and this you know he's he's like got a little artist kind of soul in him and he's just watching The Simpsons and it just takes them away
from all of this and all of this uncertainty and um yeah it's it's
uh I mean just thank God for you guys thank God for all the resources I have and and the families and the friends and
everyone reaching out if you need a place to stay you can stay at this you can see you know my brother Dean is shooting on location in east coast and
he has an apartment here he's like go take my apartment in Hollywood if you need it um Neeve scholman was like go
take my house in Laurel Canyon of course the day he sent that they were they had to evacuate Laurel Canyon because and I
think that was arson too because the Hollywood Hills started to go up
um yeah and these angelinos man I love them I'm so I'm so impressed I'm so impressed with them and how good they
and and I hope you guys that are here that are everything's working out for you that are you know all you guys that are displaced cuz you know I know some
of you live around here and uh okay so maybe I'll go let me go see um let me see what some of this to see if I can find some relative uh um
uh let's see you're going have to tell us your personal Tanga Canyon Palisades fire story oh I just did that
Corey uh can you Braxton put all stuff on YouTube that old farts like me who are too old for Tik Tok can watch it
also I don't think we're on Tik Tok also any reason for the typewriter upgrade I noticed Kurt vag get like the same
model um I was watching something that my friend Eric good had made a little movie
that my friend Eric good had made um not it's just something it's not released out yet but that my the new typewriter
was in it and I was just like I was with friends and I was just like that's all typewriter I just bought that typewriter um I the reason I have a typewriter
upgrade is because that's my studio typewriter the new typewriter is the studio uh typewriter and the old typewriter is still at the house um but
the new one's called the Smith Corona silent it's pretty great it's pretty great I love it it's also the one that
Tom Hanks in American typewriter says that's his uh if he was cast away on a desert island that would be the
typewriter he would want um uh somebody asked how does this how does this um like affect your creativity let me see if I can find that I'm just going to do like 10 more minutes of this live stream but I think
I should answer your questions um uh so Vincent asks aside from the fire how's everything do you have any goals for this year what are you working
on so the fire kind of changes everything the fire kind of it's like it doesn't matter if there is no beside the
fire the fire is the foreground now the fire is the is our life now
because you know these communities they're gone they're just gone things have to be rebuilt and I'm like a fixer so I don't
know I think I don't know I don't know I think whatever plans I had or whatever I was thinking I have to
now I'm you know I have to think very in very short term I have to think very
short term now so you know short term I'm going to do I want to do a video about what I just told you the story
because I shot all of it of course um and then I want to do a little video
about I want to do a video today h for YouTube sort of like a recap 10 minutes of what I
just told you guys and publish it on my main Channel on YouTube just talking into a camera like this and then I want to do
um I want to do uh story with visual with the video that I captured of this
experience and then I want to do like a video just about from old footage from
um the Palisades uh I kept Palisades like a secret like I I didn't talk about it on
this channel because I didn't want people to I didn't want it I wanted it to be like I didn't want it to be ex you know
I wanted it to be like my our little like place you know for the community or whatever just a little place where we
can hang out and just like I'm not going to draw a lot of attention to it because it's like you know I don't know so I have I
think I have a bunch of footage of like what it's really like there so I think I might do like a love letter to
the Palisades and I think the people who are from there will get will really appreciate that um so just hoping you guys are safe in
my non-c Creator life I work for the company slack and we are helping calire and Cal o s respond and
coordinate resources the stories I'm hearing from the fire line are just awful that's from Mark
Whittington uh um Michael or Mitchell Parish says um you might have shared this before but could you talk about how you found toena
and eventually landed there I was up that way a few years ago and absolutely loved
it so we were living Isabelle and I were living in um Silver Lake and you know we were we
had just moved there from this was in 2016 we had just moved there from uh New York City and so we would just go to
different parts of the of Los Angeles just to explore and see what we liked and we went on a hike I believe it was
in Eagle Rock in um in Tanga Canyon and Isabelle was just like oh my God I love
it here I love it here and it was the smell it was the air it smells so good we have all these Sage we have all it's
unbelievable and um then when she got pregnant it was just like it was like and she says that
it was our son brought us there she was like I think maybe we went hiking when she was pregnant too and she was like
okay we're moving here so it was on it's it's Isabelle I've learned in relationships it's you leave the domestic stuff up to the women because
they have like a deep connection to like the right places to live and you can't be too rational about that kind of stuff
I know that doesn't that sounds crazy and it is but stuff like who you marry where you're going to live what your job
is the most important decisions you sort of shouldn't be very rational about I know it sounds crazy but so anyway she
says it was our son brought us to to Tanga like in utero and so she just was like this is where we have to be and
