← The Fame Game with Heidi & Spencer
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- [00:01]
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Heidi Wood
Oh no. That's all guys.
- [02:06]
Spencer
Welcome back to the Fame Game. We have a big time celebrity guest today in the Fame Game. Please welcome to the Burnt Out Lot. Thanks to Gavin Deuce of Carabas at ladwp. Our main sponsors. Luke, how do you say your last name?
- [02:22]
Luke Melcher
Melcher.
- [02:22]
Spencer
Melcher. So real quick I'll let him do his bio but my knowledge of Luke since the Palisades and Alta Adena burned down, he was one of the strongest voices posting on social media about everything from permits to army corps not doing their job. It ends up. I thought he was just an incredible influencer, but he is actually a general contractor, so I'll let you take on your own bio here.
- [02:49]
Luke Melcher
Yeah, general contractor Melcher Construction. And the whole influencer thing's funny because I never even intended for that to happen. But you start posting videos that resonate with people and they just naturally go viral because the substance. So started posting videos over here in Pacific Palisades. I think those were my first few. And then I've just been boots on the ground since literally the day they opened it up. So I've been seeing everything that's going on. Like you get messages from all the residents and I'm sure there will be no shortage of stuff to keep posting on over the next many years because the corruption is just so extreme.
- [03:27]
Spencer
I mean, just right as we were about to start, but I just got a text shout out. Caitlin sent me A screenshot of $1,000 bill from Karen Bass LAFD for a fire hydrant because she's choosing to on her lot rebuild over 110%. Which means you truly could add what, like a guest? I mean that's. So how small are we talking?
- [03:55]
Luke Melcher
Like you're talking about a partial bedroom in most cases, maybe an extra bathroom if they don't give you any difficulty with changing the use. Because originally they were saying like, for like same number of bedrooms, same number of bathrooms, you can't change anything. And because people are pushing back, like wait a second, this is a huge investment. I'm about to rebuild my house. You're telling me I have to build exactly what I had in the 70s is just ridiculous. So they've gotten a little bit more flexible, but they're going to end up keep trying to tack on little fees and things everywhere they can. You experienced it with the, the brush clearance that was supposed to be taken care of. Now I'm hearing about this, this thousand dollar thing. And remember, remember, do you remember when Karen Bass was talking about how she was going to waive all the permit fees and they weren't waived, they were suspended. And right now the talk is that they're going to vote in the city council and not waive those fees. So that's another thing people have to pay for.
- [04:54]
Spencer
There's one fee. I'm not exactly clear on it because again, we're obviously not in the position to be Rebuilding. Unless you guys keep watching this podcast for 50 years, they said they were going to waive this, and then everybody who, like, submitted to get it waived, they had to resubmit. So most people had already submitted and they were just like, forget it. I'm going to take this $15,000 hit versus resubmitting three months. So that's the other thing they do. Even on ones that they may waive, they play all these games. So. But recently, Luke has uncovered something that I unfortunately am connected to because of growing up here and knowing lots of real estate agents. But my own childhood friends are out here selling up Malibu to Chinese nationals. And again, I love Chinese people shout out TikTok. I love. You know, I was selling reused luxury designer bags with my Chinese team. But my problem is that what people aren't getting is these people that are selling these lots they were never supposed to sell. Like, my dad worked his whole life so that my little sister or me and we could pass it down to our grandkids. So what is happening is the community of Americans from Pacific Palisades aren't able to get money from California Fair Plan their insurance didn't cover. So these people are forced to be selling only because these Chinese literal conglomerates, because they're offering major money. So when I asked my real estate friends, I'm not going to name them Coop Sandro and I, you know, I was like, what's going on? They're like, oh, yeah, it's all out of Hong Kong. So these aren't just like local Chinese families that are down the street that were going to my son's preschool. This is major. And they're trying to buy up as many as possible. And I, I just, it makes me, as a local feel concerned because I'm already seeing what's happening with the people live in Santa Monica trying to come with their laws and their bills, trying to change policies. I don't even trust Santa Monica now. You're supposed to have me trust Hong Kong. So that's my takeaway.
- [07:16]
Luke Melcher
But, yeah, I mean, I'm glad you clarified. I'm of the same position. It's not about Chinese people being, you know, different ethnicity. And that's my problem with them. We were also concerned with the land grab talk. It happened in Hawaii. It's. They're trying to have it, have it happen here. They tried to push that bill through where the government could start buying up all the land. So everybody is aware of the land grab issue. And I'm not sure why there's not Special attention on. I think we should be even more concerned if it's a foreign country, certainly a foreign adversary that's going to be buying up the land here. And I think what people don't know is if you're not an American citizen, or even in some cases, if you are an American citizen, but you still have ties to China, like family, they're beholden to the ccp. It's by law that they really have to do the bidding of the ccp, even if they want to break away with from that, let's say that they're not aligned. If they've got family there, their family could be under threat. And what they're doing, there's been this push to buy influence. And we saw it at the beginning of, like the Obama administration. He basically opened the doors and really tried to incentivize Chinese people to immigrate here. And I'm going to go over that in a podcast of my own. But you see this huge influx of visas coming specifically from China. And what they do is they disseminate this money across a huge number of people and launder it through real estate. And so it's like you said, it's. You could be worried about Santa Monica politics, but we're talking about they could not be further from us in terms of, you know, political alignment, culture. And those are not things that you don't want to have that type of influence here in California, especially when they can start to put leverage on you, you know, on the real estate market as a whole. Influence, politicians, lobby, all of these things should be a real concern to Californians and definitely people in the fire zones, because that's where we're seeing a lot of it right now. They've flooded into these markets and they're buying up lots like crazy.
