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3fb2b36ebc7bb2beea39a7d1de8f98b0 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-dec-21-me-16905-story.html?utm_source=amerika.org | One Problem in Abu-Jamal Crusade: He’s Guilty | One Problem in Abu-Jamal Crusade: He’s Guilty
Maureen Faulkner moved across the country after her husband was shot and killed on a downtown Philadelphia street 20 years ago this month. In Camarillo, she made new friends, started a new job and tried to build a new life.
But the old one keeps chasing after her.
Faulkner’s late husband, Danny, was a cop. The man who killed him, Mumia Abu-Jamal, has become an international celebrity and a symbol of everything that’s wrong with the American judicial system.
This week, after years of appeals, a federal judge in Philadelphia affirmed the 1982 murder conviction but threw out the death sentence. He ordered that Abu-Jamal either be kept in prison for life or be given a new sentencing hearing.
Maureen Faulkner, who manages a medical office in Camarillo, has been a wreck since the news. The other night, just after dozing off, she bolted up, gasping for air.
“I jumped out of bed and couldn’t catch my breath, and the reality hit. Oh, my God! I’m going to have to go back to that courtroom and go through this again.”
Having lived and worked in Philadelphia for about 12 years, I happen to know a few things about the murder of Officer Danny Faulkner. I’ve talked to the prosecutors and to Abu-Jamal attorneys, read the transcripts, studied the appeals and visited the scene of the murder.
And without qualification, hesitation or a shadow of a doubt, I can tell you this:
Mumia Abu-Jamal is guiltier than O.J.
On Dec. 9, 1981, Officer Faulkner made a traffic stop on Abu-Jamal’s brother, Billy Cook, who put up a fight. Abu-Jamal happened upon the scene, and shooting began. Faulkner ended up dead, and Abu-Jamal was shot in the chest.
A gun registered to Abu-Jamal, with five chambers empty, was on the sidewalk. Four witnesses who saw all or part of the shooting implicated Abu-Jamal. One witness said that after Faulkner went down, Abu-Jamal stood over him and sealed the deal with a bullet through the head.
And yet an international crusade to free Mumia--fueled by endorsements from Hollywood celebrities including Susan Sarandon, Paul Newman, Ossie Davis, Ed Asner, Tim Robbins and Alec Baldwin--has had people marching in the streets from Africa to Asia and beyond.
I’ve seen “Free Mumia” posters and T-shirts in Canada and Greece. Twenty-two members of the British Parliament called for a new trial, and this month the Paris City Council made Abu-Jamal its first honorary citizen in 30 years. The last was Picasso.
These people believe with all their heart, and very little of their head, that Abu-Jamal is a political prisoner who was framed, scapegoated and railroaded by a racist police force and a hanging judge.
It’s true that the 1982 trial was a circus, but that’s because Abu-Jamal wanted it to be. His own attorney told me that Abu-Jamal, a Black Panther, considered himself a revolutionary and didn’t want a legal defense. He wanted to make a political statement. At times, Abu-Jamal was removed from the courtroom because of his outbursts.
When I lived in Philadelphia, I couldn’t begin to make sense of the Abu-Jamal juggernaut until I got a call one day from Los Angeles.
The caller told me he worked in entertainment and had been handed a petition demanding a new trial for Abu-Jamal. Everyone in his office was happily signing up, but he wanted to know more before jumping on the wagon, and someone suggested he call me.
He read me a list of claims about coerced witnesses, suppressed evidence, fabricated evidence and dark conspiracies. And then I understood the Abu-Jamal fever and accompanying dementia.
While there was a grain of truth to some of the claims, many were simplifications, exaggerations or outright lies. For instance, Abu-Jamal supporters scream that a .44-caliber bullet was removed from Faulkner’s body but that Abu-Jamal had a .38. In fact, that claim has been debunked by the defense team’s own ballistics expert.
Mumia supporters, who tend to work themselves into a lather, have foamed at me for years, and I think I know why I make them so uncomfortable.
I believe there’s an unconscionable history of police brutality and frame jobs on minorities in Philadelphia, Los Angeles and the rest of the country.
I believe the death penalty is so disproportionately applied to minorities without adequate legal representation, it ought to be abolished.
And yet I refuse to buy into their political claptrap and help them make a martyr of Abu-Jamal, who shot Danny Faulkner in cold blood and watched him die.
Had Abu-Jamal argued that it was a matter of self-defense, I might have thought differently. But he didn’t. For 20 years, in fact, he said absolutely nothing about what happened. You’d think that might set off a few alarms among breathless supporters, but not a chance.
In the absence of an explanation from Abu-Jamal, Hollywood celebrities, racially motivated apologists and other misguided opportunists created their own, pitching half-baked conspiracies and cockamamie tales of mystery killers fleeing the scene.
But here’s the topper:
For 20 years, Abu-Jamal’s own brother Billy, who was at the scene of the crime, never uttered a word in his defense. What kind of sap buys into Abu-Jamal’s innocence when his own flesh and blood lets him stew on death row?
Earlier this year, Abu-Jamal’s latest defense team broke the big news that Faulkner was killed by a Mafia hit man, a scenario so ridiculous that the previous attorneys kept it quiet to avoid embarrassment. And Billy Cook finally broke his silence with the blockbuster report that an unnamed acquaintance of his did the job.
These were the developments that apparently inspired Parisians to elevate Abu-Jamal into the realm of Picasso.
This week, when the federal judge ruled that jurors were improperly instructed in the penalty phase of the 1982 trial, neither side was happy.
Abu-Jamal supporters had wanted the judge to throw out the conviction altogether, prosecutors wanted the death sentence to stick, and both sides plan to appeal.
And so it drags on for Maureen Faulkner, who was just 24 when this nightmare began, and wishes the federal judge would have left things as they were.
In past court appearances, she has been spat upon and cursed by Abu-Jamal supporters, for no reason other than her unwavering belief in justice for her husband’s killer.
“Now I’ll probably have to relive the whole thing once more,” she says. “I’ll have to hear Mumia supporters screaming at me and pointing their fingers like they’re shooting at me. It’s been over 20 years now. Is there any regard for the survivors of crime?”
*
Steve Lopez writes Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He can be reached at steve.lopez@latimes.com
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3c88dce96554fe83e4a5568cbff7bbe2 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-dec-21-mn-17009-story.html | Treason Charge Unlikely in U.S. Talib Case | Treason Charge Unlikely in U.S. Talib Case
Many legal experts say the federal government is unlikely to file treason charges against John Walker Lindh, the so-called American Talib, because it is such a difficult crime to prove.
The Bush administration is weighing prosecution options that range from charging Lindh, 20, with treason, which carries a possible death penalty, conspiracy to murder or a lesser charge, such as providing aid to a terrorist organization.
Treason is a crime of distinction; it’s the only one defined in the U.S. Constitution. “Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort,” according to Article III, Section 3. To get a conviction, the government must have two eyewitnesses to the same overt act of treason or a confession in open court from the defendant.
That rigorous standard is a key factor in why there have been only 30 prosecutions for treason in U.S. history and none since 1952.
“It is hard to prove under the Constitution,” said Eugene R. Fidell, an attorney for the Coast Guard in the 1970s who now heads a Washington, D.C., organization of former military lawyers.
The framers of the Constitution, who only a decade earlier had been part of the United States’ successful war for independence, were very concerned about the possibility of abusive treason prosecutions--cases lodged in an attempt to silence the government’s political opponents rather than in response to actual criminal acts to topple the government, Fidell explained.
The Bush administration appears to be moving cautiously, despite a widespread outcry from the public and politicians, ranging from Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) to Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), in favor of a treason prosecution.
On Thursday, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the president would continue to receive recommendations on what the government should do with Lindh, who is imprisoned on the U.S. assault ship Peleliu in the Arabian Sea. Fleischer said he did not think that the administration would make a decision until at least next week.
“This is an extraordinary set of circumstances, to have an American who apparently was engaged in armed combat against the United States of America. And it’s in Afghanistan,” he said Thursday.
Justice Department spokeswoman Mindy Tucker said Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft has discussed the issue with President Bush but that the attorney general has only offered opinions and legal advice and has not made any specific proposals.
Senior Justice Department and other Bush administration officials said they needed more facts about Lindh’s relationship to the Taliban and Al Qaeda--and his role in the war and the prison uprising in which CIA agent John Michael Spann was killed--before determining what charges he should face.
Lindh was questioned briefly by Spann at a makeshift prison earlier this month but said little. Shortly after that conversation, a revolt erupted and Spann was killed.
During a taped interview, shown on CNN on Wednesday night, Lindh said he had not participated in the uprising. “I was in the basement the whole time. I didn’t see what was going on.” He characterized the revolt as “a mistake of a handful of people.”
Lindh was asked whether the Islamic jihad was what he thought it would be. He responded, “It’s exactly what I thought it would be.” Asked whether he believed it was the right cause, Lindh responded, “Definitely.”
The interview was conducted Dec. 2, shortly after Lindh was captured in the prison uprising and while he was being treated for a wound and given morphine.
Some lawyers have contended that Lindh could not be prosecuted for treason because there has not been a formal declaration of war. But New England University law professor Michael Scharf said: “The question of a declaration of war is not relevant. It was international armed conflict. Members of the American military were bombing and were involved in engagements on the ground.”
Still, Washington attorney Beth Wilkinson, who was one of the prosecutors against Oklahoma City bomber Timothy J. McVeigh, said it might be difficult for the government to find two credible witnesses to bring a treason case against Lindh. The military could call captured Taliban soldiers to testify against Lindh, she said, but they wouldn’t make effective witnesses.
Wilkinson also cautioned that a treason trial “could become a real platform for a political debate,” given the inherently political nature of such a case. “Prosecutors don’t want to give a defendant a platform for a debate on patriotism,” she said.
On the other hand, Wilkinson said it was possible that charges such as conspiracy or aiding and abetting could be lodged against Lindh stemming from Spann’s murder.
But that too could be difficult to prove, said UCLA law professor John S. Wiley, a former federal prosecutor.
As for conspiracy, “the prosecutor has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that there was an agreement between the parties [on the scene] to engage in criminal conduct. It is not enough to prove that suddenly everyone started moving and someone ended up dead,” Wiley said.
Wiley cautioned that Spann’s murder “occurred halfway around the world” and that it is still being investigated.
Wilkinson said she thought it was most likely that the government would prosecute Lindh for providing “material support or resources” to terrorists, under a statute enacted in 1996 after the Oklahoma City bombing. The law was amended this year under the Patriot Act and now carries the possibility of a life term in prison if death has resulted from the terrorist acts. This crime, like most other crimes except treason, can be proved by circumstantial evidence.
While also cautioning that the case is still under investigation, Loyola law professor Laurie Levenson said, “The statute is very broad on what constitutes ‘material support,’ ” meaning that it is an easier law on which to base a prosecution.
During the last two weeks, James J. Brosnahan, a San Francisco lawyer hired by Lindh’s parents, has lamented that he has been unable to see the young man. And his parents, Frank Lindh and Marilyn Walker, have expressed dismay that a letter they sent to their son via the Red Cross has not been delivered.
On Thursday, Brosnahan said the parents have received no indication that the letter has been delivered. He declined to answer questions about whether he had any conversations about the case with the White House, the Justice Department or the Defense Department.
Lindh is being held as a “battlefield detainee” aboard the Peleliu, off the coast of Pakistan. Government officials believe that status allows him to be questioned for military information without having access to a lawyer.
The last person convicted of treason by the U.S. was Tomoya Kawakita, a Japanese American sentenced to death in 1952 for his treatment of American prisoners of war during World War II. Even that case created qualms; President Eisenhower commuted Kawakita’s sentence to life in prison.
*
Times staff writers James Gerstenzang and Josh Meyer contributed to this report.
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18caab017f02706ddfb37edd501f7912 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-dec-23-bk-hotz23-story.html | Did Robert Falcon Scott Tell the Truth? | Did Robert Falcon Scott Tell the Truth?
Soundly beaten in a race to the South Pole, British explorer Robert Falcon Scott and his companions froze to death in 1912 as they struggled homeward. Scott’s moving account of the expedition’s final days trapped in a tent by a blizzard only miles from safety, as recorded in his diary and last letters, has stirred generations of armchair explorers.
“Every day we have been ready to start for our depot 11 miles away, but outside the door of the tent it remains a scene of whirling drift,” Scott wrote in the expedition diary later found with his body. Trapped in their tent for 10 days without food or fuel, they helplessly wasted away. In a dying coda to his public he scrawled, “these rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale....”
But is that tale of the fatal “frightful storm” true? The final tragic chapter of his expedition may have been quite different from the account that the dying Scott left behind. There may have been no blizzard, no reason to halt their march save Scott’s own infirmities. His two companions may have chosen to die rather than to continue without him.
All that science has learned of Antarctic meteorology in the 90 years since Scott’s expedition suggests that the killing storm might never have happened.
That informed conjecture is one provocative element in Susan Solomon’s “The Coldest March: Scott’s Fatal Antarctic Expedition” and raises the possibility that Scott and his men, humiliated by loss to the Norwegian Roald Amundsen in their famous race to the Pole, committed suicide. Solomon, an atmospheric scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, Colo., meticulously documents how unusually bad weather through most of their journey actually did compound mistakes by Scott and his team at every turn, erasing their all-too-narrow margin of safety. Her judgments are buttressed by careful study of expedition weather records and atmospheric circulation patterns at the end of the world. Her theory--that the final storm never took place--is her most surprising conclusion.
Unlike storms elsewhere on the planet, the gales of Antarctica are flashfloods of air from vast reservoirs of frigid air pooled over the center of the continent. Heavy with cold, these howling air currents fall in predictable patterns down the slope of the polar plateau. When the reservoir is drained, such storms die. Not even the fiercest blizzard can last more than two or three days, modern records show. A blizzard lasting 10 days simply does not fit the pattern of Antarctica’s storm systems, as documented in readings at more than 50 automated weather stations over the last 15 years.
Moreover, detailed weather readings taken in March 1912 by men stationed downwind 100 miles from the spot where Scott and his men were supposedly trapped--squarely in the path of any storm--show not the slightest trace of a blizzard, only a light breeze and relatively warm temperatures. Under such conditions, Solomon writes, the short trek to vital supplies cached at a nearby depot “would have been almost effortless.”
So how do we explain the catastrophe? Suicide is at least plausible. One injured expedition member, Lawrence Oates, crippled by frostbite, intentionally left the safety of the tent so he would not hold back the others. “I am just going outside and may be some time,” he said, then disappeared forever into the blowing snow in the perfect understated, post-Victorian gesture of sacrifice. No one stopped him. Another expedition member, Edgar Evans, died of injuries on the return trek.
Scott did issue 30 opium pills, “the means of ending our troubles,” to each of his surviving companions, Edward Wilson and H.R. Bowers. But there is no way to know if any of the men took the pills or whether they all stoically succumbed to cold and starvation.
The expedition’s last words are Scott’s alone. Perhaps he wrote the truth; perhaps he sought to preserve some vestige of dignity and privacy; perhaps he orchestrated an uplifting ending to his adventure for the public that funded his work. Both Wilson and Bowers wrote letters to family and friends at every opportunity throughout the trek, but neither chose to say anything about why they stayed in the tent for the last week of their lives. For Solomon, their silence is rather curious and perhaps the most haunting evidence that the 10-day storm never existed.
“Wilson and Bowers met their deaths with the injured Scott, but the scientific constraints of modern meteorology as shown here suggest that their deaths may have been a matter of choice rather than chance,” Solomon writes. “Whether such a choice was made, and whether it reflected their own dedication or an order by a desperate Scott vainly trying to save legacies rather than lives is a question not for science but for the human heart.”
When Scott and his men froze to death, it broke an empire’s heart. Indeed, Scott’s failed expedition was a blow to national pride on a par with the wreck of the Titanic, which sank a few months before news of Scott’s fate reached England. Ninety years later, Scott’s second-place finish still rankles.
In recent decades, Scott’s reputation as an expert explorer has taken a beating from historians. No Antarctic explorer led more men to their deaths. By any measure, Scott was vain, ambitious, jealous, dangerously impulsive, depressive and self-pitying. He was capable of surprising cruelty to the men who served him most loyally. He embodied all the aristocratic prejudices of the British officer class.