then like the right house worked out and um oh my God I love it and the thing about Tanga I grew up in a town where
everybody kind of hated it you know some people liked it but it was just kind of a shitty it was like an easy place to
live it was cheap and so and then like people were um naval officers and people in the Navy would live in that town
because they'd get stationed there so but it was nothing I mean there was just it was just kind of a it was nice I
like those people and I love the my oldest friends are from there and everything and but it wasn't a place you moved to
it wasn't a place um it wasn't a place where like der
ronat is going to write her songs and it's not a place where Neil Young is going to record after the Gold Rush which both of which were in Tanga Canyon
and it's not a you know and um the people who live in Tanga Canyon love Tanga Canyon they love it
they love living there it's so deep and it's just like this thing every time you drive into that Canyon from the rest of the city you're just like I love it here
I'm so grateful to be to I'm that I'm fortunate enough to live here it's so beautiful you come over the hill and you see big rock and you see these Pro you
see these Vistas it's just beautiful and it's a and it's a community
so it just that's why I want to just stay in fight and stay and like figure
it out because it's it's so beautiful um and it just it's for
us um John G ER asked me how did you meet Laura C it would be awesome to see
you guys collaborate on something okay I should know my brain's a little scrambled right now I
think was it like Colin and Samir maybe connected us or maybe Braxton connected us or maybe Braxton direct messaged
Laura or Laura direct messaged me but I didn't really know her I didn't know her at all um
and then she just came to the studio and it was like boom we just hit it all we're just instantly on the sa W same
wavelength and I love L she's so great she's so great and she's up she's
um Santa Clarita I should find out she's near the um she's near the other fire the
uh I always want to say it's like a leanor Elenor the eaten fire the eaten
fire which is now at 13,000 Acres so it's now it's bigger than the island of Manhattan that fire
uh okay what's your favorite sparkling water flavor mine is
hibiscus I think I like the uh I think I like grapefruit um
so this is hi van glad you and your Colligan asked hi van glad you and your family are safe how can people in other areas of La help and what is an aspect
of toena that has an impact on situations like the fire evacuations so what you know the
help is gonna have to come later you know one of the things is you can take in people offer your place to
people that are I mean all the hot HS are full and there's thousands and thousands of people who've been evacuated um but the help's going to
come we're going to have to this is going to be a decade of fixing this figuring this out
[Music] um so yeah what are your thoughts on the fires nearby what insights have you learned listening to your boys
perspective kid scen well he's my boy is much he's much more relaxed about it than I
am and uh oh here's a good one Annie ovich adav achavanich adanan Annie Ed chanic asks uh van hope you and your family said what's in your go bag earthquake slir kit and how is it
packed I just updated mine from a backpack to a clear storage bin on wheels love to see a video on this topic be well PS thanks for fixing my granny
shopping cart oh yeah I remember that so the wheel doesn't fall off anymore oh I remember you um so my you know what my
gokit Is My Land Cruiser and the and the um the uh Tacoma
and in the Tacoma I have I have one of those aluminum boxes that goes in the bed up towards the cab
and it's one of the narrow ones it's not deep and in that I have everything for a chainsaw I have the premixed gas and oil
I have this the chaps I have the mask the hard hat and the ear protection I have Bar Oil and I have a brand new
chainsaw that's never been gassed up a steel brand new steel chainsaw so that's that vehicle and then in my My Land
Cruiser is basically my go bag um and then in there I have a bunch of little GO bags that are other things and then I
have my camera go bag which is my you know my kill Spencer go bag and that's the thing I just throw all the most
expensive cameras in and the GoPros and um uh and that's essentially it and the
and the Land Cruiser has like water in it it has tons of like um of those Cliff bars it has four bags of beef jerky it
has spare clothes it has because go bag and an emergency stuff is kind of the same as Adventure stuff and so we're
always going on adventures and we always wind up you know I do Sundays with my son and like we wind up someplace at some weird swimming hole and I'm just
like guess what I have and uh you know and then I have a backpack to pack it all in I have a dirt two dirt bikes on the back one of them for him one of them
for me but he can double up on me if there's a problem and he can double up on mine with me carrying his little dirt
bike if there's a problem and that battery holds 50 m worth of charge um what else is in there so I
have an angle grinder a cordless angle grinder with um cut off wheels in the Land Cruiser and it's something we call
the warbox and that's uh in case there's a situation where the roads are all blocked and we have to access fire roads
which I also have maps of paper maps of and I've explored on dirt bike with my son so I know like I know to get out of
red rock out of the Tanga Canyon if I'm taking Red Rocks when I come to the T at the top of the hill I can't go right because there's some big big rocks that
my Land Cruiser can't get over but I can go left and get to stunt Road and I have an angle grinder to cut the locks they're just padlocks on the um fire
roads in case they haven't been opened so and then you know little tool kits to maintain the bikes extra keys for
everything um toolkit to maintain the truck a little bit but it's pretty thank God it's pretty it's pretty bomb proof