- [09:22]
Spencer
Here's what I guarantee you right now, if it was Russians buying up Palisades instead of Chinese, there would be a big issue because right now, Russia and Ukraine, the. But soon as China invades Taiwan, as soon as that happens, I guarantee you now we'd be like, oh, my God, China is buying up the Palisades. But right now it's all. All chill because, you know, TikTok, and we're chill with TikTok. But that's the point. If Russia was buying Palisades, I would be just as concerned if it was Chinese. So. And I'm sure Russians probably are through. That's who's really looking into all the LLCs and shell companies and where the money is. Nobody. Because the people that are just selling their lots. Everyone's are forced to do this because it's impossible to build right now. Another thing that is not discussed enough and I gotta keep talking about it because I get so many messages from the community, is the California Fair Plan. Everyone got forced on the California Fair Plan when State Farm and farmers. State farm. I know 150 people in December got dropped like Christmas time. A lot of them didn't even have time to re up. Some didn't even get on California Fair Plan because holidays. And so these people who have been in the Palisades 45 years, I think one person got dropped by State Farm on January 1, six days for the fire. So what people understand with Fair Plan is it. It's not a fair plan. It's. It's a total scam. And that's a fact. And what happened? And I don't hate on the insurance companies because everyone's like, oh, you need to go for the insurance. I'm hating on Newsom and Karen Bass and the people that made it. So anyone with a brain at these insurance companies is like, oh, they don't have water in reservoirs. Their fire, 20% of their fire hydrants don't work. They don't have enough firefighters because they're dropping their budgets. They leave all the dead brush surrounding the towns. They leave dead brush on the city lots next to housing. So of course the insurance companies are going to drop all of us because they don't feel it's not a good business move. And that's the state. And the state doesn't care because, oh, blah, blah, blah.
- [11:39]
Luke Melcher
So, yeah, and they're not speculating about the risk. There's been so many fires in California and they've had so much exposure that they literally can't take on any more exposure. And then the way our insurance commission works here in California, the state regulates what they can charge for premiums. And so they're in this situation where it's like, we'll lose our asses if we don't get out of California. We can go do business and make money elsewhere, but we'll go bankrupt if we stay here in California. And now what you're dealing with is everybody else in California who does have homeowners insurance, whether it's Fair Plan or through private insurance, they're ending up paying for this. All of the insurance companies that have left the state and what you're seeing is all of those, all of the exposure, all of the liabilities that's now being passed on in premium increases to fair plan and private insurance carriers. So everybody's footing the bill for this new season.
- [12:37]
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Spencer
What a way to start.
- [12:47]
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Spencer
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- [12:55]
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- [13:35]
Spencer
See mintmobile.com Another thing that's going on in the Palisades. Shout out pally builds dot com. I may have messed that up, but they sent me all their data that they're doing that showed Karen Bass is out here saying, oh, the Palisades is rebuilding. We've already issued 380 permits when really they're including pools, jacuzzis, any extra thing and they're just putting those all in actual full builds. Pali builds. As their data shows, it's only 104 full builds. You have it at 100?
- [14:09]
Luke Melcher
Yep. I think it's probably even less and I, you know, call it a conspiracy theory. Have you noticed they're all centrally located, basically right as you drive into town just on Sunset?
- [14:21]
Spencer
So they can do.
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Luke Melcher
Yeah. And I really think that's why, like you're driving into town and it looks like construction's going on, it's easy for Karen Bass and Gavin Newsom to pop into town. Like, look what's going on here in the Palisades. But as you start to get out of town a little bit, you know, off the main thoroughfares, there's really not a lot going on. So maybe those people just got lucky.