His inattention to detail during the expedition often had calamitous results. Skis were thrown away. Motorized tractors fell through the ice or broke down. The ponies foundered. Dogs were unmanageable because no one was properly trained in their use. Food for men and pack animals was inadequate for such arduous work. Last-minute detours and changes in personnel jeopardized the expedition’s safety.
In contrast, Amundsen, perhaps the most practiced polar explorer of his generation, beat Scott to the Pole by a month. Well-trained, well-equipped and well-fed, his expedition skied the 900 miles across Antarctica’s frozen wasteland to the Pole with surprising ease and grace. Nothing distracted him from his single purpose, no detail of planning or equipment escaped his sustained attention.
Unlike Amundsen, however, Scott stocked his crew with scientists. He acted in the same British naval tradition of exploration that also caused a young Charles Darwin to be hired as a naturalist for the voyage of the Beagle. Among his 65 men, Scott brought to Antarctica botanists, biologists, meteorologists and people schooled in planetary physics.
For all its other failings, his was a spirit open to experiment, even if it meant that at crucial junctures he strayed from the strict discipline of polar survival. Rarely has failure so outshone success. In his untutored enthusiasm for polar research, Scott laid the foundations of modern Antarctica: a continent without borders, passports or police where science reigns supreme.
Whatever the truth of their last days, however, Solomon contends that bad weather, not Scott’s bad judgment, incompetence or miscalculation, caused the expedition’s disaster. By leaving so much earlier in the season than Scott, Amundsen never encountered such unusual conditions.
Climate experts have determined that Antarctic weather seems to swing from one extreme to another in a four-year cycle, not unlike the El Nino cycle that has such a profound effect on weather in more temperate climes. Scott’s expedition encountered that cycle at its most severe, Solomon said. In 1911, it took Scott’s ship three weeks to clear the pack ice that girdles Antarctica and make landfall. Amundsen sailed through it in three days. Explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton cleared it in two days three years before.
While other historians have dismissed Scott’s complaints about the extreme weather, discounting as well the accuracy of the expedition’s temperature records, Solomon and her colleagues compared temperatures from automated weather stations along Scott’s route with those readings, which were taken three times a day all through the trip. Scott’s readings on his way to the Pole were almost identical to the current average temperature there, about 22 degrees below zero. In the crucial three weeks of his homeward journey, the weather along his path was 20 degrees lower than normal for the time of year.
Solomon indirectly confirms the accuracy of the expedition thermometers and suggests the very low temperatures they recorded on their homeward trip were correct. At 40 degrees below zero, the snow surface was so cold that the sledges Scott and his men hauled could not slide properly. Precious stores of fuel evaporated. Rations more than adequate at sea level were not enough to stave off starvation at high altitude. All the devastating biophysical effects of altitude, dehydration, malnutrition and emotional fatigue were worsened. Severe frostbite was inevitable.
In this, Solomon confirms Scott’s own explanation for his failure up until the moment of the controversial storm. “No one in the world would have expected the temperatures and surfaces which we encountered at this time of year,” Scott wrote in his last message to the public. “It is clear that these circumstances came on very suddenly, and our wreck is certainly due to this sudden advent of severe weather.”
Ninety years later, the death of Scott and the loss of his expedition remain among the great enigmas of the 20th century. Hero or fool, he is today less a mortal man than a clear reflection of our ambivalence toward ambitions that proceed at any cost. “The Coldest March” captures that legacy in the full meridian of its glory.
*
Robert Lee Hotz is a science writer for The Times. He has traveled three times to the South Pole to report on research activities there.
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8625fe5192fe7623e67ef9eeccbd9eda | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-dec-26-mn-18048-story.html | Last U.S. Smallpox Outbreak Left Mental Scars on Witnesses | Last U.S. Smallpox Outbreak Left Mental Scars on Witnesses
Billie Raney was 21 when she stood on the sidewalk with her three grown sisters, watching morticians drag their mother out of the family home, still wrapped in the sheets in which she had succumbed to smallpox.
Lillian Barber, then 43, was the only person to die in the last smallpox outbreak in the United States, which infected eight known victims in the Rio Grande Valley in 1949.
The survivors are now retired pastors, tractor salesmen, grandmothers and grandfathers. For decades, their names were shrouded in aliases appearing in medical literature.
“I wish it was someone else’s memory,” said Billie Raney, 73. “But at least we’re willing to talk about it and make people aware.”
Since Sept. 11, the disease that was declared eradicated has emerged as a potential terrorism weapon.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, a single case of smallpox anywhere in the world would be considered a global health threat.
When the routine vaccinations ceased in 1972, some members of the Barber family questioned doctors and school officials.
“We believed that smallpox vaccinations never should have been stopped,” Billie Raney said. “None of the grandchildren even received it. Of course, we knew the severity of the disease.”
Her father, Virgil Barber, who died in 1978, had always said smallpox came to the family from a bus ride he took to visit his hospitalized wife in February 1949. There was a sick man on the bus, he would say.
Health officials were never quite sure. They concluded that the hospital was where Lillian Barber, who needed a hysterectomy, contracted the disease. It could have come from her visiting husband or an infected oil-field worker who was admitted about the same time.
The first doctor to come to Virgil Barber’s bed in February 1949 suspected he had typhus fever. Days later, when Barber was out of his head with fever and his wife lay ill, one of the boys summoned a second doctor.
“He stopped at the door,” remembered Charles Barber, 69, at the time the oldest of the four boys still living at home. “He sniffed and said, ‘There’s smallpox in here.’ ”
The doctor had been through a smallpox epidemic in Michigan. Though likely immune from his experience up north, he notified the county health department and returned to the Barber home wearing a raincoat for protection.
Nine days later, the doctor who made the initial visit also fell ill. Besides Virgil and Lillian Barber and son Bobby, the doctor, the oil-field worker, a county commissioner and two others are known to have contracted the disease.
Lillian Barber died March 12.
Quarantined, the boys were left alone in the home for eight weeks, finding food at the edge of their property each morning. They would go out in the backyard and boil clothing and sheets clean. The older sisters, who had since moved from the house, arranged for a telephone line for the boys.
Charles Barber was busy tending to his father and his 12-year-old brother, Bobby, as well as two other brothers who did not get sick.
He remembered his father covered head to toe with the deep, purple-black sores.
“I had to put socks on his hands so that he wouldn’t scratch himself. And I would change his sheets, and each time I would burn a double handful of scabs that came off his body. . . . My brother was very sick, but he didn’t break out, not in one solid scab like my daddy.”
Within a few days after the public was notified of the outbreak, local health officials ran through 50,000 pints of vaccine.
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16f5f621d49ac0234aa85d4639537ac1 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-dec-26-sp-18124-story.html | Gailey, Georgia Tech Talking | Gailey, Georgia Tech Talking
Chan Gailey reportedly will be Georgia Tech’s new football coach, but the school denied those reports while acknowledging it still is negotiating with the Miami Dolphin offensive coordinator.
Athletic Director Dave Braine denied reports Gailey already had been hired and said a new coach won’t be introduced until after Georgia Tech, under interim Coach Mac McWhorter, plays Stanford in the inaugural Seattle Bowl on Thursday.
ESPN said Tuesday that Gailey, the former Dallas Cowboy head coach, already had accepted the job. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported on its Web site late Tuesday that Georgia Tech intends to introduce Gailey as its new coach on Saturday.
Braine declined to say if an announcement was expected after Thursday’s game, but said, “We’re coming home right after the game.”
The Telegraph in Macon cited unidentified sources close to Georgia Tech’s athletic department in Tuesday’s editions that Gailey was close to a deal to succeed George O’Leary.
The Dolphins, fighting for an NFL playoff spot, play the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday.
Gailey, a native of Gainesville, Ga., grew up in Americus. He declined comment on the report Monday and did not immediately return a call Tuesday.
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958b4b6576de63c758c7551ada811fff | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-dec-28-fi-wrap28.4-story.html | Fund-Raising for Venture Firms Fall 22% | Fund-Raising for Venture Firms Fall 22%
Venture capital firms raised $55 billion in 2001, down 22% from the year before amid declining returns--though investors increased commitments to health-care funds, according to a report.
VentureWire, an industry news service based in New York, said 200 funds were raised in 2001, including 15 of $1 billion or more, led by Apax Partners & Co.'s $4-billion Apax V. In 2000, 250 funds raised $70 billion, including 18 billion-dollar funds.
The statistics don’t include buyout funds such as the $4 billion-plus raised by Blackstone Group this year.
Venture investors, including pension funds and college endowments, have less appetite for investments in technology start-ups after share prices plunged, producing the worst venture returns on record, according to Venture Economics and the National Venture Capital Assn.
Venture firms raised 23 funds dedicated to biotechnology, medical devices, health care and related investments in 2001, including a $500-million pool raised by Prospect Venture Partners, VentureWire said in its “New Venture Funds” report.
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e98bcba7987a71b2eb18f52f6b775cb5 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-dec-30-mn-19052-story.html | Mud in Your Eye; a Sheep’s Eye in Your Drink | Mud in Your Eye; a Sheep’s Eye in Your Drink
In Singapore, they say herbal soup laced with ginseng can help cure a hangover. In outer Mongolia, men recovering from a big night are known to drain a glass of tomato juice containing a pickled sheep’s eye.
The consequences of too much holiday cheer are universal: killer headaches, churning stomachs, dry throats and furry tongues. The remedies vary widely.
Some are purely practical, such as drinking lots of water to combat the leading cause of hangovers, dehydration. Others are inexplicably bizarre.
Guy Nicholls, 39, a copywriter from Wiltshire, England, says that rubbing half a lemon under each armpit is a sure-fire antidote. The lemons must be rubbed clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and counterclockwise in the Southern, he says.
According to Web site https://www.hungover.net, the lemon cure originated in Puerto Rico, where lemons are rubbed (in any direction) under the “drinking arm.”
“I can’t explain why that could possibly work,” said Dr. Fred Freitag of the Chicago-based Diamond Headache Clinic.
In Haiti, some stick 13 black-headed pins in the cork of the bottle that gave them the hangover, the Web site says.
Does another beer or Bloody Mary in the morning help a raging hangover? Experts say no; it only prolongs the agony. But the “hair of the dog” theory is as universal as the hangover.
The phrase, incidentally, stems from ancient British folk treatments for dog bites, which held that a hair taken from the offending dog and placed on the wound would help heal it.
Coffee may wake you up, but it also prolongs the pain. Like alcohol, coffee is a diuretic, which flushes fluids from the body.
Honey on toast is a better idea. Honey is rich in fructose, which hastens the metabolism, Freitag said.
“Going to a sauna and sweating out a hangover definitely works for me,” said Michael Welch, a 33-year-old filmmaker living in Los Angeles.
The Finns may have invented the sauna, but many prefer a pickled herring and a cold beer to treat their krapula, which, like the English word crapulence, means hangover.
The Norwegian word is toemmermenn, or lumberjacks. In Spain, it’s resaca, meaning undertow.
Many cultures rely on food to soak up those alcohol-induced toxins.
“After I drink a lot, the next morning, I need a stretcher,” said Attila Mona, a student from Naples. “There is nothing to do except sleep and eat white foods because your stomach is still upset.”
In Italy, “eating white” means rice, pasta and dairy products. No tomatoes--they’re acidic and can make the hangover worse.
Drinking white is also a good idea, Freitag says. Bourbon and red wine result in heinously painful hangovers because they have more cogeners than their lighter counterparts. Cogeners are produced naturally by the fermentation and processing of alcoholic drinks.
Russians, however, seem to like fighting acid with acid. Many drink a glass of brine from homemade pickled cucumbers or sauerkraut.
In Hong Kong, before wedding banquets that are likely to be well lubricated, some plan ahead. They swallow raw eggs or butter before imbibing, believing that these will ease the pain.
Some Greeks believe in the egg fix as well, only they suck it whole from the shell to prepare for a night of swilling ouzo, the aniseed-flavored national liquor.
Freitag says the eggs can help because they are rich in fat and line the stomach--meaning alcohol takes longer to soak in.
The headache expert stresses that abstinence or moderation is the only certain cure.
Other than prayer, perhaps. As the poet Byron wrote:
Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter.
Sermons and soda-water the day after.
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def135c43a11651a2c1727c5fd896a92 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-feb-02-ca-20316-story.html | In Thrall to a Romantic Spell | In Thrall to a Romantic Spell
Given that it settled on a title scant days before its world premiere last year at Cannes, “In the Mood for Love” is remarkably well-named. A swooningly cinematic exploration of romantic longing, both restrained and sensual, luxuriating in color, texture and sound, this film raises its fascination with enveloping atmosphere and suppressed emotion to a ravishing, almost hypnotic level.
With Hong Kong stars Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Maggie Cheung playing a couple caught in a vortex of quiet passion, “In the Mood for Love” will likely be the breakthrough work for that city’s celebrated writer-director Wong Kar-wai, an international critical favorite whose previous films, including “Days of Being Wild” and “Chungking Express,” have had limited exposure in this country.
This time, however, the conventional nature of the material--a love story that is not only set in Hong Kong in 1962, but is PG-chaste enough to have been filmed then and there--makes it easier to appreciate the visual assurance and provocative, intimate directing style that have made all seven of Wong’s films major award-winners. (At Cannes, “In the Mood” took the best actor award for Leung and also received the Grand Prix de la Technique for its exceptional look.)
Married but not to each other, Chow Mo-wan (Leung) and Su Li-zhen (Cheung) meet when they rent adjacent rooms in a large apartment building. His wife has the late shift as a hotel receptionist, while her husband, Mr. Chan, works for a Japanese company and is often away on business, which means that no one, including the audience, gets more than a fleeting glimpse of either spouse.
Both these people are quiet, considerate, exquisitely polite and much less boisterous than their landlord’s extended family. Earnest and boyish, with carefully slicked-down hair, Mr. Chow works as a journalist, but with his anonymous suit and tie, he could be any kind of businessman. Mrs. Chan, however, would stand out anywhere.
*
Poised and impeccably turned out, with never so much as a hair out of place, Mrs. Chan has the ability to stop your heart just by walking from her room to a neighborhood take-out stand with a combination of grace and loneliness that seems almost tragic. As costumed by William Chang Suk-ping, she dresses in nothing but cheongsams, more than 20 in a wonderful variety of fabrics, giving the traditional high-necked sheath once popular in Shanghai more screen time than it’s had since “The World of Suzie Wong.” Even her neighbors are impressed. “She dresses up like that,” one of them says, “to go out for noodles.”
Ever so gradually, as hints mount and their paths cross on the way to lonely take-out dinners, Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan come to realize that not only are both their spouses having an affair, but they’re having it with each other. This naturally brings these two closer, but because they are innately decent people and still care for their partners, how involved they will allow themselves to become turns into a potent, disruptive question with a surprising amount of emotional pull.
Essential in giving their quandary its due is the director’s choice of visual styles. Working with two cameramen, his regular director of photography, Christopher Doyle, and Mark Li Ping-bin, who usually films for Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Wong Kar-wai turns his lens into a visual eavesdropper, peering around corners and looking at things from covert angles, the better to emphasize both the confining, restrictive nature of the characters’ lives--"One can’t put a foot wrong,” Mrs. Chan wails--and the potentially illicit nature of their relationship.
Adding to the superb sense of ambience is the film’s alluring use of muted yet vivid color. With sublime production design (William Chang Suk-ping once again, and he also did the editing), “In the Mood” is a dream of complementary pastels, with window blinds, wallpaper, kitchen appliances, shower curtains, even telephones all part of a rapturous color scheme. Also helping is the melancholy, insinuating music, by Michael Galasso and Umebayashi Shigeru, with some haunting Nat King Cole singing in Spanish artfully thrown into the mix.
Though Wong began in films as a screenwriter, as a director he’s known not to believe in scripting anything until the very last minute. This method doesn’t usually have a high percentage of success, but in this case, because his stars have worked several times both with him and with each other, a surprising amount of intimacy is achieved. The result is a kind of ultimate romantic film, joining an almost Jamesian sadness and discipline to that extraordinary visual sensibility. It’s not the kind of thing you see every day.
* MPAA rating: PG, for thematic elements and brief language. Times guidelines: It’s all extremely genteel.