because of all of the new you know the new engine new transmission new I just got a new drive shaft
um and it's literally and figuratively diesel so um uh you know I have all that stuff um water water in that truck how
is the V How wait has the evacuation experience changed your perspective on the physical objects around both the meaningful ones
and the mundane ones did choosing what you save and what you will leave alter your perception of the value of the stuff I've been through this before
we've been through this before so I'm pretty well edited down to like what the important stuff is and that's like I
said about the the the Land Cruiser being outfitted in a certain way and then the Tacoma out
outfitted in a certain way and then the the studio is sort of a safe house and then if the studio Burns and the house
burns then it's like reevaluate the life or my whole life because there it's like how how secure can I be I'm like not
rich enough to have some bunker somewhere although and then there's also storage I also rent storage which is a little bit further east of here that has
some other stuff in it but that's not as meaningful the most meaningful stuff is probably in the studio because it's the
data which is also in a steel toolbx ready to go that was thrown into my car with all all of the archival hard drives from this Channel and all of the
archives of all of my videos from my whole life uh and the footage archive with all of my footage basically from
from forever I don't have the tapes that haven't been digitized yet there's probably a couple hundred or hundred and something tapes up at the house that
haven't been digitized yet but a lot of them have been and those were all in a steel case ready to go and went right in the back of my Land Cruiser when I thought we had to get the hell out of
you know when I had to get the hell out of the valley
um [Music] uh okay and that's 10 and um I'm gonna try to get something out on YouTube and I'm gonna try to do something I'm gonna
try to do like one of these for YouTube just like a recap that's on the main Channel and then I'm going to do I'm
going to try to do a video that's the kind of this but with the footage and then I want to do that Palisades Love
Letter thing I think that's what I'm going to try to work on but the interruptions obviously are non-negotiable and then my life is not
efficient now I have a very efficient life normally where I can crank these things out but my life is not efficient now because now I'm living a far commute
away whereas before I wasn't as far away and my stuff's all scattered
and there's demands on me for um one thing someone Alex Morris
says van how can we help how can we help van let us know um I this is very very specific but
I would like to the thing is I I think they're gonna let us back into our houses God willing if they save the canyon once the fire is under control I
think they're going to let us back into our houses but the thing that I'm concerned about is that they might let us back into our houses but it's going to take them a
long time to restore electricity and I have a battery system at the house but it's not strong enough
to run the whole house and it only works for two days at a time until it needs to be recharged again so it's like an
intermediate battery system and what I'd like to do is upgrade to a natural gas
because we have natural gas tank um a natural gas 7,000 watt generator system
um and I'd like and I imagine that's going to be very much in demand I don't know though maybe not so I'd like to
install that and I might need to appeal to you guys for like the Personnel first
of all who who do I where do I get it I've looked I've done a little bit of research on this and I think it's about
7,000 watts to power my house like who do I get to where where do I get it who do I get to install it that it's like
trust that I can trust and is good and won't gouge me uh and and then that that's it because I think I need like a
a to Plumbers do gas like this is propane flammable gas but I think that's the best one because the propane tank
can be refilled it's not dependent on City infrastructure the way that electricity from the grid is this is
just we have a big I don't know how many pound or gallon or whatever just it's like comes up to here on me and it's like this big around with a valve on top and
that's how we heat our house and we do our cooking and stuff and heat our water but I'd like to have there's a there's a
uh generator that you can get that you connect to that same gas supply so you can have the gas company deliver gas and
that's your electricity so maybe if you know people that uh won't gouge me that
know this process of doing this and I have to buy the thing I'm paying for it and I'm not asking it for free we'll pay
for it but get the gas thing and then um uh get the uh get the I get the
generator and get the person to whoever it is to install it
ah shoot okay thank you so much you guys you're really your your support is
saving my family's life so uh um I'm I wish I could get more content out to you but obviously I'm doing the
best I can here and um okay thank you have a have a good weekend and um thank you very much
Products & Tools Mentioned
- Watch Duty essential — wildfire tracking app used during LA fires
- Toyota Land Cruiser uses — evacuation vehicle
- Toyota Tacoma uses — mentioned as vehicle
- Smith Corona Silent uses — typewriter model mentioned
- Stihl chainsaw uses — chainsaw used for fire preparation
- Kill Spencer go bag uses — emergency go bag brand
- Cliff Bar uses — emergency food supply
- electric dirt bike uses — used for evacuation/transport during fires
People Referenced
Anderson Cooper, Gavin Newsom, Michael Shellenberger, Dr. Drew, Adam Carolla, Joe Rogan, Colin and Samir, Laura C, Nev Schulman, Andrew Huberman, Tom Hanks, Eric Good, Joaquin Phoenix
Books Mentioned
- book about San Francisco policy discussed (by Michael Shellenberger)
Films & Media Referenced
- radio show with Dr. Drew and Adam Carolla referenced
- Joaquin Phoenix film referenced
- Tom Hanks typewriter documentary/project referenced