- [14:41]
Spencer
You know, speaking of Newsom, I don't think we talked about that. So thankfully, everyone in the community obviously starting to realize they all got scammed and Played. I think initially what happened was everyone fell for the propaganda about the hurricane winds, unprecedented event. And the more I'm not taking full credit, but a lot of the credit, the more I'm putting out the actual information that for the first six hours of the Palisades fire, the wind speed was 16.77 miles per hour. The max peak wind, I think, got to 30 miles per hour. Don't get me wrong, Altadena was 70 plus. But Pacific Palisades never had extreme wind. So everyone got caught up in Newsom's propaganda and the speech. Hurricane winds. Like, yes, in Los Angeles county, which is as big as some European countries, there was winds. But Pacific Palisades, for the six hours, the most crucial time to fight the fire, there was hardly any wind. And now I'm going to start posting more videos showing the trees, the flagpoles, because I have it all there was. I mean, it looked like this, like this much wind.
- [15:49]
Heidi Wood
The crazy wind was the night before. That's why you didn't sleep all night.
- [15:53]
Spencer
Yeah, the night before that was. That was the night I was up because our son had pneumonia. And I looked out the window and I said, oh, my God, the whole entire town could just. A nuclear explosion if there were bad actors. Because I never imagined the state park not being contained and reigniting. If I had thought about just negligence, I would have such a different mindset. But I was always just worried about arsonists, terrorists, people just starting fires versus just them letting a fire reignite. So I got photos sent to me yesterday that I'm not even sure the ATF has. And it shows these again, maybe they're from China. That's a. It's a funny coincidence, but not Asian tourists. Okay, I'm not. Maybe they're not Chinese, but they are on, on the Lachman site on January 1st. So the new Year's Eve fire on Lockman, and they're taking photos and walking through water bottles. And if you look, there was no fire line. They have dead brush from Topanga State park lined up against the containment thing. And now from my little expertise, I know you're supposed to have a bulldozer or them clean it all the way. So the smoldering roots, that it's all right there, and they know an extreme wind event is coming and it just blew right into this dead brush that's been sitting there for 40 years. And that's what burned the Palisades down. So that's why I believe very soon, in the near future, criminal negligence charges are going to Be hit with Karen Bass LAFD and Gavin Newsom for California state parks. So I truly believe they're going to have criminal because 12 senior citizens died.
- [17:39]
Luke Melcher
How expensive do you think it is for them to come and try and combat these fires retroactively, too? Like, think about it. What do they do after the fires? It's always stuff that they could have done before the fires create, you know, burn lines and get the dozers out and do all kinds of things. But then they wait for the fires to happen. They try to do all of that stuff retroactively, which I guarantee is more expensive for the Palisades fire. It's like seven other states came to our rescue, and good luck getting paid back by California in a timely manner.
- [18:10]
Spencer
Well, you could bill fire aid. They have some money that they're not doing the victims.
- [18:17]
Luke Melcher
The federal government will end up probably paying for it, you know.
- [18:20]
Spencer
Well, I, from the people I talked to, would have cost $500,000 to cut back the dead brush around Palisades. And then the other thing that I've learned since there's an agency in California that Newsom appoints this woman. I forgot the demon's name, but it's called carb. And they're the ones stopping prescribed burns and protecting, with all due respect, stupid plants that are going to burn down no matter what when there's a wildfire season, as Newsom calls it. So they. He puts these people in power as. Uses them as an excuse. Oh, the environment. Da, da, da. But they don't realize since, like the 1800s. I mean, again, I'm not historian, but Native Americans in California did prescribe burns, and they did it for. They knew what they were doing. They lasted a lot longer than we're going to last here in the Palisades.
- [19:13]
Heidi Wood
So do you think our soil that we're on right now is toxic?
- [19:17]
Luke Melcher
Probably because we had so many rains right after the fire, if you guys remember that it was like, right before the rainy season. So all that stuff has a chance to saturate into the soil. So I think so. I know some people who've done soil testing, and, you know, they came up pretty hot. So I think so. Spencer's got rashes on his legs and. And I've. I'm interested in getting a blood test for myself because I've been working in this stuff for months. And I remember after the paradise fires, they had some firefighters go get blood tests, and the amount of heavy metals that were in their blood were like, through the roof. So, I mean, we're out here working, doing what we got to do. But I am curious to see what kind of long term problems it might cause.
- [20:02]
Spencer
Well, the New York Times just today published something that Gabriel who is on our podcast, it's in his documentary, so not going to say it's plagiarism, but it's literally taken straight from his doc about firefighters and eating so much of the toxic smoke. Now because firefighters used to just be dealing, especially wildfire firefighters like the hot shots. You can go as they say, eat wilderness, smoke two weeks straight. No big deal. It's almost like natural. But now they're being put in these positions where they're fighting urban fires with Teslas burning solar panels on roofs and all these toxic chemicals. So there's a lot of this cancers. This one firefighters who's messaged me, I, I gotta should have him on the podcast. All of his hair fell out from battling the Altadena fire. He has no hair, won't grow his, all his hair completely falling out. And oh, here's the best part. They're not giving him like hazard pay and they. Because he can't prove that all his hair just fell out from this. So yeah, it's, it's insane. But how deep do you think we'd have to dig out?
- [21:12]
Luke Melcher
I'd totally just be speculating. They, I think they said they did a foot.