‘In the Mood for Love’
Tony Leung Chiu-wai: Chow Mo-wan
Maggie Cheung: Su Li-zhen, Mrs. Chan
Rebecca Pan: Mrs. Pan
Lai Chin: Mr. Ho
Siu Ping Lam: Ah Ping
Chin Tsi-ang: The Amah
A Block 2 Pictures Inc. presentation with the participation of Paradis Films of a Jet Tone Films Limited production, released by USA Films. Director Wong Kar-wai. Producer Wong Kar-wai. Executive producer Chan Ye-cheng. Screenplay Wong Kar-wai. Cinematographers Christopher Doyle, Mark Li Ping-bin. Editor William Chang Suk-ping. Costumes William Chang Suk-ping. Music Michael Galasso, Umebayashi Shigeru. Production design William Chang Suk-ping. Art directors Alfred Yau Wai-ming, Man Lim-chung. Running time: 1 hour, 37 minutes.
At selected theaters.
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b54d309572b37e721c141f05c32abaab | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-feb-05-sp-21464-story.html | Referee Says Sudden Ejection Is Buffett’s Fault | Referee Says Sudden Ejection Is Buffett’s Fault
NBA referee Joe Forte isn’t a “Parrothead,” apparently.
Forte ejected singer Jimmy Buffett from his seat along the baseline at Sunday’s game between the New York Knicks and Miami Heat.
Forte said he tossed Buffett for using profanity.
“He was there with his son,” said Heat Coach Pat Riley, who had a front-row seat for the commotion. “I don’t think it was that bad. I mean, come on, a few words.”
The altercation delayed the game several minutes in the fourth quarter. Heat officials said Buffett, whose fans are called “Parrotheads,” was escorted to another seat in the arena for the remainder of the game.
“He was using profanity,” Forte said. “There was a little boy sitting next to him and a lady sitting by him. He used some words he knows he shouldn’t have used, so I asked security to move him to another location.
Forte said he did not know the man was the legendary singer until someone mentioned it to him after the incident.
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b9160d0abee497eb1b44d763354a4586 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-feb-07-fo-21972-story.html | Tu B’Shevat: A Seder From the 16th Century | Tu B’Shevat: A Seder From the 16th Century
“For the tree of the field is man’s life.” (Deuteronomy 20:19)
*
For the record:
12:00 AM, Feb. 14, 2001 For the Record Los Angeles Times Wednesday February 14, 2001 Home Edition Food Part H Page 2 Food Desk 7 inches; 244 words Type of Material: Correction; Recipe In this recipe from last week’s Food section (‘Tu B’Shevat: A Seder From the 16th Century,” Feb. 7), the chicken is baked in the marinade with the garlic, prunes and olives. Here is the correct version of the recipe. Chicken With Olives, Prunes and Pomegranates Active Work Time: 15 minutes * Total Preparation Time: 1 hour 15 minutes plus 8 hours marinating Pomegranate molasses can be found at Middle Eastern markets, specialty food stores and in the ethnic foods aisle of some well-stocked supermarkets. 2 pounds chicken pieces 1 cup extra-virgin olive oil 8 cloves garlic 1 tablespoon capers, drained 1 cup green olives, pitted 1 cup pitted prunes, packed 1/2 cup red wine vinegar 1/2 cup pomegranate molasses 4 to 6 sprigs fresh oregano or thyme 1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed 1 cup dry white wine * Rinse the chicken and pat the pieces dry. Place the chicken in a 2 1/2-quart glass baking dish. * Combine the oil, garlic, capers, olives, prunes, vinegar and pomegranate molasses and pour it over the chicken. Tear each sprig of oregano or thyme into 2 or 3 pieces and place them around the chicken. Cover the chicken and marinate it in the refrigerator overnight, turning the pieces once or twice. * Heat the oven to 350 degrees. * Mix the brown sugar with the wine and pour it over the chicken, turning the pieces to coat, but making sure that you end with the skin side facing up. Remove half of the sprigs of fresh herbs. Cover the chicken and bake it for 45 minutes, turning the pieces once. Remove the cover and continue to bake the chicken until the pieces are a rich, golden brown, another 15 to 20 minutes. Serve hot. 4 servings. Each serving: 681 calories; 343 mg sodium; 87 mg cholesterol; 34 grams fat; 61 grams carbohydrates; 23 grams protein; 1.13 grams fiber.
While an increasing number of people merely mourn the passing of old traditions, Joel Rappel of Bar Ilan University in Israel has succeeded in shaking the dust off a tradition half a millennium old.
This evening, thanks to Rappel, groups of friends and relations from Santa Monica to Jerusalem will be celebrating a Tu B’Shevat Seder, a long-lost offspring of the Passover Seder, almost the way their ancestors did in the 16th century Kabbalistic village of Safed in northern Israel.
In his research at the university’s International Center for Jewish Identity, Rappel uncovered an ancient tradition celebrated in Safed, the seat of Kabbalistic (Jewish mystical) studies in the 16th century. “It was the Kabbalists that actually created the Tu B’Shevat Seder,” he explains.
Literally the 15th day of the Hebrew calendar month of Shevat, Tu B’Shevat was already an important date in biblical times, something akin to April 15 for modern Americans. Except that instead of paying income tax to the government, it was a tithe of produce and livestock that needed to be paid to the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, which sat on that very same Temple Mount so politically charged today.
“Long after the temple was destroyed, the Tu B’Shevat Seder was a way to heighten and reaffirm the spiritual bond with the land of Israel, in a celebration of the changing seasons and the fruit of the earth,” Rappel says.
Falling sometime, in late January, or early February, when much of America is still chilly, the date is also about the time in Israel when the almond trees burst into elegant white blossoms, harbingers of the approaching spring. For the people of ancient Israel, it also signaled “The New Year of Trees.”
According to Rappel, a version of the Tu B’Shevat Seder was still practiced for centuries among Jews living in Arab countries and in Eastern European, Hasidic communities, but most people had forgotten it.
“During the First Aliya, a major religious immigration from 1882 to 1904, Tu B’Shevat became a day for planting trees, as a kind of religious Thanksgiving,” he says. “But up until recently it had basically turned for most people into the holiday where you eat dried fruit.”
In 1981, while working on the Board of Jewish Education in Los Angeles, a group of friends’ Tu B’Shevat get-together turned into a dinner of fruit and an evening of stories, contemporary poetry and song. Putting it together with the Kabbalistic ceremony, Rappel wrote the Tu B’Shevat Haggadah, a user-friendly guide to the Seder.
Returning to Israel, Rappel was determined to breathe new life into the centuries-old expression of the holiday. With his Haggadah in one hand and a dish of fruit in the other, Rappel took the country by storm, appearing in almost every possible form of the media.
It took years, but it worked. Today, the Tu B’Shevat Seder is again becoming a meaningful tradition in communities and kibbutzim among groups of friends, teachers and workers, in army camps and new-immigrant centers.
In the last three years alone, Jerusalem Today, Israel’s largest newspaper, distributed 3 million copies of Rappel’s Tu B’Shevat Haggadah in time for the holiday.
It is also gaining popularity among American Jews. Dressed in white, with an elaborate selection of fresh and dried fruits, nuts, candles and red and white wine or grape juice, the typical Tu B’Shevat table is an inspiration in, itself.
In addition to prayers, readings and songs, the ritual service for the Seder includes four cups of wine accompanied by fruit divided into levels of “ascending spirituality.” The first cup-chilled white wine symbolic of winter, is accompanied by the “lowest level” of fruit, those that need a protective outer skin for their sensitive edible interior, like almonds or oranges.
A second cup of white wine is mixed with a small amount of red, signifying spring, the budding of new life and spiritual reawakening. In its modern version (also dedicated to the pioneers who rebuilt the ancient homeland), it is served with fruits like olives, apples, peaches, mangoes and dates, in which the outer layer is consumed yet the heart is protected, and contains the seed to create new life.
A third cup-red wine mixed with a small amount of white wine-symbolizes summer and a perfect world in which there is nothing wasted, and is accompanied by the “highest level” of fruit, which are eaten in their entirety, like figs, grapes and berries. This is also considered the highest spiritual level.
A fourth cup, totally red wine, represents fertility and the bounty of fall crops waiting to be harvested. Rappel’s updated version of the Haggadah also dedicates the fourth cup to environmental preservation.
Often personalized by various communities and movements, versions of Rappel’s original Haggadah are now available at many synagogues in America.
*
Glazer is co-author of the upcoming “The Kabbalistic Kitchen: Food for Spiritual Awakening.”
Chicken With Olives, Prunes and Pomegranate
Active Work Time: 15 minutes Total Preparation Time: 1 hour 15 minutes plus 8 hours marinating
Pomegranate molasses can be found at Middle Eastern markets, specialty food stores and in the ethnic foods aisle of some well-stocked supermarkets.
2 pounds chicken pieces
1 cup extra-virgin olive oil
8 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon capers, drained
1 cup green olives, pitted
1 cup pitted prunes, packed
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
1/2 cup pomegranate molasses
4 to 6 sprigs fresh oregano or thyme
1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1 cup dry white wine
* Rinse the chicken and pat the pieces dry. Place the chicken in a glass baking dish.
* Combine the oil, garlic, capers, olives, prunes, vinegar and pomegranate molasses and pour it over the chicken. Tear each sprig of oregano or thyme into 2 or 3 pieces and place them around the chicken. Cover the chicken and marinate it in the refrigerator overnight, turning the pieces once or twice.
* Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Remove the chicken from the marinade and place it in a 2 1/2-quart casserole.
* Mix the brown sugar with the wine and pour it over the chicken, turning the pieces to coat, but making sure that you end with the skin side facing up. Remove half of the sprigs of fresh herbs. Cover the chicken and bake it for 45 minutes, turning the pieces once. Remove the cover and continue to bake the chicken until the pieces are a rich golden brown, another 15 to 20 minutes. Serve hot.
4 servings. Each serving: 681 calories; 343 mg sodium; 87 mg cholesterol; 34 grams fat; 61 grams carbohydrates; 23 grams protein; 1.13 grams fiber.
Carob Brownie Tea Cake
Active Work Time: 30 minutes Total Preparation Time: 55 minutes
The fruity taste of carob makes this cake surprisingly good. Look for carob chips at health food stores.
1 cup unsweetened carob chips, packed
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine
2/3 cup raw sugar
3 eggs
1/2 cup whole-wheat pastry flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
Dash salt
2 tablespoons brandy
1/4 cup powdered sugar
*
* Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour an 8-inch square or round pan.
* Place the carob chips and butter in a glass bowl, and microwave them until the butter melts, 1 minute. Stir them together until they’re smooth. Cool slightly.
* Beat the sugar and eggs in the bowl of an electric mixer until foamy, 2 minutes. Transfer the carob mixture to the mixing bowl with a rubber spatula, and mix on low speed until blended. Stir in the flour, baking powder and salt and beat lightly. Stir in the brandy.
* Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes. Cool the cake in the pan, then turn it out on a serving dish. Shake the powdered sugar through a strainer to sprinkle on top.
8 servings. Each serving: 305 calories; 247 mg sodium; 124 mg cholesterol; 17 grams fat; 32 grams carbohydrates; 5 grams protein; 1.32 grams fiber.
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1b8af75e8a1c30e7682499e15d0456f7 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-feb-08-ca-22507-story.html | Like Sons, Like Father | Like Sons, Like Father
Cuba Gooding Sr. came to fame in the ‘70s as lead singer of the R&B; group theMain Ingredient, scoring Top 10 hits with “Everybody Plays the Fool” and “Just Don’t Want to Be Lonely.”
Though his career has had its ups and downs, Gooding is busier now than he’s been in years. And now he’s following in the footsteps of his successful acting sons, Oscar-winner Cuba Gooding Jr. (“Jerry Maguire”) and Omar Gooding (“Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper,” “The Smart Guy”).
He’s about to star in the new musical, “Be Careful What You Pray For,” which opens tonight at the Wiltern Theatre. The inspirational musical also stars Shirley Murdock, David Peaston and Clyde Jones.
Gooding plays a pastor whose daughter, a gospel singer, is tempted to become a pop star. The musical drama has toured all over the country including stops in New York, Chicago, Boston, Detroit, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, Newark, Dallas and Jacksonville.
Gooding, 56, spoke by phone from his Northridge home about the musical, his life with the Main Ingredient and his offspring.
Question: Have you done a lot of acting?
Answer: Mostly in recent years. I was in a play called “Stop Cheating on God’s Time.” I did a couple of movies. I did one called “Gedo” that was released overseas and the short film “Children of a Struggle.”
I also start shooting this movie the same day [the play opens]. It’s called “Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles.” It’s the true story of how Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles was created. I play one of the gangster types that I watched growing up, which is different from the drive-by-shooting, suicidal-drug-using, murderous-type kids they have today.
I am trying to get some network cameras to follow me around between the two things just to blow up the fact that I am doing both at the same time and to prove to Cuba Gooding Jr. he is not the only one who can act! I can imagine him trying to be on stage at night and on the set during the day at the same time and come out with a brilliant performance like what he did in “Men of Honor.”
Q: Did you get any acting tips from Cuba Jr. and Omar?
A: I didn’t ask them because the reason I became an actor was more on a dare than anything else. I used to say to them as they were climbing up the ladder as successful actors--"If I hadn’t divorced and remarried your mother, if I had been around the time you made up your mind you were going to be actors, you would have been singers [instead].” I said [to them], “I am going to take you into a studio and record you.” They said, “Dad, if you can’t act why should we knock our brains out trying to sing?”
I said “I am going to start acting and I am going straight to the stage with it, so if I make a mistake no one can say, ‘Cut.’ I have to be a perfect stage actor. If I can do that and make it in the theater, would you consider singing?” They said, “You have a deal.” Now I am going to record an album next year with Cuba Gooding Jr. and Omar Gooding. We are going to call the album, “Everybody Plays the Fool.”
That’s also the name of my book. It’s not out, but it will be completed hopefully by the spring. It talks about the family tree and my father being a West Indian and coming to America and meeting my mother and naming me Cuba because he lived in Cuba for 17 years.
Q: How long have you been involved with “Be Careful What You Pray For”?
A: This is going into the middle of the second year. We started the September before last and we went all through the South, selling out everywhere. It started out with an attempt to be a gospel play. I don’t sing gospel. I was able to add a lot of my personality and question marks to the theory of the theological perception of praising the Lord unequivocally without having concern for what it may do to a young mind--that it may confuse it. We are getting ready to make some changes and go to Broadway later this year.
Q: When did you join the Main Ingredient?
A: In 1968. I joined it when I came off the road as a door-to-door-salesman. I used to sell time shares as well as magazines. We all grew up in Harlem together. Joining the Main Ingredient was really the jump-kick of my career.
Everything I have ever done has been something that I either saw on TV and felt like I could do just as good or maybe better than someone who is getting paid for it. It was just a natural thing for me.
Q: Are you still touring?
A: We still tour. It’s called Cuba Gooding and the Main Ingredient, as a matter of fact. We have a tour scheduled during the summer that I may have to bow out of. I may just send the group because we have to go into summer rehearsals for “Be Careful What You Pray For.”
Q: Do you have any other children in the entertainment field?
A: I have an oldest boy named Thomas. He was born when I was 17. I only met him about 18 years ago. He’s given me six grandchildren and he is now my bandleader, bass player and music director for the Main Ingredient.
* “Be Careful What You Pray For,” at 8 p.m. today-Saturday; 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday; and 7:30 p.m. Sunday at the Wiltern Theater, 3790 Wilshire Blvd., L.A. Tickets are $25-$34.50. For information, call (213) 380-5005. To purchase tickets, call (213) 480-3150.
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fbf5077c547dd700b7fca4387e50a53e | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-feb-10-ca-23412-story.html | Neil Diamond Cuts Up | Neil Diamond Cuts Up
After his film debut in 1980’s ill-fated “The Jazz Singer,” Neil Diamond decided to concentrate on his music rather than pursue an acting career. Twenty years later he’s back on screen playing himself in the comedy “Saving Silverman,” about a group of twentysomethings (Jack Black, Steve Zahn and Jason Biggs) who have a Neil Diamond cover band. The film opened Friday.