- [21:15]
Spencer
No, they only did 6 inches. Maui did a foot.
- [21:17]
Luke Melcher
I was gonna say a foot in Maui. And yeah, six inches was the guideline here, but I mean it had to have gone deeper than that. Like I said, I don't know how bad the health risk actually is, but there are heavy metals in your soil, no doubt about it.
- [21:34]
Spencer
Well, we got our blood work today, so we will be updating the podcast with how much heavy metals are in the. You know, I will say I should have listened to Heidi and not been making tiktoks in our debris. But I was always seeing you and you were never in the white suit. So you were a bad influencer. You were. I was like this guy's way deeper.
- [21:58]
Luke Melcher
In it, waiting for OSHA to show up and get me in trouble. Yeah.
- [22:02]
Heidi Wood
So what are the biggest problems that you're seeing? People needing to overcome what they're facing. What are some tips that you have for Altadena and Palisades and people in general and these fire populations?
- [22:15]
Luke Melcher
Yeah, I can tell you one thing that slowed things down and it's really not as much on the government side, but just people. There's so many people who have tried to Save their foundations. And it's really in very limited cases that that's going to be a worthwhile endeavor. Some of these houses, especially in the Palisades, like huge basements and giant retaining walls, okay, that might be worth trying to save, but for the average house with regular footings, you're totally wasting your time. You have to get special certifications from engineers to be able to reuse those. They might not even sign off on it. So every day that goes by and you're not rebuilding, you're spending money, whether you see it or not, that your temporary housing budgets, all those things are depreciating, building materials are going through the roof. So my advice to people would be like, scrap it. You just. You got to realize that your home burned down and there's really not much worth saving. Start over. And then on the government side, you know, there's really not much advice I can give people other than to get with an architect and engineer. Start working on your plans, get them submitted. The organization behind the scenes is unbelievably bad. I mean, just a regular plan inspection should only take about four hours for somebody to go through your plan issue corrections. You're talking about a few days at most that you could have a plan from start to finish approved. And this comes on good authority, by the way, there's a engineer in LA who works for the city. He's running for mayor, and he's been messaging me about this. He said it's ridiculous. We could have a plan approved in four days max, but it has to get approved by a supervisor, and then another supervisor about above that just ends up sending on people's desks, getting lost in emails. We've experienced that. So the advice for anybody would be like, you just got to get the ball rolling because it's going to be slow and arduous to get it done.
- [24:18]
Heidi Wood
How long would you really guess it's going to take Palisades to be a town again, to be rebuilt like it.
- [24:24]
Luke Melcher
Was before the fire? 20 years.
- [24:26]
Heidi Wood
That's what we've said from the beginning.
- [24:28]
Spencer
I said 50.
- [24:28]
Heidi Wood
Yeah, they're like 10 years. Like, absolutely not.
- [24:32]
Spencer
If everyone had insurance, if everyone's insurance hadn't dropped them, I would say 10 to 15. But this whole nobody being able to.
- [24:40]
Heidi Wood
Rebuild, like, our sons will not grow up here. They will not grow up in the Palisades. It's just. It's gone.
- [24:47]
Podcast Advertiser 3
Well.
- [24:47]
Spencer
I mean, if this podcast blows up the Riviera Palisades with the rich people that didn't burn down, we got Willing we could, you know, move just right over the hill. But so let's not. Hey, sponsors, on that note, make sure to pre order the guy you love to hate. Loved, loved, past tense. Out everywhere. You can get a book. Please buy Heidi Wood on itunes. If you can't afford to buy it, please stream it for free 20 billion times.
- [25:19]
Heidi Wood
Spencer has some great new merch out your shirts, your hat if you want.
- [25:23]
Spencer
To shop my merch also tomorrow, which will be a different time for you, but for me, tomorrow at 1 o', clock, I'm doing a store opening of ribbon cutting at Kitson Beverly Hills to have my governor merch. A lot of people, even people running for governor, have been messaging me asking if this is legit. And I keep telling them it's absolutely legit. If I sell 6 million shirts, I am locked in on the race. But currently the sales aren't that close, so you don't need to worry about that. But who knows, we still have a year. So as of now, no. Also, you could buy crystals dot com. I think that's all our promo for.
- [26:09]
Heidi Wood
The so Luke, how did you get into talking about the fires? What inspired you? What made you want to get in there and expose and show what's on.