Diamond also wrote an original song for the movie, his first original movie composition since “Jazz Singer.” The boys in the cover band--Diamonds in the Rough--perform a pumped-up version of Diamond’s hit “Holly Holy.”
Earlier this week at his recording studio in West Hollywood, the 61-year-old singer-songwriter took some time out from recording his new album (which will include the “Saving Silverman” single “I Believe in Happy Endings”) to talk about his big-screen return. He had only one caveat before beginning: His mother would probably be reading the interview, he said, and he wanted to distance himself from any complaints she might register in the future.
Question: Did you have a good time playing Neil Diamond?
Answer: I saw the whole thing as an observer from an acting point of view. It’s much harder to play myself. If I ever do a movie again, it’ll be a singing serial killer.
Q: Like, “Hannibal Lecter: The Musical”?
A: It’s inevitable that they’ll do it on Broadway, and who else can they come to?
Q: You’ve undoubtedly been offered other movie roles. What were they like and why did you turn them all down?
A: Over the years, things have come across the desk, everything from science-fiction to cowboy stuff. But I decided while I was doing “The Jazz Singer” that I’d rather be a really good singer than a mediocre actor, that I’d concentrate on my music, my records and my shows.
Q: So what made you say yes to “Saving Silverman”?
A: This movie was really more about my fans than anything else, about their devotion over the years and how that has transferred to their children as represented by the three main characters. It was the kind of thing I had to do. I couldn’t resist. It’s a tribute to my fans and fans in general. And I decided to take the chance of being embarrassed for a few scenes and be part of the film’s can’t-lose, slam-dunk ending.
And I’m glad I did. “Saving Silverman” was more than a role. It was a chance for my music to be exposed again. That’s something as a writer that is primary to what I do. I might have even done a part in this film, even if I’d only ended up writing the theme song. Nowadays it’s hard for a guy like me to get played on Top 40 radio, so however I can get it out, whether it’s in films, or by tribute bands that travel the country, or even the Internet--whatever. It’s important that it gets out.
Q: Did you find the film’s sometimes over-the-top humor appealing?
A: I approached the script not wanting to like it, and after the second page I started to laugh. It’s very typical of screwball comedies in the truest sense--a screwy plot, screwy characters. I think they got lucky in their choice of actors, all of whom are still establishing their names. I could, in a sense, come in relaxed and just give the audience a wink. But they had to put out--and they did.
I was amazed at the energy. It rubbed off on me. I remembered way back when, when I was really hungry and had to fight for every bit of attention. It brought me back to that. Instead of me teaching them, they ended up in a sense teaching me. Their hunger was really apparent. They were trying out for the big time.
Q: That was obvious in the concert scene at the end where everyone is scrambling to keep up with you--and you were totally in command.
A: The music is key. It has the power to transport you. I go from being a slightly insecure, shy kind of a person offstage, to this super-confident, motivated, entity onstage. I don’t know who he is. I just let him kind of happen. But it’s the music that takes me there every time. I’m not that good an actor.
Q: Is that why you prefer live performance to screen acting?
A: Acting is a specific discipline. Just because you can sing doesn’t mean you have the sensitivities of being an actor. I’ve spent my whole life trying to find out who I am, so I could express that through the music. Not who somebody else is, not how somebody else thinks. I couldn’t care less. I’m trying to find the truth in myself. To play somebody else doesn’t interest me. It’s not the focus of my life. I can get through most scenes and do the acting part of it, and at best, I’m going to be mediocre.
Q: The movie plays on your music’s appeal to a new generation of fans. What’s appealing to them in your music?
A: All my songs are based on melody, which is retrieved from my Jewish heritage. Melody will always exist no matter what the rhythmic changes there are. That means the door is open to people over generations, maybe with changes in the style with which it’s presented. Also, my music is in these young people’s lives because it’s so much a part of their parents’ lives.
Q: How would you judge the cover band in the movie?
A: Musically they’re very good. Jack Black was the premier musician [Black has his own group, Tenacious D], and Steven Zahn is also pretty good. Jason Biggs tagged along for the ride and just had fun. I think they did a good job. The main thing is the enthusiasm. And that’s the key. If you start doing “Cherry, Cherry” from an intellectual point of view, you’ve missed the whole point of it.
Q: Did you go to the studio to help them?
A: I made myself available to them, but the fact is they didn’t need me. They actually played it a lot better than I did. After a couple of hours of trying to be a father figure, I made a polite retreat to a coffee shop and back home.
Q: Did the filmmakers ask you to write the film’s closing theme?
A: I kind of asked them. When they called me [about the role], I asked if there was a chance I could write something for the end. They said yes. I wrote something, a really good up-tempo thing, and they accepted it right way. And I thought maybe I’ll give them a choice and write a ballad. So I went into the dialogue and came up with “I Believe in Happy Endings” just to give Dennis [Dugan, the director] a choice and he really liked that.
Q: Was it a song you would have written regardless?
A: It’s part of what I would write, but the movie shaped that idea. It comes directly from my character’s dialogue. When he tries to help them, he realizes that his music has been about happy endings. It was a natural idea to me.
Q: This is the first time you’ve written a song for a movie since . . .
A: Since “The Jazz Singer” and before that, “Jonathan Livingston Seagull.” An oldie like “Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon” is in “Pulp Fiction.” And Jane Campion did an extraordinary job with “Holly Holy” in “Holy Smoke.” She opened it up, and it was so trippy and spiritual. The songs have been used, and thank God they have; they get great exposure in these films. I’m open to writing more music for movies. As a songwriter there’s nothing more exciting than the unknown, the new and different.
Q: Your voice remains very resonant after all these years. What’s the secret?
A: I credit that to luck. I had no vocal training. I don’t pamper my voice. It’s part of my body. If my body is rested and healthy, my voice is rested and healthy. I think giving up cigarettes 10 years ago helped.
Q: Do you think you’ll ever get tired of performing live?
A: You mean the chance to be appreciated by 10,000 people all at once? I’ll never give it up. I’ll do it as long as I’m healthy and able to sing and worth the price of admission. As long as people show up, so will I.
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083e57a33bad707fb9409e2ffdcb7192 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-feb-10-mn-23699-story.html | Grammy Duet by Elton John, Eminem Puts Spin on Uproar | Grammy Duet by Elton John, Eminem Puts Spin on Uproar
The stage is set Feb. 21 for the most controversial moment in the 43-year history of the Grammy Awards: Eminem, the rapper whose obscenity-laced music often drips in venom for gays, is scheduled to perform a duet with Elton John, the iconic pop singer who is viewed as a leading champion of the gay community.
The duet, rumored for weeks but confirmed only Friday by John in an interview with The Times, is earning the British superstar the renewed wrath of the gay activist groups that initially railed against Eminem’s four Grammy nominations--including a nod in the premier category of best album--and plan to protest the Staples Center gala.
The National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, which endured a storm of protest over the rapper’s best album nomination, and CBS, which will broadcast the Grammy ceremony, also are being criticized.
John said the duet concept originated from Eminem, an overture that the British superstar views as “an olive branch” to gays from the mercurial rapper whose music has been perhaps the most hailed and reviled recordings in recent years.
“I’m a big fan of his music, and I said I would be delighted to,” John said. “I know I’m going to get a lot of flak from various people who are going to picket the show. . . . I’d rather tear down walls between people than build them up. If I thought for one minute that he was [hateful], I wouldn’t do it.”
To Scott Seomin, entertainment media director for the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, the move by John is dispiriting. “It’s hurtful. It’s embarrassing.”
Last year, GLAAD honored John’s lifetime achievements fighting homophobia with its Vito Russo Award, named for the organization’s late founder. “Elton’s actions now totally violate the spirit of this award,” Seomin said. “I think if Vito Russo were alive today, he would be appalled and disgusted by Elton John.”
The plan to have John perform the backup vocals to Eminem’s harrowing song “Stan” promises a bizarre new chapter in the unfolding pop culture story of Eminem, the 28-year-old Detroit rapper born Marshall Mathers III.
Eminem is the first white rapper to enjoy huge critical and commercial success in a genre that is largely defined by the urban, African American experience. His Grammy nomination for best album marks the first time any hard-core rap album has been considered for that lofty industry totem. The rapper is also the poster boy for controversial content--the whipsaw-fast rap songs on his Grammy-nominated album “The Marshall Mathers LP” are humorous in delivery but also relentlessly obscene in their images of murder, rape and drug excess. Eminem also has dark themes surrounding his private life; he faces felony assault and weapon charges in Michigan, and his wife attempted suicide last year.
Some hear a gifted and bold satirist, a sort of Lenny Bruce with a backbeat; others hear only a thug with a gift for rhyme and a penchant to shock. “Mathers LP” was the second-best-selling album of 2000 and has sold 8.1 million copies to date.
One of those “Mathers” copies belongs to John, an elder statesman of pop who has 57 Top 40 songs, second only to Elvis Presley, and the bestselling single of all time with his 1997 rendition of “Candle in the Wind.” “I want to work with him because he’s the most exciting artist around today,” John said. “I’m looking forward to the evening.”
The song they are scheduled to perform, “Stan,” depicts a zealous, violent fan who becomes increasingly unhinged when Eminem does not return his letters. In the song’s final sequence, Eminem patiently tells the fan to seek counseling, treat his girlfriend better and not take violent rap lyrics literally. John will perform the portion of the song that, on the recording, was a sample of a song by British singer Dido.
The duet concept was broached, John said, by Universal Music Group Chairman Doug Morris and Interscope Records chief Jimmy Iovine, the executives atop the record company that distributes Eminem’s albums. Interscope officials declined Friday to comment.
NARAS President Michael Greene had said that an Eminem performance on the CBS broadcast of the Grammys would cost the show as many viewers as it adds. On Friday, Greene said that he’s certain some artists and sponsors are grappling with the idea of being associated with a show spotlighting Eminem.
“It certainly raises issues with a lot of the people that are even participating in the program,” Greene said. “We have artists’ representatives and sponsors that are certainly having issues with it. I haven’t had anybody say they are going to actually pull out yet.”
CBS executives have been supportive of booking Eminem on the show, according to network spokesman Chris Ender, who added that “if history is a guide, controversy tends to generate higher ratings.” Ender said that the Grammys are a coveted vehicle for reaching young viewers and that no advertising backlash is expected.
In fact, Greene said there are prospective advertisers “lined up 40 deep for every 30-second spot” on the broadcast. Several activist groups have threatened boycotts of the show and its advertisers, but Greene believes sponsors will not view Eminem’s performance as an endorsement of his musical messages.
“I think people understand that what we’re doing here is not elevating the message of Eminem,” Greene said. “What we’re doing here is [acknowledging] that the membership has made a decision that they felt this recording was important enough to deserve a Grammy best album nod. . . . It’s a democracy, and we’re basically just going by the wishes of the membership.”
That point, however, was strongly rebuked by Seomin, the spokesman for GLAAD, who said the Grammys are now “an accomplice” to Eminem’s musical hate crimes and have showed that their desire for ratings exceeds their interest in doing the “right thing.”
Grammy officials on Friday announced a town hall meeting co-sponsored by GLAAD on the eve of the Feb. 21 gala to address violence and hate in music. Sources in the activist community said that the event was ready to be announced early in the week but that Greene insisted on reserving the announcement to coincide with--and perhaps blunt--news of the Eminem performance.
Kim Gandy, executive vice president of the National Organization for Women, said the town hall meeting is too little, too late.
“This call for dialogue by NARAS, but I think it’s a day late and a dollar short,” Gandy said, “I believe that if they had done it a month ago, they would not have invited Eminem to perform. . . . If Eminem gets a Grammy for this dangerous and abusive use of music, it will devalue the meaning of a Grammy.”
The Family Violence Prevention Fund on Friday repeated its call for CBS to run at least one public service announcement during the broadcast and to compel a presenter or the host to comment on the Eminem issue. Jeffrey Betcher, spokesman for the fund, said the network has not responded, and Ender declined to comment on any contacts with activists.
The Grammys are no stranger to controversy, but attacks in the past had been for avoiding the cutting edge, not dancing on it.
The awards show has strived in recent years to shake a reputation for stodgy, bland nominations by policing its picks with a blue-ribbon, quality-control committee, but the gala also covets a stately and high-minded aura. The debate now is whether Eminem helps the former cause or seriously endangers the latter.
Eminem, on tour overseas, told MTV Europe last week that he is underwhelmed by the prestige of the Grammy nomination but, in a riff peppered with obscenities, described how he would sit next to the youth pop group ‘N Sync and “flick pennies at them.”
Greene said he is not worried that Eminem’s recent antics--"his theater for fans"--foreshadow a stunt during the live broadcast. “‘We have more contingencies and concertina wire around his performance--just emotionally--than you could imagine,” he said.
The broadcast airs live on the East Coast (tape delayed on the West Coast) with an eight-second delay to allow the show’s producers to excise profanities. While “Stan” has obscenities, Eminem has performed “clean” versions on television shows such as “Saturday Night Live.” The song has been singled out by many critics and musical peers as evidence of his artistic heft.
Eminem’s “Mathers” competes in the best album field with discs from Beck, Radiohead, Paul Simon and Steely Dan--four acts that are safe, critical favorites, and all have been previously nominated for the prestigious award. A victory for Eminem would only escalate the furor.
“I’m spending a lot of time thinking about that in my own reflections,” Greene said, “and wondering how the academy would ultimately respond.”
*
Times staff writer Rachel Uslan contributed to this story.
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ea4e7fd7f1ba1fa1ff8521385f9350ff | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-feb-11-me-24118-story.html | Lobbyists’ Dual Role Alarms Critics | Lobbyists’ Dual Role Alarms Critics
As city commissioners recently debated whether to award the lucrative Greek Theatre contract to House of Blues Concerts Inc., one of the firm’s top lobbyists, Steven Afriat, listened in via speaker from the comfortable office of City Councilwoman Laura Chick, the firm’s chief council backer.
Few at Los Angeles City Hall would be surprised that Afriat enjoyed the insider accommodations: In addition to serving as a lobbyist for clients seeking Chick’s favor, Afriat is the political consultant running Chick’s campaign for city controller.
Afriat is not alone in enjoying special ties to the council members he lobbies. Another House of Blues lobbyist, Rick Taylor, listened to part of the Greek Theatre hearing with Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski in her office. Taylor is Miscikowski’s campaign consultant for her reelection bid, and he was the political strategist who helped Councilman Alex Padilla get elected in 1999.
Such incestuous political relationships are commonplace at City Hall, where two-thirds of the City Council members have, at one time or another, hired lobbyists who also want their votes.
In one high-profile battle--the contest between House of Blues and Nederlander-Greek Inc. over control of the Greek--seven of the 14 City Council members likely to vote on the matter have at some point hired for political work the same lobbyists whose clients are bidding on the contract. Most of those lobbyists represent the House of Blues, which is seeking to wrestle the contract from current manager Nederlander-Greek.
The proliferation of lobbyists who double as paid political advisors has alarmed many watchdog groups and ethics experts.
“The problem obviously is that lobbyists are able to wield undue influence when they leverage their position as campaign consultants with those they lobby,” said Jim Knox, executive director of California Common Cause. “It’s a conflict. It’s not appropriate.”
The lobbyists and elected officials defend the arrangements, saying they can keep their relationships as lobbyists and lobbied separate from their roles as advisors and politicians. “It’s a business relationship. You are paying for someone to run your campaign,” Chick said of her hiring of Afriat. “For seven and a half years, I have based my decisions on the merits. If I based my decisions on who I know, it would be impossible. I have a variety of friends on both sides of many issues.”
Afriat agreed.
“Sometimes she [Chick] votes on positions I support, and sometimes she doesn’t,” he said. He noted that the councilwoman voted for open Internet access for cable franchises while he represented a client, AT&T;, which was opposed.
Afriat has received more than $31,000 from Chick’s campaign for controller. He also has worked as a paid political consultant for Councilman Mike Hernandez and was a paid fund-raiser for Councilman Rudy Svorinich Jr.
Some Suggest More Regulation
Taylor, whose other lobbying clients include the J. Paul Getty Trust, City Cab Co. and American Golf Inc., also insisted that there is no conflict between lobbying and consulting. “The last person the candidates owe a favor is the campaign consultant, because they pay us for our services,” he said.