- [26:20]
Luke Melcher
Going, going on the right when the fires were still burning, like hadn't opened up in either of the areas you couldn't get in. We knew that this was going to be a, you know, years of work over here and we wanted to get ahead of it. So I flew up to Paradise, California, you know, where they had the fires in 2017. Called the mayor, city manager, a few people and said, hey, can I meet with you? Want to understand what you guys have been through, what we should be aware of. You know, how once they do open it up, how can we just get the ball rolling and get to work? And that's when I first started to just learn about all the things that we're dealing with. The corruption from both the Federal Government, the U.S. army Corps of Engineers, the damage that they did to people's properties. So they'd kind of prepped me on it, but I hadn't seen it firsthand. And then I come back down here and it's like the day that the fire, they opened the fire zones, who's already there? Same exact federal government contractors. And meanwhile they're not issuing any permits to homeowners or private contractors. So I posted a video. It must have been like day one. Like Anvil's here. Like, what the heck? How did Anvil get in here already, and they're already doing debris removal when the smoke hasn't even cleared. And I think that resonated with people. So I just have been watching what's going on and posting videos and have gotten some traction with it. And then everybody sees Spencer, too. I'm always getting in the comments like, you and Spencer need to link up. So they'll be happy to see that.
- [27:59]
Spencer
My fire victim, Mike gtv, he was the first one that put me on you. I think he always messages like, you got to get it. Got to get with Luke. Like, you know, so there's people. That's why I really appreciate you. Because what people keep on saying is, why aren't more people saying things? And I keep talking about it with Heidi, and I think it's, first, fear. Second, not everyone just feels comfortable, like, putting their emotions on and just what's going on. And people are. Have jobs they're worried that their boss won't like and feeling it coming off political. And. And that's what I always go back to. And, you know, now the biggest fight that I deal with now is that people are trying to make this a political thing. And I keep trying to tell people, no matter who it was that burned down my town, the same Spencer is coming for those people. It just happens to be. Newsom and Bass are Democrats, but if they've been Republicans, again, equal treatment. So that's what I. That's the biggest hurdle that I watched that I think so many of my neighbors are concerned. If they question what's happening, it's like, political. It's like, no, you just need to have accountability. You need. This is negligence. This is. You paid tax money. It's not.
- [29:16]
Luke Melcher
You know, so I'm really glad you said that, because it is something that people need to know. I know you're experiencing it, because I am. The fear thing that you just got to get over, which is just a fact of the matter. When you start speaking up against the machine, they do come after you. Like, they're. They're gonna look for ways to get you. And we've been experiencing that over the last eight months. But I think what you're trying to get at, and the same thing I'm trying to enlighten people about is like, just this really basic reminder. The government works for us. It's not the other way around. We're not supposed to be living in fear of the government.
- [29:52]
Spencer
Right.
- [29:52]
Luke Melcher
You know, we're not. They control everything in this state. Insurance, everything we've talked about. But we're now we live in fear of them or we don't want to speak up because of the repercussions. And so I think this is a meaningful change that you're actually making where people are waking up like, wait a second, this is backwards. You know, they're, they're here to serve and protect and work for us so we don't lose everything like we have here.
- [30:17]
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Heidi Wood
How fast are we talking?
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Heidi Wood
It's on Prime.
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- [31:47]
Heidi Wood
And not only to mention that going against the machine, but now to have had the machine and Governor Newsom personally attack Spencer and other people for questioning his negligence, not his personal character, not anything. And then to personally come back in such a disgusting, belittling way is just absolutely shocking and disgusting. And anyone who stands by that, I think is just so missing the point of this whole thing. Like, and I guess we've always gone against the machine and kind of been on our own and very independent in Hollywood in the industry, having people come at us standing by our truth, regardless of who we've been up against. So we have more practice in it. But I think what we're also missing is a Lot of people are still very traumatized and it's really hard for people to still digest this, deal with this, let alone be able to talk about it. They have families, they have children. They're trying to move forward in their life in this very disastrous, traumatizing situation. So you're dealing with so many different things, plus working, plus trying to make money. It's hard to function in this moment. But you only have this moment and it's like, what, are we going to wait till another town burns down? We keep talking about Topanga, we keep talking about Laguna Ventura. This whole state is still under the fire attack possibilities. And so it's just shocking that there's not. Who cares about these fire scoopers and these other things? Where is the burn lines that you're doing? Where are these proactive things that we're doing? Like you said before, we don't need to cover it up after. What are we doing now to prevent it? And that's what the taxpayers should be asking. And that's what the concern is. And that's what I'm not seeing from the government. I'm not. I'm just seeing them talk, a lot of talk. It's like, well, what are you going to do for everybody else? Because I don't want anyone else to experience this when it is avoidable.