But the benefits to lobbyists of such relationships were bluntly attested to in a mailer Afriat’s firm sent to prospective lobbying clients three years ago. “The secret of Afriat’s success is the political consulting arm of our firm--we represent elected officials in fund-raising and campaign management,” the mailer boasted.
City rules require disclosure of such interlinking relationships but do not prohibit them. Both Afriat and Taylor openly acknowledged that they had listened to the Recreation and Parks Commission meeting about the Greek Theatre in the council members’ offices.
The relationships are not limited to current officeholders; candidates in April’s City Council elections have also hired registered city lobbyists to help run their campaigns.
Bob Stern, who coauthored the state’s 1974 Political Reform Act, said the city Ethics Commission should consider regulating the practice.
“I find it very troubling,” Stern said. “Clearly, it gives the lobbyist tremendous access that the average person does not have.”
Even some lobbyists say the dual role is cause for concern.
“I personally think it’s a conflict,” said Arnie Berghoff, whose clients include Browning Ferris Industries, the operator of Sunshine Canyon Landfill, whose expansion was in the council’s hands last year. “When you run someone’s campaign, it creates a completely different relationship. The perception is wrong.”
Veteran lobbyist and campaign consultant Harvey Englander does not believe working on a council member’s election campaign gives a lobbyist undue influence, but he acknowledged that the perception exists and that alone can boost business for the lobbyists.
“It certainly helps, because people believe, whether rightly or wrongly, that you have a special relationship with the elected official,” Englander said. “I don’t know if it is special, but you do have a relationship of trust.”
Englander’s role as Councilman Hal Bernson’s longtime political advisor might seem advantageous for the lobbyist, because Bernson heads the council’s powerful Planning and Land Use Management Committee, a key panel soon to take up an ordinance regulating large stores including Kmart, an Englander client.
Bernson denied that he gives Englander any special favors just because the lobbyist is partly responsible for his job on the council.
Padilla, the councilman from Pacoima, offered the same defense of his relationship with lobbyist James Acevedo. After helping Padilla win election in 1999 as a paid political operative, Acevedo registered as a lobbyist for those seeking open Internet access for cable franchises. Padilla by that time had been named chairman of the council panel considering the issue and later came out in favor of open access. He denied being influenced by Acevedo’s political work.
“He is an advisor, and he is a friend,” Padilla said of Acevedo. “But when it comes to him having personal financial interests or dealings with the city, he does not get any special treatment.”
In all, more than a dozen City Hall lobbyists have doubled as political operatives for elected officials.
Others include:
* Darlene Kuba has worked as a paid political fund-raiser for Councilwoman Ruth Galanter and City Controller Rick Tuttle. She represents Nederlander-Greek Inc. in the theater matter, over which Galanter eventually will have a vote.
* Richard Lichtenstein, who has been a paid political consultant for Council President John Ferraro, recently lobbied the council on behalf of developers who wanted to raze the historic Chase Knolls apartment complex.
* Lobbyist Leslie Song Winner, who has been working pro bono for Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, who had formed an exploratory committee for the congressional seat vacated by the death of Julian Dixon.
Winner, whose lobbying clients include AT&T; and the Los Angeles Cable Operators Assn., was the contact person for Ridley-Thomas’ campaign in a two-page press release she recently sent out announcing the exploratory committee. Before Ridley-Thomas announced Friday that he had decided not to run, Winner said she expected to have a role as a paid political consultant.
As his firm’s mailer indicated, Afriat has made a point of letting potential lobbying clients know of his political work for council members, and in the process his firm has become one of the top lobbyist companies working City Hall. From 24 clients six years ago, it has jumped to 72 last year, according to reports filed with the city Ethics Commission. The company’s income has grown from about $20,000 to $97,000 per month.
A Sherman Oaks resident who served until a year ago as president of the city Animal Regulation Commission, Afriat has frequently represented development clients in lobbying the Planning and Land Use Management Committee, where two of the three members--Hernandez and Miscikowski--have been political clients.
Afriat’s personal lobbying in the Greek Theatre matter included arranging and attending a meeting two months ago between Chick and Adam Friedman, a senior vice president for House of Blues. The meeting took place in the councilwoman’s office.
Chick said she also met with representatives and lobbyists for competing firms before she testified last month in favor of House of Blues.
Chick said her support for House of Blues is based on the millions of additional dollars the company would bring to the city, not on the company’s lobbyist. House of Blues has offered to make $11.1 million in capital improvements to the city-owned entertainment center, more than double the $5.5 million offered by Nederlander.
“I believe House of Blues would provide a better deal,” Chick said. “It’s about merit. There are millions of dollars more on the table for the city.”
Political Ties Fuel Public Cynicism
Chick acknowledged that she is uncomfortable when her campaign consultants discuss their lobbying clients. She said she wants those she hires to focus all their energy on her campaign.
“If anything, it’s intrusive and static and not terribly welcome,” she said. “I think lobbyists put themselves at risk when they also do campaigns, because there are often tumultuous relationships during campaigns. Sometimes they lead to bad feelings.”
Critics see the political ties between council members and lobbyists as feeding public skepticism about government in general, and fueling concern that special interests and the lobbyists they hire hold special sway at City Hall.
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18cdf7cfa9743abd9aff8a901fdd9bd2 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-feb-11-mn-24059-story.html | Treasures of India’s Royal Past Among Quake Losses | Treasures of India’s Royal Past Among Quake Losses
Over the centuries, pirates and plunderers took their toll on the royal family of Kutch, and now nature’s fury has forced the courtiers to join the homeless in the streets.
The earthquake that flattened much of this city last month also ruined the palaces of Maharao Pragmalji III and his cousins, all descendants of the kings who once ruled the princely state of Kutch here in western India.
Since the quake, Ragu Raj Singh, 54, a cousin of the crown prince, has been camping out on a sandy lot next to the shattered Palace of Mirrors along with his mother, two brothers, a sister-in-law--and their servants.
Like a million other Indians left homeless by the magnitude 7.7 quake, they eat meals cooked over open fires and sleep on the ground. But Singh has a different burden from most: He can only sit and wonder what is left of treasures more than two centuries old.
The earthquake shook Bhuj so violently, for as long as two minutes, that a large section of the Palace of Mirrors--or Aina Mahal--collapsed. Singh said it isn’t safe for him to go inside and assess the damage to a building that has stood since 1752.
Next door to the Aina Mahal, the Darbargadh Palace where Singh and his family live suffered even worse damage. Broken pillars of marble litter the ground among fallen beams of intricately carved teak.
The keystones have slipped in the archways above the compound’s passageways, and a strong aftershock could bring them crashing down, Singh said.
Singh keeps a 24-hour vigil in the lot, waiting to scare off any looters who come picking through the rubble of ages to make a few quick dollars. Even a senior state government official on a damage assessment tour asked if he might take a piece as a souvenir, Singh said.
“I told him, ‘You can take the whole palace!’ ” he added derisively. “What kind of assistance can we expect from them?”
Kutch’s royal family can’t turn to India’s government for the millions of dollars it may take to rebuild the palaces because they are owned and operated by private trusts.
After India won its independence from Britain in 1947, the government took away royal privileges, and Singh said “criminal taxation” has left his family and the trust without enough money to restore the buildings.
“These things do not belong to an individual,” Singh said. “They belong to a region, the people of Kutch, the people of India--the whole world. It’s part of our heritage, and it’s also humankind’s heritage.
“The politicians are normally interested in diverting and spending funds toward maintaining and expanding their vote banks,” he added. “And there’s no vote to be garnered in restoring buildings of historic or cultural value.”
The government is responsible for about 200 historic monuments in Gujarat state, where the earthquake struck. Only 25 of those were affected by the quake, and just three or four of them suffered serious damage, said Abnash Grover, director of conservation with the Archeological Survey of India.
The government estimates that it will cost roughly $215,000 to restore the damaged buildings for which it is responsible, Grover said.
Although Bhuj’s old city was leveled in the quake, the state’s historic sites fared better than many of its modern buildings. The quake caused an estimated $5 billion damage across Gujarat and killed 35,000 or more people.
One of the worst-hit monuments was a memorial on the cremation site of poet-king Maharao Lakhpatji, who built the Palace of Mirrors.
The palace, which became a museum in 1977, was originally the king’s residence. He installed 26 fountains, which formed a square around a platform where he sat as women danced for him. There are 100 doors with inlaid ivory, the best of which a British colonial viceroy wanted to take for the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Lakhpatji turned him down.
The walls were covered with tall looking glasses, glass paintings and gilt woodwork. The king had 27 mirrors in his bedroom alone. Inlaid with gold flowers and semiprecious stones, the mirrors hung on marble walls surrounding a low bed with legs covered in gold leaf.
These nights, the king’s descendants consider themselves lucky to have blankets. Singh hasn’t had a proper bath since the earthquake. With his gray stubble and a vacant stare, he looks like a lost traveler.
“I am a bird of a passing passage, lucky to be born in this family, having lived here all this time,” he said.
Azhar Tyabji, an art historian and urban planner, is worried that priceless debris that could be used in reconstruction of the palaces may be bulldozed and dumped in the mounting heaps of quake rubble outside town.
“Then you lose an entire identity,” said Tyabji, who works for the Environmental Planning Collaborative in the city of Ahmadabad.
“If the temple at Luxor in Egypt is being put back together 2,000 years after it was razed to the ground,” he said, “then there’s no reason why one can’t put these stones back if they were patched together, and documented, responsibly.”
Art experts have called the Palace of Mirrors a unique example of “europanerie,” an 18th century obsession among the Indian elite for things European, especially if they glittered and ticked, like large mirrors, chandeliers and clocks.
The king also gave Kutch its first camera, typewriter and gramophone, said the palace museum’s curator, Pramod Jethi.
Despite all the ruin, last month’s quake did some good by exposing a long-hidden treasure beneath what everyone thought was a solid stone bastion at the palace gate. The bricks peeled off like the skin of a fruit to expose an inner wall erected in 1730.
It is decorated with two elephants, a tortoise and a horse in the ancient royal crest, which Singh assumes was covered up with a reinforcing wall in 1819--the year of the last great Kutch quake.
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cbc36160ba79426838b647e91cb9400c | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-feb-19-me-27397-story.html | Fire Guts Actress Drew Barrymore’s House | Fire Guts Actress Drew Barrymore’s House
Actress Drew Barrymore and her fiance, comedian Tom Green, escaped an early-morning fire that gutted her 3,500-square-foot home in a canyon north of Beverly Hills.
The fire began at 3:25 a.m. and engulfed both stories of the home, causing about $700,000 in damage. The couple were uninjured.
“We’re great,” Barrymore told reporters at the scene.
“Other than the fact that the home burned down,” Green quipped as the couple left the Franklin Canyon property.
Their dog, Flossie, awoke the two about 3:30 a.m. when she barked and “literally banged on their bedroom door,” said Eddie Michaels, Barrymore’s spokesman.
“Flossie was really the main alert that there was a fire,” Michaels said.
It took about an hour for 55 firefighters in 11 engines to douse the flames, city Fire Department spokesman Jim Wells said.
The Fire Department has begun an investigation into how the fire started.
Barrymore last starred in the movie “Charlie’s Angels.” Green is the host of a talk show on MTV.
*
Associated Press contributed to this report.
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091069f08fca75ca3dc65a8c63992453 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-feb-19-mn-27370-story.html | L.A. Leaders’ Support Cited in Decision to Free Vignali | L.A. Leaders’ Support Cited in Decision to Free Vignali
In the first formal explanation of the matter, the chief of staff to former President Clinton said Sunday that convicted drug dealer Carlos Vignali was released from prison because of intervention by a “broad range” of influential Los Angeles community leaders--singling out U.S. Atty. Alejandro N. Mayorkas and Roman Catholic Cardinal Roger M. Mahony.
And Clinton, while not directly defending his commutation for the son of Horacio Vignali, a wealthy Los Angeles political contributor, said he was disturbed generally over lengthy sentences for first-time drug offenders. “I felt that they had served long enough.”
Also Sunday, three Republican attorneys Clinton claimed had “reviewed and advocated” a presidential pardon for fugitive financier Marc Rich sharply denied the former president’s statement. Later, a former spokesman for Clinton said he had meant to imply only that the attorneys had reviewed the case, and not the merits of the pardon itself.
Clinton’s last-minute pardons and commutations of Jan. 20 continue to raise questions about whether any of the 176 acts of clemency were granted in return for political or personal favors. Two congressional committees are holding hearings into the case of Rich, who was wanted for tax evasion, dodging price controls and trading with the enemy during the Iran hostage crisis.
Some, including Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Clinton’s defense of Rich’s pardon--made Sunday in a guest opinion piece in the New York Times--did not go far enough. The former president should testify on Capitol Hill, Specter said.
“The American people want to know why one of the most wanted fugitives in the world was granted a pardon,” Specter said on CNN’s “Late Edition.” “This editorial doesn’t explain it.”
In the Vignali case, former Clinton Chief of Staff John Podesta for the first time confirmed that it was Mayorkas, the U.S. attorney for Southern California, who supported the commutation. Earlier, former Clinton officials had said that Clinton had released the drug dealer, after six years of a 15-year prison term, because of a letter of support from a federal prosecutor, who was not named.
Federal prosecutors in Minneapolis, where Vignali was convicted, said they wrote the Justice Department strongly opposing commutation.
The Minneapolis prosecutors said Mayorkas had twice called them asking questions about the case.
On Sunday, Podesta was asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” about the Vignali case, in which 800 pounds of cocaine was shipped from Los Angeles to Minneapolis, and about how Vignali’s father had donated $166,000 to California politicians, mostly Democrats.
Clinton’s decision to commute the sentence, Podesta said, was made “with support from a broad range of people in Los Angeles, including, at the time, the U.S. attorney.”
Mayorkas, who has steadfastly declined to comment on the Vignali matter, would not budge Sunday. “I can’t comment on it,” he said.
Numerous California elected officials and others wrote letters seeking consideration of Vignali’s case, if not outright commutation. They included Mahony, two leading mayoral candidates, former state Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa, U.S. Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Los Angeles) and former U.S. Rep. Esteban E. Torres.
A letter from Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca urged only that prison officials move Vignali to a prison closer to Los Angeles, which was done.
After some of the letters were detailed in The Times, Mahony apologized, saying he had broken his policy of writing on behalf of someone he did not know.
Podesta pointed out that Clinton did not know Jan. 20 that Mahony would later regret his support of Vignali. He noted that “the cardinal has retracted it after The L.A. Times has criticized” the commutation.
Clinton has not directly explained the Vignali commutation. But in his guest editorial, he discussed reasons for granting relief to a number of drug defendants.
“Some had been sentenced pursuant to mandatory-sentencing drug laws, and I felt that they had served long enough,” he wrote, “given the particular circumstances of the individual cases.”
“Many of these were first-time nonviolent offenders with no previous criminal records; in some cases, co-defendants had received significantly shorter sentences.”
Vignali was a first-time offender when he was convicted in 1995. But prosecutors in Minnesota, as well as the sentencing judge there, defended his 15-year prison term and described Vignali as having a central role in the drug conspiracy.
Clinton, in his editorial, defended the pardons for Rich and his collaborator, Pincus Green.
He wrote that “the case for the pardons was reviewed and advocated” by former White House counsel Jack Quinn, as well as three Republican attorneys--Lewis Libby, now Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff; Leonard Garment, a former Nixon White House official; and William Bradford Reynolds, a Justice Department official under President Reagan.
Quinn, who is Rich’s attorney, tapped the attorneys to help make his case for a pardon.
On Sunday, all three denied Clinton’s statement.
“The assertion that Mr. Libby had anything to do with President Clinton’s pardon is nonsense,” said Juleanna Glover Weiss, a spokeswoman for Cheney. She added that, while Libby had represented Rich, their attorney-client association ended at least by last spring.
Reynolds, a Washington lawyer who represented Rich in the early 1990s, said of Clinton’s assertions: “I was astounded. I have had no communications with the Clinton administration or the president or Jack Quinn having to do with the effort to obtain the pardon at any time.”
Garment could not be reached for comment. But he was quoted by the New York Times as saying, “It is absolutely false that I knew about and endorsed the idea of a pardon.”