- [33:43]
Spencer
Yeah, that's the thing they're so good about doing with the propaganda and the news. You know, the more you watch it, you just see what they get away with. They just. If a politician says something, pretty much obviously if it's about whatever, they'll call them out. But with fire stuff, they just go, oh, yes, unprecedented. My gosh. Well, and they just let that unprecedent, this new word fire season they've been having. There was actually, I was reading this California Forestry guide thing last night that Gabriel Mann got access to and it's from the 80s. There was more fires in the 80s and they had way better ways to deal with it. And they. I'll get that and we'll show it. But the point is, this isn't some new climate change thing. This is just politicians doing imaginary trains, scamming 20 billion to homeless. I guarantee you if they spent that 20 billion that went to help no homeless people and actually created more homeless people, that 20 billion went to controlling the dead fuel surrounding all these towns, we wouldn't have fire season. But now we have fire season. It's more 13 billion every year for, oh, we got two new firehawks. So da, da, da, da. So it's just scammers. And people need to wake up because it's our money they're scamming us with. And now having no house, paying taxes, paying mortgage on the scam, like, enough's enough. And what people don't even realize until you actually call them out. Karen Bass responded to the lawsuit. Pretty much. They can choose what level of protection they offer your houses. That's the takeaway. Me dumbing down the legal rights. So when I paid my taxes to City la, then I should say, oh, since you choose how much protection I get, I'm actually not going to pay this much in taxes because I'm going to be like Rick Caruso and use that money to park a water tender in front of my house and choose to protect my house. So that's where it becomes like, this isn't political. It's our money that they're. No pun intended, burning on all these. Just, you know.
- [35:51]
Heidi Wood
Yeah. And you rely on your state and your government to take care of you. And that's why I would love to pay taxes. And I've never had a problem for it because I thought it offers protection and roads. And the cops are going to call, come when you call. And the firemen are going to call. It's like, the cops are not coming. The firemen are not coming. People are not coming. My house is going to burn down. I literally cried on the phone. And Spencer, I'm like, call 911. Just call. Like, just freaking call. So we always know in our hearts that we called and he called. And they're like, sorry, nobody's coming. Nobody's coming. Even look, there's not even a siren.
- [36:22]
Spencer
Going off in town. There were no assets.
- [36:24]
Heidi Wood
No assets.
- [36:24]
Spencer
But Gavin Newsom said he pre deployed 110 assets. So it's interesting those imaginary assets couldn't be on the street. Also, I asked for that 911 call. Cal Fire. All those files have been deleted. It's like, how many 911 calls? Probably with that same thing. They were like, whoa, this gets out, you know, people are gonna go nuts if they hear everyone's 911 and all of it. Nope, no firefighters up. Can't help you. Can't help you. It'll be the craziest viral reel I could ever make if I got all these nine ones come out.
- [36:56]
Luke Melcher
People do FOIA requests?
- [36:58]
Spencer
No, I did one. Oh, yeah, they said that. I'll send you the screenshot. They that case has made the files been closed or whatever. So Now I'm doing a 911 public records request. Because I want the 911 call to show that when I called for my dad and I was like, oh, he could have tripped, he could have fainted, he could have a heart attack.
- [37:16]
Heidi Wood
He wasn't answering for hours, answering for hours.
- [37:18]
Spencer
And like, oh, no one's going into that area, so nothing we can do.
- [37:22]
Heidi Wood
It's his choice to be there. It's like, well, what if he passed?
- [37:24]
Spencer
What about the 12 senior citizens that obviously couldn't evacuate or were scared or whatever. And another thing nobody's talking about and I'm getting all these videos now sent to me. There was no evacuation plan. Everyone was in gridlock coming down from Palisades Village, all the whole highway. The fire trucks couldn't get up because obviously they weren't pre deployed. Heading into an extreme weather event. They couldn't get out. If there had been hurricane winds that Newsom was talking about, every single one of those people would be dead because the fire was on both sides. But thankfully there weren't hurricane winds. But it would have just taken out everyone. So what? Nobody is realizing that legitimately. I was going to say 10,000 people, 10,000 people probably could have died on January 7th. Thank God they didn't because there weren't hurricane winds. And it was at 10:30 in the morning, not 1am the night before, when I looked out and it looked like hurricane winds.
- [38:23]
Heidi Wood
So I had friends running with their children for their lives. It's. It's crazy. Like, thank God we left when we did and I wasn't running with our kids who were so sick in my arms. Like it's devastating what they let happen. Do you have your own evacuation plan and like your house, like, what would you recommend to people to be able to kind of take back the, to make a plan to be able to prevent this in any type of way?
- [38:48]
Luke Melcher
That's a really interesting question. I think if I had a swimming pool, one thing I would for sure do is hook up a fire hose pump to it.
- [38:57]
Spencer
Gas a gas. A gas pump.
- [39:01]
Luke Melcher
What do you mean?
- [39:02]
Spencer
Like that has like its own like gas generator.
- [39:04]
Luke Melcher
Oh yeah.
- [39:04]
Spencer
You know, like make sure. Because you don't want to be on. Actually they didn't turn the electricity off in the fall.
- [39:10]
Luke Melcher
Says something where you can fight your own fire. I mean, that was something I noticed in the early weeks is like they said, we don't have any water, but all these homes that burned down, they've got full swimming pools so that water could have been used. And there were guys who saved some of Their own homes.
- [39:26]
Spencer
I actually want to look into that and find out the number of swimming pools that were in Pacific Palisades and do like, the rough estimate of how many gallons of water was available that wasn't touched.
- [39:37]
Luke Melcher
Well, they were told just to basically stand down. Oh, no, that's really what happened is there were homes that were defensible, but they were told to stand down. You brought up a good point a few minutes ago about Rick Caruso protecting his own properties and just people having some discretion over their money, which I think is such a salient point for the broader picture. But it's the same thing that we're uncovering with all these NGOs, you know, all these nonprofits that are supposed to be doing the civic good. And it's the exact same situation. You pay your taxes to the government, they figure out, oh, well, we're going to donate these to non profits and causes for the community. And you find out they're getting siphoned off by these NGOs and the money is wasted. And it just makes you wonder how much better off our communities would be if they let you keep some of your own money to maybe pay for your own new pump that you can hook up to the swimming pool. Or you might even have a little extra money so that if your neighbor's home burned down, you have some money to give them and help them out. But instead, everybody's become forcibly so reliant on the state that we're all caught with our pants down when a huge disaster like this comes.
- [40:46]
Spencer
And then when it comes, they literally say, so in the 80s, breakdown of the. With the wildfire thing, it doesn't actually say. It says, if you choose to evacuate now, they say, get out. Newsom's like, are you stupid? You ever been to a memorial for a structure, blah, blah, blah, acting like anybody defending their entire livelihood and their homes is stupid? It's actually in the 80s, the government recommended it said, take your children, old people and your pets, have them evacuate. And then it gave you the whole plan on how your neighborhood. And that's the one thing that shout out Keegan Gibbs and the Community Brigade in Malibu. They saved my friend Sandra's house. They save Brian's house because the community realized no one's coming. So they put together their own. They go train and they have plans. So if the state isn't going to actually protect us, we as citizens need to start coming up with our own plans. And speaking of police officers, I found out cops don't legally even have to Save you. They can choose to drive away. Like, I forget the exact. But people think like, oh, police are there. Like, they don't even have to. They have immunities where you can die. Doesn't matter. So I think that's a thing people are going to as more. I post this case and the defense, the city has all the liabilities. You can die, they can do anything they want. But if I drive a city bus into somebody, I'm going to prison forever. Manslaughter. But they do the same thing to our lives. They're immune. So.
- [42:20]
Heidi Wood
Well, if somebody had started that fire and killed 12 people, they would be in jail right now. Governor Newsom is responsible for 12 people and Karen Bass dying. And he's not even affected by it. And there is no consequences and there's nothing of it, and it's his responsibility. It's crazy.
- [42:38]
Spencer
And then what? I did a post and nobody's been able to show me. There's not one video of Karen Bass or Gavin Newsom saying the names of any of the fire victims going to their. The houses of the family. Bring in an American flag. Bring in the California bear. Bring in a. You know, I saw Karen Bass give the Fox, Alex Mickelson a big frame. Thank you for what you did to the city. Come gas him up. You know, and I never saw her go to one fire victim that died because of their negligence and cry with their things. Instead, you just see her smiling around town, riding bikes, going and eating steaks at Lucky's. So that just shows you these people do not care about you.
- [43:20]
Heidi Wood
Are you gonna stay in California, Luke?
- [43:22]
Luke Melcher
Oh, yeah. I'm here for the long haul. I'm from Wyoming. That's where I grew up in Wyoming. Great place, Totally different culture. We're not dealing with a lot of these issues that we're talking about. But no, I'm here to stay, especially with some of the things that we're combating. It's a worthwhile fight to be here. So I'm, I'm for sure staying and going to try and affect some change while I'm here.
- [43:46]
Heidi Wood
It's a great attitude.
- [43:47]
Spencer
Well, thank you so much, Luke. Honestly, there's few people these days that keep like inspiring me and just get me so pumped up to like, all getting energetically draining. Boom. You'll drop a video. I'm like, let's go. You know?
- [44:02]
Heidi Wood
Yeah. How do you keep the energy? What's your key to that?
- [44:06]
Luke Melcher
I think it's that I really believe in it. You know, I'm not posting Just for views or clicks or whatever. I really believe in this stuff and I see it has an effect that we. I've already seen with some of the posts. Like early on with the Army Corps, I'd post a video about some BS that they were doing and then guys who worked for the Army Corps as subcontractors.
- [44:26]
Spencer
Oh, dude.
- [44:27]
Luke Melcher
They were talking about it at the board meeting this morning and like we're changing this policy because of it. So I actually believe it works. And it's like we were saying, you kind of step outside that fear of what the repercussions are being and be like, oh, that's what these guys thrive on is people being in fear and not speaking up and just going with the flow. So I'm going to. I'm going to keep doing it.
- [44:49]
Heidi Wood
Devil lives off of fear. So, yes, fear is not from God.
- [44:52]
Spencer
Heidi always told me. All right, speaking of God, thank you, God for blessing Heidi with a sold out performance on Friday night at the hottest club that they just remodeled. It was add screens on the ceiling. Thank you to the Keys club and Evita for hosting. One of my favorite experiences ever.