Former White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said Clinton’s editorial was submitted Friday to meet a Times deadline. He said Clinton afterward noticed that the reference to the three Republicans was “a very poorly worded sentence” and changed it for the paper’s second edition.
Rather than saying “the pardons” were reviewed and advocated by the Republican attorneys, the new phrase said that “the case for” the pardons was reviewed and advocated.
“It was their legal analysis and their tax analysis that formed the foundation for the pardons,” Lockhart said on ABC’s “This Week.”
“It is incorrect to say that they were part of the pardon application. That is something Jack Quinn did. But it was all of their work that persuaded the president that he ought to grant the pardons.”
Lockhart added: “We shouldn’t leap to the conclusion that somehow there is a political scandal here,” he said. “It’s a judgment the president made.”
Podesta added that Clinton had been advised by Quinn that the GOP attorneys believed the Rich case should have been brought as a civil matter, not as a criminal indictment. He said that the government still could pursue Rich for civil penalties. Clinton, he said, “thought it was the right thing to do and it was in the interests of justice to put this back in the civil track.”
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bfa2771cc651a3477d42f3e6ca6c31cf | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-feb-20-ca-27539-story.html | You Too Can Be a Producer! | You Too Can Be a Producer!
In David Mamet’s “State and Main,” a spoof about a Hollywood movie company that invades a small town in New England, a young screenwriter is listening to the film director trying to hire a horse for a scene. One of his assistants tells him: “The horse is booked.”
“Tell the guy, get me the horse,” he says. “I’ll give him an associate-producer credit.” The screenwriter turns to a production assistant and asks, “What’s an associate-producer credit?” The assistant replies: “It’s what you give to your secretary instead of a raise.”
And that, in a nutshell, is why the issue of producer credits has become one of the longest-running comedies in Hollywood. Take the example of “The Caveman’s Valentine.” The film, due out March 2, has one director, one costume designer, one director of photography, one composer--and 17 producers.
It’s hardly a freakish exception. “3000 Miles to Graceland,” the Kurt Russell and Kevin Costner heist picture opening Friday, has 10 producers. “The Mexican,” the Julia Roberts-Brad Pitt film also opening March 2, has eight. A number of other films have had 10 producers, including “Face/Off,” “Deep Blue Sea” and “G.I. Jane.” “Assassins,” a 1995 Sly Stallone movie, had 17 producers, tying “Caveman’s Valentine” for the modern-day record.
Everyone takes producer credits these days, starting with movie stars and anyone on their payroll, including managers, brothers, wives, college roommates and ex-bodyguards, along with various financiers and production company executives. Too often film studios use producer credits as the grease that smooths the often balky process of prodding a film into production.
It’s as if I had to share my byline with my wife just because she brought me a sandwich while I was writing this column. There’s even a Hollywood producer-credit joke: How many producers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Twelve--one to screw in the lightbulb, 11 to take credit for it.
How did this happen? Here’s the simple answer. In the old days, movie studios put up all the money to make a film, so the producer was generally the person on set overseeing the production. In today’s world, with studios relying more on outside financing, movies are put together in more complicated ways. The “producers” might be the people who found the material, raised the money or delivered the star. So when you read producer credits, what you’re really seeing is the film’s back story, as if you were an archeologist peeling back layers of debris trying to find a buried city.
“Producer credits really offer a chronology of the movie,” explains Tony Ludwig, who was one of eight producers on last year’s Nicolas Cage film “Family Man.” “What it really tells you [when you see a lot of names] is that the movie was put together through a series of deals rather than from one person developing a piece of material.”
Producing Isn’t Quite What It Used to Be
There are still a few powerful producers in the old sense of the word, notably Jerry Bruckheimer, Brian Grazer and Scott Rudin, who have so much clout and access to top-drawer material that they rarely need to share credit with anyone. But as a rule, the more difficult it is to put the movie together, the longer the list of producers who end up sharing credits.
All this has watered down the value of the producer title. In recent years, various producer groups have unsuccessfully lobbied the studios to help stem the tide of unearned producer credits. In the past year, the Producers Guild of America has stepped up its efforts to establish a strict arbitration process that would award an on-screen certification mark identifying up to three producers who actually performed the key producer functions on a film. The guild has recruited a number of heavyweight producers to press the issue, including Gale Anne Hurd, who is co-chairman of the guild’s credit committee. Several low-profile films have been through arbitration, though none will reach theaters till later in the year.
Studio support for producers has been lukewarm. Only three unidentified studios have agreed to participate in the certification process, and even they won’t become actively involved until the remaining studios sign off on the new system.
“We’re simply trying to force people to define what the job is that goes with the credit,” says “Spider-Man” producer Laura Ziskin, another guild activist. “Everyone is diminished when there’s 17 producer names on a movie. The implication is that no one did the job. It may not change until long after I’m retired, but by slow, incremental steps, we’re starting to make some progress.”
Still, many believe it’s a pipe dream. Having your name up on screen is a powerful aphrodisiac. “Quiz Show,” which earned a best picture Oscar nomination in 1994, originally had 13 producers. Two of the film’s key producers, Mark Johnson and Barry Levinson, were so embarrassed by the credit sprawl that they took their names off the film, hoping to shame some of the others into removing theirs.
“No one budged,” says Johnson. “All they said was, ‘Great, now there’s two less people.’ ”
Studios not only routinely give managers producer credits, but pay them producer fees out of the film’s budgets (which go against their manager fees) in return for the manager’s help in securing top-name star talent. I can still hear the late producer Marvin Worth bellowing his displeasure over having to share his credit on “Diabolique” with star Sharon Stone’s manager. “The bum never even came to the set,” Worth fumed. “In fact, when there was a problem with Sharon, he sent someone else to talk to her--and he still took a credit.”
John Travolta manager Jonathan Krane regularly takes an executive producer credit on his client’s films; likewise for longtime Keanu Reeves manager Erwin Stoff, who is one of six producers on “Sweet November,” Reeves’ new film. Stoff insists he only takes a credit when he’s made a significant contribution to the picture. He points out that his company developed the script for “Sweet November” and he spent months on location in San Francisco with his wife, Deborah Aal, who shares credit with Stoff, Steve Reuther (who financed the film) and Elliot Kastner, whom Stoff says he has never “met in my life,” but who received a credit because he owned the film’s remake rights.
On the other hand, Stoff has taken executive producer credits on films such as “The Matrix” and “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me,” where his biggest contribution was participating in the marketing of the films. Stoff says he won’t take a credit on either “Matrix” sequel. “Let’s face it, they need me like they need a hole in the head,” he admits. “If all you’re doing is making a deal for your client and going to the premiere, it’s ludicrous to take a credit on a film.”
Everybody’s Getting Into the Act
It’s amazing how quickly producer credits can work their way into double figures. In the case of the Samuel L. Jackson-starring film “The Caveman’s Valentine,” it took a number of complex financial alliances to find its way to the screen. The movie’s odd-couple production team represents as unlikely a pairing as Elton John and Eminem, combining Jersey Films, the classy producer of “Erin Brockovich,” and Franchise Pictures, the Elie Samaha-run company behind such forgettable fare as “Battlefield Earth” and “Get Carter.”
Based on a George Dawes Green novel, “The Caveman’s Valentine” is about a half-mad ex-classical musician who tries to solve the murder of a young drifter he finds hanging in a tree outside his makeshift cave in Central Park. Screenwriter Scott Frank discovered the book browsing in a mystery bookshop. Impressed by the unconventional drama’s vivid images, Frank took the book to Jersey, which had hired him to write “Get Shorty” and “Out of Sight.” Jersey bought the book and took it to Jackson, who as it turned out, had been a fan of the book himself.
The Jersey-Jackson alliance alone gave the project seven producers: Danny DeVito, Stacey Sher and Michael Shamberg, the three Jersey partners; Frank, who found the book; and Jackson, who took an executive producer credit along with his managers, Julie Yorn and Eli Selden. Jackson earned his credit: He introduced the Jersey team to “Caveman” director Kasi Lemmons, who’d directed him in “Eve’s Bayou.” At the behest of Yorn and Selden, who helped arrange financing for the film, Jackson also agreed to work for a fraction of his $9-million fee.
While Green was adapting the script from his novel, the credit list expanded even more, with Stephanie Davis, Lemmons’ manager, taking a co-executive producer credit along with Jonathan Weisgal, a then-Jersey Films executive who helped the company set up financing for the picture.
Even with Jackson attached as the star, the project was turned down by virtually every studio in town. The movie was briefly at USA Films, which dropped out after disagreements over script revisions. With the project close to falling apart, Jersey took it to Franchise’s Samaha, who was eager to be in business with a star of Jackson’s stature. Samaha financed the film by selling off foreign territories; Universal Pictures agreed to distribute the film in the U.S.
To keep the budget at roughly $20 million, Franchise put its own line producer, Michael Drake, on the film, even though the picture already had Michael Bennett, Lemmons’ line producer from her first film. “If you don’t have your own pit bull on a movie, all kinds of bad things can happen,” says Samaha. “If I didn’t have Michael [Drake], we could’ve gone $5 million over. I had my own guy on ‘Battlefield Earth,’ and it still went from $50 million to $62 million.”
Drake ended up with an associate-producer credit along with Tracee Stanley, Franchise’s president of development. Bennett received a co-producer credit along with James Holt, Franchise’s vice president of operations, and Pamela Abdy, a Jersey production executive who helped oversee the project’s development. Finally, three more Franchise executives were added to the bulging producer roster: Samaha, Franchise President Andrew Stevens and Nicholas Clermont, a Samaha financing executive, who took an executive-producer credit.
The result: one movie, 17 producers. “When you spend a lot of years trying to get a challenging film off the ground, you end up with a lot of partners,” says Jersey’s Sher. “It just shows how hard it is to get some movies made.”
Samaha puts it more bluntly: “This is Hollywood, so you have to kiss people in. I make 15 movies a year, so I don’t fight it. I’ve got too many movies to make.”
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“The Big Picture” runs every Tuesday in Calendar. If you have questions, ideas or criticism, e-mail them to patrick.goldstein@latimes.com.
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fc4541cc9fe8626b106b28da4268e54e | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-feb-21-me-28123-story.html | A Fallen Star | A Fallen Star
It’s been a good week for June Fairchild. She and a friend scraped together enough to stay at the Rosslyn Hotel, a tattered building off downtown’s skid row that charges about $28 a night.
In her eyes, it is a glorious place. She doesn’t see the bars shielding the concierge or the worn patches in the deep red carpet. At 54, she would rather remember what it looked like when she was a starlet in Hollywood during the ‘70s. She would rather tell you how she visited actress Mae West in a Rosslyn room during the filming of the grande dame’s last movie, “Sextette.”
“I asked Mae West what the key to her success is,” Fairchild says. “She said, ‘I’m very boring in real life. I made up the walk and the talk.’ ”
Nobody is going to ask June Fairchild that question. They might ask, instead, how she fell from a promising actress partying alongside film and rock ‘n’ roll legends to a middle-aged woman spending nights curled up in a cardboard box on skid row. They might ask why a woman who wakes up every day at 4:30 a.m. to collect and sell copies of the Daily News in front of the downtown courthouse is talking about acting again.
“An angel in the middle of a snake pit,” she calls herself. The woman whose last film role was the Ajax-snorting lady in Cheech and Chong’s comedy “Up in Smoke” in 1978 says she has kicked her drinking problem and just needs to get enough money together to get some head shots to her former agent. She has not lost the twinkling blue eyes, smooth skin or sense of wonderment of her youth, and they make her look and sound like a hopeful ghost.
The story begins in Manhattan Beach, where she grew up as June Wilson and was voted Mardi Gras girl and best-dressed at Aviation High in 1965. Soon she was picked out of a dance club on La Cienega to be a go-go dancer on a TV dance show called “Hollywood-A-Go-Go.”
“Mom always said I had a tiger by the tail,” she says, her voice quivering at the memory.
As she grew up, her idol was Marilyn Monroe; she identified with Monroe’s childlike quality and vulnerability. Her childhood dog, coincidentally, had the same name as Monroe’s--Tippy. They were both very popular with men. (“Does that sound egotistical?” a wide-eyed Fairchild asks.)
She made the “Playboy After Dark” TV show, started getting bit parts and began dating singer Danny Hutton of Three Dog Night. She says she was the one who proposed the name after reading an article on how Australian aborigines sleep in holes in the earth and use their dingo dogs for warmth. The coldest evening in the Australian outback, the article said, was called a three-dog night.
Fairchild did about a dozen movies from 1968 to 1978. When she talks about them, she occasionally slips into the present tense. She remembers Rosalind Russell pulling her aside and saying she thought Fairchild would go far. In her best Jack Nicholson impression, she recalls being pestered for weeks by the actor to be the cheerleader in “Drive, He Said.” And she reminisces about her lush place on Laurel Canyon Drive in the Hollywood Hills, before it accidentally burned down when she fell asleep smoking a cigarette.
It was in the midst of all of this that she began dabbling in drugs, eventually starting the decades-long spiral of drinking. She drank through her relationships, which, despite surrounding her in furs and jewels, were often abusive, she says. She gave birth to a daughter who is now 15 and living with another family.
Single and 46, Fairchild moved to downtown Los Angeles into a $350-a-month apartment with “lots of cockroaches and water beetles.” She started making as much as $200 a night working as a taxi dancer, dressed in a black cocktail dress and heels, with her hair pulled up in a French twist.
Her memories of the last few years are murky. She called a former member of Three Dog Night, Chuck Negron, for help at one point, when she was out on the streets, pleading with him that she was “falling and slipping fast.”
Negron knew. He was a former addict who didn’t kick drugs and alcohol until he was nearly 50. They had met when their careers were both taking off. His band would eventually release 12 consecutive gold albums, including the hit “Joy to the World.”
Negron put Fairchild in Cri-Help, the rehabilitation center that helped him kick his habit. It didn’t work for her. Neither did another facility. In between, she started staying overnight at drop-in centers and a few times slept in cardboard boxes with borrowed blankets. Charming some gang members who recognized her as the Ajax lady, she got some protection on the streets. Despite this, she says, she was robbed and raped.
Negron wonders whether Fairchild is honest enough with herself to recover. Her youthfulness could hinder her, he says. She can look in the mirror and say, “I’m not looking too bad; everything’s fine.” The only clue that she’s over 30 are her slightly crooked fingers--the early onset of arthritis.
With childlike defiance, she says she believes her hardships are temporary. She knows this because years ago, while visiting Mae West, she had a psychic reading. Like any 30-year-old wondering about her future, Fairchild asked whether she would ever get married, have a child and make it as an actress.
The psychic’s voice was grave as he told Fairchild that, indeed, she would get married and have a child. He went on to say she would have her own TV series, something she still believes will happen. Imagine Marilyn Monroe’s voice and you can hear June Fairchild saying with a smile that she knew “Up in Smoke” would be her last film for some time, so it had to be memorable for her comeback. “That’s why I made it so that everyone would remember. . . .”
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fa45c2b8a100929e946e86be2fa6bc31 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-feb-22-fi-28719-story.html | Last Plane Out for Aerospace Pioneer | Last Plane Out for Aerospace Pioneer
Almost to the day Donald W. Douglas flew his first plane 80 years ago, the last aircraft to carry his name will be rolled out in Long Beach, ending another chapter of Southern California’s aviation history.
At an elaborate ceremony today at the plant’s main hangar, former McDonnell Douglas Corp. executives, engineers and factory workers will be watching as an MD-11, the last commercial aircraft built under the company name, is delivered to Lufthansa.
“It’s the end of a historic era,” said John C. Brizendine, former McDonnell Douglas president who retired in 1982 after 34 years at the company, which was acquired by Boeing Co. in 1997. “It will be a sad event.”
For Southern California, the delivery of the 200th MD-11, a wide-body with three jet engines, represents another retrenchment of its commercial aircraft industry, which once had massive factories in cities from Burbank to Long Beach to San Diego.
Commercial aircraft manufacturing has dwindled to a single Boeing facility in Long Beach, where about 5,000 workers make the 106-passenger 717 jet that was derived from the original MD-95. In its heyday, the massive Long Beach complex had more than 160,000 workers, producing three or four types of airplanes simultaneously.
“It’s not only the end of an era, it symbolizes the decline of the aerospace industry [in Southern California],” said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. The number of aerospace jobs--most of which provide middle-income salaries--fell from 274,000 in 1988 to 116,800 last year, he said.
Having the MD-11 as the last carrier of the McDonnell Douglas name provides a twist to what many aviation historians believe was the cause of its demise. The aircraft is a modified version of the DC-10, which during the 1970s was involved in one of the industry’s hottest battles with the rival L-1011, which built by what is now Lockheed Martin Corp.
“It is the last of the McDonnell Douglas legacies, but it wasn’t the company’s greatest moment either,” said Richard L. Aboulafia, director of aviation consulting for Teal Group Corp., a Fairfax, Va.-based research firm.
The celebrated competition between the wide-body aircraft left McDonnell Douglas tattered financially and prompted Lockheed to get out of the commercial aircraft business altogether. McDonnell Douglas was eventually forced to look for a suitor when it suffered a second major blow by losing the contract in 1996 to develop the Joint Strike Fighter, the next-generation military aircraft.
“It was a destructive competition, and neither company ever fully recovered from its effects,” wrote John Newhouse in “The Sporty Game,” his book about high-stakes competition in the commercial aircraft industry.
Brizendine, who isn’t sure he’ll attend today’s ceremony, said the two planes were too much alike. Except for the third engine that sits a little differently on the aft fuselage, the DC-10 and the L-1011 were virtually identical in length, width, wingspan and capacity, as well as range, speed, engine thrust and operating costs.
“They were two olives out of the same bottle,” Brizendine said. “The world didn’t need both of them. Both suffered as a result.”
The companies provided deep discounts to airlines to undercut each other, leaving little room for profits. And when the six major airlines split the orders between the two types, there wasn’t enough business for either company. Lockheed lost $2.5 billion before it canceled the L-1011 program.
Subsequent miscalculations and ill-advised decisions doomed the successor to the DC-10, the MD-11, Aboulafia said. Financially strapped, McDonnell Douglas rejected proposals to develop a new mid-range plane, which would have cost at least $2 billion, and instead opted to modify the DC-10.
But as development and production problems plagued the MD-11 and delayed its delivery, Boeing launched its own mid-range airplane, the 767, similar to what McDonnell Douglas engineers had proposed. The Boeing plane started flying just as airline deregulation created greater demand for planes that could fly point-to-point between hub airports.
Staggering out of the gate in 1990, the MD-11 faced another formidable competitor in Airbus Industrie, a European consortium. When Boeing moved ahead with the development of the 777, a wide-body, two-engine jet with modern design and avionics, the MD-11’s end was certain, analysts said. About half of the 199 MD-11’s in service have been modified for cargo service.
The delivery of the last MD-11 comes 80 years after Douglas flew his first plane on Feb. 23, 1921.
With only $600 in his pocket, the New York native had moved to Californiathe year before and started building his first plane, the Cloudster, in the back room of a barber shop on Pico Boulevard in Santa Monica.
In 1922, Douglas moved his operations to an abandoned movie studio on Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica, where he began building Douglas World Cruisers, two of which became the first planes to circle the world. With increasing demand and with World War II looming, Douglas opened a new aircraft assembly plant adjacent to Daugherty Field, now Long Beach Airport, in 1941.
During the war, the plant delivered more than 31,000 aircraft, including the C-47 SkyTrain, the SBD dive bomber, the C-54 transport, A-20 and A-26 attack bombers and B-17 bomber. In all, Douglas--which merged with McDonnell Aircraft, a St. Louis military aircraft maker, in 1967--produced more than 45,000 commercial and military airplanes.
Years later, Douglas was asked why he had chosen California to build his airplanes.
“California has long been a place where I wanted to live . . . because I felt that if there is to be any civilian aeronautics, it will be there that it will first attain real success,” he said.
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
End of an Era
When the last MD-11 trijet is delivered to Lufthansa, it will mark the end of the legacy started by Donald W. Douglas 80 years ago. Since 1920, the company has built more than 45,000 commercial and military airplanes.
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Deliveries of wide-body jets
McDonnell Douglas, now a part of Boeing, was a distant No. 2 competitor in the sale of wide-body aircraft. Sales of the DC-10 and its updated version, the MD-11, totaled just more than half the number of Boeing 747s sold year to date.
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Boeing 747: 1,261
McDonnell Douglas DC-10: 446
McDonnell Douglas MD-11: 200
646 total
Lockheed Martin L-1011: 249
The Legacy of Donald W. Douglas
1920: Donald W. Douglas begins building first plane in the back room of a Pico Blvd. barbershop.
1933: DC-2 twin-engine passenger plane is built.
1936: DC-3, one of the more durable passenger planes, is built. Some still fly today.
1941: Douglas Aircraft builds assembly plant next to Daugherty Field, now Long Beach Airport.
1958: DC-8, a four-engine commercial jet, begins production.
1965: DC-9, a twinjet with aft-mounted engines, begins production.
1967: Douglas Aircraft Co. merges with McDonnell Co. to create McDonnell Douglas.
1968: DC-10, a wide-body trijet, begins production.
1979: DC-10 crashes in Chicago, killing 273 people, then nation’s worst crash.
1980: MD-80 series of twinjets begins production.
1990: MD-11, a wide-body trijet, begins production.
1995: MD-90, a twinjet, begins production.
1997: McDonnell Douglas merges with Boeing.
Feb. 22, 2001: Last MD-11 is delivered.
Source: Boeing Co.
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1bafd03ccaf54d34165c0cd5b4ac3dda | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-feb-25-mn-30003-story.html | Woman’s Disappearance Echoes Earlier Mystery in Nevada Desert | Woman’s Disappearance Echoes Earlier Mystery in Nevada Desert
Down a dead-end road, behind the glitter of the city’s casinos, the fading pink garage doors of a storage business stand closed, their interiors hidden from the desert sun.
Police Det. Mark Reddon has stared at the row of doors, wondering.
He has read the investigative reports, the witness statements. He knows what people have told police about the owner of the storage business and about three people who have vanished.
He wonders if that mystery will ever be unraveled.
“More than likely,” he says, “we’re not going to be able to solve this until we find a body.”
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At first, Diana Leone’s disappearance in February 2000 was hardly noticed. After all, she had left the man she lived with, David Lee Morgan, many times before, but always came back. Months went by and no one seemed to care that the mother of two was gone.
Reddon got the case eight months after the 36-year-old woman was last seen.
Something was off. Morgan, owner of the storage business where he and Leone had lived for years, didn’t want to talk. He told friends his girlfriend had run off with another man.
But as Reddon delved deeper into Morgan’s background, he uncovered a startling mystery: Morgan’s second wife, Marie, had disappeared in 1980 and her lover hadn’t been heard from since.
What had happened to them? And why, 20 years later, did another woman disappear?
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As a businessman, David Lee Morgan was tough, said Keith Grimes, his former business consultant. “When somebody missed their rent he’d take their stuff and throw it away,” Grimes said.
Morgan was a big talker, but Grimes never quite knew if he was serious, especially when he mentioned there was a reason why there were so many bumps in the desert.
Although police said they are investigating Morgan, they aren’t naming him as a suspect.
Morgan didn’t return several phone calls seeking comment. His lawyer, Tom Pitaro, said neither he nor his client would comment.
Diana Leone first met Morgan when she was 17. He was 50. Her sister’s boss introduced the two and soon Leone began working for Morgan at Aabacus Storage, collecting rent and answering the phone.
When she was 19, she moved in with him and his two children from a previous marriage. Soon, the couple had two children of their own. After a few years, the family moved from their home to the second floor of the storage business, not far from the Las Vegas Strip.
Morgan’s company was doing well and he had a furniture moving service, which took him away from home for weeks at a time. Police believe that he is worth $2 million.
The relationship between Morgan and Leone was rocky, said Leone’s best friend, Patty Killian, and her sister, who spoke on condition that her name not be used. Leone had to have reconstructive surgery several times from beatings, they said.
In 1989, Morgan was charged with attempted murder--accused of beating Leone after accusing her of infidelity. She was hospitalized with two broken bones in her right leg, a fractured arm and facial bones.
“David Morgan returned home unexpectedly from an out-of-state trip, and upon entering their residence he hit Diana Miller [Leone] on the right side of her face with a metal pipe,” a police affidavit reads. “David Morgan stated over and over that he was going to kill her.”
But Leone refused to cooperate with the prosecution, and the case was dismissed.
Morgan was arrested again in 1999, charged with battery against Leone.
“Diana stated that David became enraged and slapped her in the face, causing a cut to her left ear,” a police report reads.
Diana told police another fight erupted the next day and “David punched her in the face.” Police found no visible marks on Leone that time.
“Diana stated she had been drinking and was severely intoxicated,” the report said. Again the charge was dismissed, this time after Morgan completed anger management counseling.
Each time Leone and Morgan would fight, Leone’s sister and friend said, she would seek shelter at their homes. But always she returned to Morgan.
Not much was said, or asked, about the whereabouts of Morgan’s second wife, Marie, who vanished in 1980. His first wife is living in Southern California.
But Leone had her suspicions. She told police investigating the 1989 domestic violence case that she was told by David and Marie’s children that Marie was dead.
“The son . . . told me major stuff about where he thinks she’s buried and all the time he used to beat her up,” Leone said in the taped interview.
Leone’s sister used to remind her of Marie’s disappearance, but “she said, ‘I’ll take care of him,’ ” the sister said.
Though they were together 18 years, Leone would never marry Morgan, although he asked.
“Part of it was Marie,” Killian said. “She was a wife and she was never heard from again.”
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What police have is bits and pieces of information, mostly two decades old. Not enough, they said, to bring charges.
In 1980, Marie’s sister, Kim Smith, told detectives what she knew about Marie’s lover, Gabriel Vincent. He disappeared in 1979, when he was 56.
A police search warrant application quotes Smith as saying that Morgan “had confessed to her that he had killed Gabriel Vincent after learning of his affair with Marie.”
“Smith stated that David told her he had waited for Gabriel in the bushes outside the storage units and when Gabriel showed up to meet with him about the affair, David shot Gabriel in the testicles and after making Gabriel suffer, shot and killed him,” the report continues.
“David buried the body and covered it with quick lime,” the police report says, quoting Smith.
Seven months later, Marie disappeared.
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Five years later, in 1985, investigators received another account involving Morgan. His sister, Deloris Morgan, told about the brother she had always feared.
One day in 1980, Morgan called her and asked her to meet him at his home, Deloris Morgan said. A police search warrant continues the story:
“David told her he had shot and killed Marie because she was going to leave him. David informed Deloris that he had taken the body out past Indian Springs and buried the body along the highway.
“David then forced Deloris at gunpoint to go back out to where he had buried the body of Marie and move it. Deloris reported she drove with David to the area of mile marker 124 on Highway 95 and they uncovered a dead body that was tied up in a blanket.
“They moved the body further out into the desert area and buried it in a deeper hole that Deloris helped David dig.
“Deloris stated that some months later David again forced her to return to the grave site. David had filled a 55-gallon drum with water in the back of his truck and drove it out to the grave site. David carried bags of cement out into the desert while he forced Deloris to haul buckets of water so he could pour cement over the grave site.”
But when she tried to show the alleged grave site to detectives in 1985, Deloris couldn’t find the location. A search of a two-mile surrounding area found no clues. Recent searches by volunteers turned up nothing.
David Morgan, now 70, never gave a statement to police, and Reddon isn’t sure if police ever contacted him. The case is so old that the original detectives are dead and so is Deloris. She died in 1997.
Diana Leone told her sister that she thought Marie’s body had been relocated to a house they lived in before she and Morgan moved in above the storage business.
“She had told her sister that she thought the house was haunted because David had buried Marie under the house,” Reddon said.
The house has been demolished, but the concrete slab remains. Police said they plan to search with radar equipment.
Despite the detailed statements, the investigation quickly stalled. Morgan was never charged. No search warrants were sought for the house and storage units, police said, because detectives lacked any substantial evidence to support the stories of Smith and Deloris Morgan.
“Back then it was probably harder to convince a jury of a homicide without a body,” Reddon said. “Nowadays you’ve seen it more frequently. It was pretty much unheard of back in the ‘80s.”
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In November, police went to Morgan’s home above the storage shed with a search warrant seeking human remains, bloodstains on the carpet and Leone’s car.
Her car was there and blood drops were on the carpet in the house, but there were no human remains. The carpet is being tested to see if the blood belongs to Leone.
While police were there, David and Diana’s 6-year-old daughter, Lea, drew pictures for detectives--a dog, a heart, a girl.
Reddon said: “When she handed the drawings to the sergeant, she said, ‘Do you know where my mommy is?’ ”
The child also told detectives about a fight that her parents had shortly before the last time she saw her mother, according to a police report.
“Lea stated they were arguing over David’s belief that Diana was having an extramarital affair. . . .,” it says. “Lea stated that David shoved Diana through a plate glass window in the patio area of the home and then smashed Diana’s head into the refrigerator.
“After the fight Lea remembers that a large square of carpet was removed from her mother’s bedroom.”
“Lea asked me if I miss her mommy as much as she does,” Killian said. “I told her that wherever she is, I’m sure that she still loves her.”
Wherever Diana Leone is, wherever Marie Morgan is, wherever Gabriel Vincent is, the detective isn’t sure.
“What we’re missing is the body,” Reddon said. “We haven’t been able to find the last one. There’s a good chance we’re not going to find this one.”
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4bdb5c1df6c39b423aa28361f4c8b104 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-feb-27-me-30917-story.html | Actor Perry of ‘Friends’ Enters Rehab Hospital | Actor Perry of ‘Friends’ Enters Rehab Hospital
Actor Matthew Perry, co-star of the NBC sitcom “Friends,” has reentered an alcohol and drug rehabilitation center, marking another in a recent spate of health problems for the actor.
“Following the advice of his doctors, Matthew Perry has entered an undisclosed rehabilitation hospital,” Perry’s publicist, Lisa Kasteler, said in a statement. “He appreciates everyone’s concern and thanks them for respecting his privacy.”
The statement, released Monday, caught both NBC and Warner Bros. Television, which produces the hit sitcom, off guard. The show is in production this week. Officials would not comment on whether Perry’s absence would cause any disruption.
Perry is an integral part of the show’s direction this season, in which his character, Chandler Bing, is engaged to Monica Geller, played by Courteney Cox.
“Friends” was already scheduled to air several reruns over the next two months.
In a joint statement, NBC, Warner Bros. and Bright, Kauffman & Crane, the production entity behind the series, did not specifically address how Perry’s absence would be handled creatively, saying only: “The show will remain in production and original episodes will continue to air as scheduled on NBC.”
Perry, 31, had been splitting his time between the “Friends” set and the set of his upcoming Paramount Pictures release, “Servicing Sara,” with Elizabeth Hurley.
“Friends,” which has been airing in 40-minute installments as part of a February ratings sweeps maneuver, is the No. 1 comedy in prime time, with an average of 20 million viewers per week. Last year, Perry and his cast mates signed to do two more seasons of the series, for an estimated $44 million apiece.
Perry’s health has been the subject of rumors before. Last May, speculation swirled in the tabloids that Perry, whose weight has visibly fluctuated over the years on “Friends,” was in need of a liver transplant, a claim Perry denied.
The rumors followed the actor’s stay at Cedars Sinai Hospital for treatment of severe flu and stomach pains, according to Kasteler. The day he was released from the hospital, he wrecked his Porsche after swerving to avoid another car on a narrow Hollywood Hills street and crashed into a porch. Police said there was no evidence of wrongdoing.
In 1997, Perry checked into the Hazelden rehab center in Minnesota to treat an addiction to the painkiller Vicodin, the actor later told TV Guide.
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44f16b8efd93db51225953b748e790b0 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-feb-28-me-31376-story.html | 2 Convicted in $18.9-Million Cash Robbery | 2 Convicted in $18.9-Million Cash Robbery
A federal jury convicted two men Tuesday of taking part in one of the biggest armed robberies in Los Angeles history--the seizure of $18.9 million in cash from the Dunbar Armored truck depot in the downtown factory district.
Jurors returned guilty verdicts against Allen Pace III, a former Dunbar security officer accused of masterminding the 1997 robbery, and Erik Damon Boyd, one of several accomplices in the daring holdup.