- [45:14]
Heidi Wood
And Amelia.
- [45:15]
Spencer
And Amelia, the fashion Irish. Thanks to Tomas for making it so we even know what Namilia is. But first off, if you're watching this and you were there, thank you for being one of the best crowds ever. Screaming all the lyrics, incredible energy, filming Heidi. So as emotionally drained as I get, those pump ups, like, like super power me. So thank you. But how did, how did. It was no mic, no ear thing, malfunction.
- [45:45]
Heidi Wood
Yeah, everything was great. I had to wake up really early. I only had a few hours of sleep because it was Spencer's birthday to the night before. And I was like, okay, I'm just gonna work all day. And so I got hair and makeup early, came down to la, we did our podcast, then music video and soundcheck, quickly went back to the hotel, got changed, and then had my show at midnight. But it was the best crowd. I have been really wanting to perform in LA and at home and I haven't had the opportunity. So to perform in LA felt like home. I really felt at home. Everyone there was the craziest crowd. Everyone screamed every single song. They loved all of it. And my new song icon went well. There was one move, I was like, oh, I could have done that a little faster. But whatever. Audio was great, sound check was great. And it just. That love, it felt so magnified. And I felt really proud of the vocal performance and all of it. So it was 10 out of 10. For me, especially the crowd, it was just. I didn't even know there were people on two balconies above until I looked up. And then I'm like, there's two rows all the way around. Completely sold out. I had so many people trying to get in. So thank you so, so much to every single person and for streaming it, an icon comes out on the 21st of this month. So make sure that you pre save and check that out. And yeah, I'm excited. And it's not about me being an icon. It's about our love story and me being an icon.
- [47:07]
Spencer
It's about me looking at Heidi, the biggest fan, the biggest very. So once you hear the lyrics, it's very real. I actually blew it. I got forced in, like the back and in the lyrics. I'm like pushing through the barricade and I was like, oh, my God, I should have been. But, you know, there was a lot of very strong gentlemen in thongs. So I think if I had been in the front row getting pushed to the barricades, it would have been a little sweaty. So. But yeah, it was. It was phenomenal. Shout out the Sheriff of Baghdad who has been just so on it with security, even though he doesn't like staying up till 3am, he's. He's charging it.
- [47:47]
Heidi Wood
So we're in the car and I'm like, I forgot my cup. And he's like, right here and like held up in the back like, you angel. Thank God.
- [47:55]
Spencer
So shout out him. And obviously, thanks to Heidi's whole team.
- [47:59]
Heidi Wood
Ty, Milan, Tomas, Enrique, John, you my biggest fan.
- [48:06]
Spencer
Hopefully the tours keep getting booked, but if that's it for that chapter, I don't know what God's plan is. It was an incredible, like, defining moment. I kept telling Heidi, you should be so proud of yourself. Most people are emotional wrecks because their house and life burned down and you have just locked in and just really. It's incredible. And then, of course, my birthday was so much fun. I set the new world record on skinny margaritas and did not throw up. I'm such an adult. No, I didn't. There was mostly just Como on ice. Thank you to Comos for sending me like eight bottles of insane tequila. But I think it was one of my favorite birthdays I've had with no house. It's great.
- [48:51]
Heidi Wood
It was great. And Luke, where can everybody find you?
- [48:56]
Luke Melcher
Instagram. Luke Melcher.
- [48:58]
Spencer
Is there a dot, though?
- [48:59]
Luke Melcher
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Luke Melcher on Instagram X, It's Luke Melcher 307. And I think TikTok's the same. Luke Melcher. Luke Melcher.
- [49:09]
Heidi Wood
And what exactly is your job title? So people know if they're looking for.
- [49:13]
Luke Melcher
Yeah, I'm the CEO of Melcher Construction. So we build houses from the ground up. We did a whole bunch of debris removal that's kind of waning off. But if somebody still needs to get their lot cleared, we can help with that. But from start to finish, design, build, whatever you guys need we can help with.
- [49:29]
Heidi Wood
Are you including more or is that the architect or is that the construction that you're including more like fireproofing? Are you seeing that trend in California?
- [49:38]
Luke Melcher
It's required by the county and the city, respectively. They've. They've kind of upped the rules a little bit on what you have to include. So those bases should be covered automatically.
- [49:49]
Spencer
Okay, we're going to get rich. We're going to require the county and the state to do those for their property as well in the future. That'd be great.
- [49:57]
Luke Melcher
Cool.
- [49:58]
Spencer
Thank you.
- [49:59]
Luke Melcher
Thanks, guys. Yeah, thanks for having me on.
- [50:01]
Heidi Wood
Please subscribe, like, leave amazing comments and we will see you next week.
- [50:07]
Spencer
Share Sharing Sharing is caring.
- [50:18]
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