Since cracking the case two years ago, a task force of FBI and IRS agents and Los Angeles police detectives has recovered about $5 million worth of the loot, mostly in the form of homes, cars and other valuables purchased by the bandits.
“Unfortunately, despite their extraordinary efforts, over $10 million is still unaccounted for,” said U.S. Atty. Alejandro N. Mayorkas. “I encourage anyone with information about these funds to contact the FBI.”
The rest of the stolen money is believed to have been squandered by the robbers at gambling tables in Las Vegas or burned by them because many bills were sequentially numbered and could be easily traced.
Pace, 30, of Compton, lowered his head as U.S. District Judge Lourdes Baird read the verdicts. He glanced back several times at his wife, who wept quietly in the spectator gallery. Under federal sentencing guidelines, he and Boyd, 29, of Buena Park, face up to 20 years in prison.
Four accomplices who previously pleaded guilty testified against the pair during the three-week trial, as did Boyd’s father, who told jurors that his son had confessed to him.
Pace recruited the other defendants and provided them with a floor plan, photographs and a key to the Dunbar depot on Mateo Street, along with radio headsets that enabled them to talk to each other, said Assistant U.S. Attys. Alka Sagar and Ruth C. Pinkel, who prosecuted the case.
Following Pace’s instructions, the prosecutors said, the robbery team assembled on the evening of Sept. 12, 1997, at a house party in Long Beach, a ruse designed to establish alibis.
After a few hours, they slipped away, changed into black clothing and masks, and drove to the Dunbar depot, where they entered through a side door shortly after midnight.
Once inside, they began rounding up the few employees who were on duty during the overnight shift. The workers were ordered to lie face down on the floor and their hands and feet were bound with duct tape.
With Pace leading the way, prosecutors said, the armed robbers advanced on the vault area, tied up several more employees and, using bolt cutters, broke the padlocks on metal cages containing the depot’s cash.
Most of the currency consisted of $20 bills, destined for drop-offs at automated teller machines throughout the Los Angeles area.
The robbers tossed the money into metal carts, which they wheeled to the building’s loading dock and dumped into a U-Haul truck that one of them had rented for the robbery.
Before departing, they smashed all of the security video cameras inside the depot and seized the videotapes. As a security officer, Pace was intimately familiar with the depot’s videotaping system, prosecutors said.
Afterward, the robbers drove to one defendant’s apartment, changed into dress clothes and returned to the party.
Investigators searching the Dunbar loading dock area after the robbery found a plastic taillight lens that did not belong to any company vehicles. The FBI forensics lab in Washington was able to match the lens to those used on 14-foot-long U-Haul trucks.
But the clue was of little value until an informant identified Eugene Lamar Hill Jr., 34, of Bellflower, as a suspect in the robbery two years later. In short order, detectives determined that Hill had rented a 14-foot U-Haul truck a day before the heist and had returned it a day later.
When he was arrested, Hill had in his possession a stack of bills bearing the same money wrappers as those taken in the Dunbar robbery. Hill confessed and led authorities to the other suspects.
Pace testified in his own defense during the trial and denied planning the robbery or taking part in it. He suggested that he had been framed by one of the other defendants “because I was messing with his wife.”
Boyd did not take the stand, but his father, Steve, testified against him. Prosecutors said the elder Boyd laundered about $177,000 in cash for his son through the father’s business. Steve Boyd testified that his son initially told him the money came from a drug deal, but later admitted that it was stolen from the Dunbar Armored depot.
The jury deliberated three days before returning the guilty verdicts. Pace and Boyd are scheduled to be sentenced April 23. Also awaiting sentencing in the robbery are Hill, Freddie Lynn McCrary Jr., 30, of Arleta, Terry Wayne Brown Sr., 38, of Los Angeles, and Thomas Lee Johnson, 28, of Las Vegas, all of whom had pleaded guilty.
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0aa68c8990c949f3f0213662926ff171 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jan-04-me-8097-story.html | The ‘Right of Return’ Dashes All Hope | The ‘Right of Return’ Dashes All Hope
Yasser Arafat’s refusal to abandon the “right of return” of several million Palestinian refugees to Israel proper belies his tentative acceptance of President Clinton’s final Middle East peace proposal.
The Oslo peace process was based on the assumption that, at the moment of truth, Arafat would sacrifice the dream of displacing the Jewish state with Greater Palestine in exchange for a more modest Palestinian state alongside Israel. But by insisting on the right of return--even after the Barak government has accepted almost total withdrawal to the 1967 lines and Palestinian sovereignty in East Jerusalem--the Palestinian leadership has proved that its recognition of Israel’s legitimacy has been merely tactical all along.
The right of return is a euphemism for the destruction of Israel through demographic assault: Overwhelmed with bitter Palestinian refugees raised on hatred, the Jewish state would implode. Arafat’s peace offer, then, is predicated on Israel’s agreement to self-destruct.
By entrusting the peace process to the Palestine Liberation Organization, the architects of the Oslo accords ensured their ultimate failure. That is because the PLO--which was founded in 1964, three years before the West Bank and Gaza fell into Israeli hands--has always represented the refugees of 1948. Arafat cannot abandon the right of return because he has built his whole career on its fulfillment.
Even left-wing Israelis are horrified by the right of return. In an anguished open letter to the Palestinian leadership, 33 of Israel’s most prominent doves recently wrote: “The meaning of such a return would be the elimination of the state of Israel. Massive return of the Palestinian refugees to Israel would conflict with the right to self-determination of the Jewish people.”
Indeed, the right of return--not to a new Palestinian state but to Israel--negates the the logic of a two-state solution, in which each state is empowered to bring its diaspora home.
A Palestinian return to Israeli territory would mean that Israel would become a binational Arab-Jewish state, even as an exclusively Arab-Palestinian state, emptied of Jewish settlers, emerges next door. The symbolic meaning of the return is no less significant than its practical implications. The Palestinian leadership insists on Israeli admission of exclusive responsibility for the creation of the refugee problem. That, of course, would ignore the real tragedy of the Middle East conflict, which is the story of two traumatized peoples clinging to the same patch of land.
But the Arabs want to evade responsibility for rejecting the 1947 U.N. partition plan and launching the subsequent war against Israel. Of the 600,000 Palestinian refugees created by the 1948 war, many fled the fighting on their own initiative while others were expelled by the Israeli army. Any solution to the refugee problem would need to accommodate both Arab and Israeli culpability.
By attempting to compel Israel to accept exclusive blame, the Palestinians intend to discredit the very founding of the Jewish state, which they still see as a crime. And they would continue to see themselves as an innocent-victim people, without any responsibility for its fate.
In fact, a population exchange between Israel and the Arab world occurred in the late 1940s and 1950s, an exchange similar to that in 1947 between India and Pakistan. Israel absorbed from Arab countries nearly a million Jewish refugees, most of whom had their property confiscated.
Those Jews are no longer refugees because Israel took responsibility for its own people. By contrast, after six years of Palestinian self-government in Gaza, virtually nothing has been done to alleviate the plight of Gaza’s refugees despite massive infusion of foreign aid. Palestinian leaders are deliberately maintaining their people’s misery to pressure Israel and to win international sympathy.
There was a time when the Israelis tried to exclusively appropriate justice for their side and denied the Palestinian narrative. Today, though, only a die-hard minority insists the Palestinians have no case.
True, half a century of sovereignty has allowed Israel to mature, while the Palestinian community remains at an earlier stage of national development, still struggling for statehood. Yet Palestinian self-pity has now become the greatest obstacle to achieving statehood. And those offering uncritical sympathy to the Palestinians are inadvertently reinforcing their self-destructive victim complex.
Friends of the Palestinians should ask them this question: Do you want a state that will alleviate your people’s suffering, or is your real goal the destruction of Israel?
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966f321589051508354c4814ba5e609b | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jan-05-ca-8460-story.html | New Year Brings New Identity for KIEV | New Year Brings New Identity for KIEV
On New Year’s Day, conservative all-talk station KIEV-AM (870) officially changed to KRLA, reviving the call letters that had been at 1110 on the AM dial since 1959. But at the new KRLA, the name change is taking some getting used to. KRLA’s receptionist drops a quarter in a jar on her desk every time she answers the phone “K-I-E-V.”
"[Tuesday] she had to pay $2 to work at the station,” chuckled station spokeswoman Mary Anderson-Harris.
It was only last month that Los Angeles radio station KRLA-AM changed its format and call letters, and no doubt many listeners thought the long-time institution was gone for good. As it happens, KRLA has only moved--a little to the left on the radio dial, and a little to the right on the political spectrum.
“The call letters are legendary in Los Angeles, and we didn’t want them to leave,” said Dave Armstrong, vice president and general manager of KIEV/KRLA, as well as the other four Glendale-based stations owned by Salem Communications Corp. In addition, he said, “our belief is that KRLA is far better known than the KIEV call letters are. It at least gives you a higher level of recognition.”
The name became available last month, after Infinity Broadcasting Corp. sold KRLA-AM (1110) to the Walt Disney Co., and the latter changed the station from all-talk to one of its ESPN Radio all-sports outlets. Along with the format change Dec. 1 came a new name, KSPN.
That same day, Salem’s attorney in Washington, D.C., applied to the Federal Communications Commission to let KIEV have the old call letters, Armstrong said. There was no charge, only paperwork to file. And because KIEV was the first to ask, at 6 a.m. during its Jan. 1 Rose Parade broadcast, the station made it official, announcing it was now “News Talk 870, the New KRLA, Your Legendary Talk Station.”
“When KRLA became available, you had an opportunity to get call letters already well-known in the marketplace,” Armstrong said. “I don’t think people listen to a station necessarily because of what the call letters are. The loyalty is to the programming. But for the people who don’t know, who haven’t discovered the station, the call letters offer more recognition.”
Now the station will “start fresh and relaunch,” he said, with changes in commercials, community events to raise its profile and an advertising campaign designed to build toward spring ratings.
*
When Salem bought KIEV in September 1998, it turned a station that primarily featured canned infomercials into one that now offers 22 hours of talk radio a day, with much of the programming originating locally. In the last six months, it has settled its lineup, with nationally known personalities Hugh Hewitt and Dennis Prager joining local hosts George Putnam and Larry Marino, as well as the syndicated show of conservative movie reviewer and commentator Michael Medved.
But that also means the new KRLA has no room or inclination to add two talk-radio hosts left without homes on Los Angeles airwaves when the old KRLA changed to sports--Don Imus and Michael Jackson. That, even though the station did bring over chef Jamie Gwen and her weekend cooking show from the old KRLA.
“We are a conservative talk station, so that’s consistent throughout the day,” Armstrong said.
In addition, Salem owns the Medved, Prager and Hewitt shows, Armstrong said, “and Los Angeles is a very important market for all three of those programs. That’s why we wouldn’t put someone else in place of those.”
“I wish KIEV well,” said Jackson, an L.A. talk-radio fixture who said he’s weighing other options. “I’m so glad they got rid of those call letters. I’ve always thought it was funny that a right-wing station had the name of a Russian town [Kiev].”
Armstrong said there was no significance to the old name. To the founders of the station “the FCC said, ‘You have to pick four letters,’ and those are the four they picked.”
The old KRLA started as Pasadena-based KPAS in 1942, becoming KXLA in 1945 and then KRLA in 1959. Before it went to talk radio in 1998, KRLA was one of the main purveyors of Top 40 and pop music in Los Angeles for nearly 40 years. It featured Wolfman Jack, “the Real” Don Steele, Casey Kasem, Bob Eubanks, Charlie Tuna, Wink Martindale, Shadoe Stevens and many others among its disc jockeys. And it was the first station in Los Angeles to play the Beatles, bringing them to the Hollywood Bowl in the ‘60s.
The same songs that were pop and Top 40 in the ‘50s and ‘60s became oldies, as KRLA continued playing them into the ‘70s and ‘80s. Then in November 1998, the station changed with the tide that had carried almost all music to the FM dial, leaving AM mainly to talk radio.
For Salem, capturing a station name it wants is nothing new. The Camarillo-based company that owns more than 70 stations nationwide and is best known for its Christian music and talk programming, debuted “The Fish,” KFSH-FM (95.9) in Orange County in August. Wanting to name the Contemporary Christian music station after the traditional symbol of Christianity, the fish, Salem bought the rights to KFSH from an AM station in Alaska for $10,000, Armstrong said.
The new/old name, KRLA, “is obviously more appropriate,” Jackson said. “And I’m glad that the call sign is being preserved. I hope it wears it well. We need some good talk radio.”
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9595e9d520d03824629954aaf24322b0 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jan-06-ca-8877-story.html | Best, Worst of Times for Eminem | Best, Worst of Times for Eminem
Two days after rapper Eminem enjoyed the most shining moment to date in his controversial and young career by receiving a Grammy nomination for best album, prosecutors in Michigan restated their intention to put the superstar behind bars, suggesting that Eminem’s most important looming contest is one that does not involve trophies.
The rapper--born Marshall Mathers III--faces felony assault and weapons charges in two Michigan counties, and in one of those jurisdictions, Macomb County, the prosecutor has pledged to seek “significant jail time.”
And, with the controversial star due to face a Macomb judge on Valentine’s Day to possibly enter a plea, he could attend the Grammys on Feb. 21 at Staples Center under the shadow of a possible sentencing hearing.
William Harding, chief of operations for the Macomb County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, said Friday that “the nature of the offense, the fact that it involved a weapon, that means we will ask for some incarceration.” If Eminem pleads guilty on Feb. 14, as expected by many observers, he would return to court to be sentenced some time in March or perhaps April.
It has often been said that Eminem follows in the footsteps of rebellious pop-rock stars--such as Elvis Presley, the Rolling Stones and Madonna--who became heroes to youth and moral villains to many parents. Now, the rapper is joining another long lineage: music stars who have run afoul of the law.
The fallout varies. Chuck Berry’s career was badly wounded in 1961 when he was sentenced to 20 months in jail for transporting an underage girl across state lines, but the Doors’ Jim Morrison’s 1969 arrest for indecent exposure only reinforced his lusty Lizard King persona.
In the modern era, rappers have become criminal defendants so frequently that it generally makes headlines not as news, but as more fodder for culture critics who say the music glorifies the thug life, drugs and guns.
And Eminem, of course, is the new favorite target of activists and concerned parents, as evidenced by the angry phone calls that jammed lines at the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences moments after Eminem’s best album nomination was announced Wednesday. Many of those callers would be thrilled if Eminem is behind bars on the big night.
The rapper faces charges of assault with a deadly weapon and carrying a concealed weapon that stem from an alleged June 4 attack on a man seen kissing Eminem’s wife at a nightclub in Warren, Mich. Eminem is accused of hitting the man with an unloaded gun. If found guilty, the maximum prison sentence would be five years.
He also faces a felony and misdemeanor gun charge in nearby Oakland County for another alleged June 4 confrontation, this one with an associate of the rival rap duo Insane Clown Posse. That case also carries a maximum sentence of five years, but the prosecutor has said a guilty plea will likely lead only to probation.
That is not the case, however, in Macomb County, where prosecutor Carl Malinga was quoted in the Detroit Free-Press saying he would be “asking the judge to consider jail time of six months to one year.” The prosecutor did not return calls to be interviewed for this story.
Eminem attorney Brian Legghio says the sentence Malinga cited would far exceed the standard punishment for first-time offenders who are found guilty of similar offenses in the jurisdiction. Eminem has no criminal record.
“That statement was made by a prosecutor who was running for reelection in November, and I have no doubt that statement was part of his campaign rhetoric,” Legghio said. “He selected a defendant and targeted him completely for who he was, which cuts against the grain of the rights of due process and to a fair trial.”
First-Time Offender
The state sentencing guidelines list between zero and 17 months of jail time as a suggested sentencing window for judges, Legghio says, but it’s “not uncommon” for a sentence of probation for a first-time offender such as Eminem.
Stephen Rabaut, past president of the Macomb County Bar Assn., said that as he surveys the case from a distance he doesn’t see jail time as a likely result.
“In either county, in my opinion, Mr. Mathers would not serve jail time for these offenses and nor should he,” Rabaut said. “I represented people in harsher situations who did not. In 10 cases similar to this you would see this pled out to misdemeanor in a lower court.”
Prosecutors in both Oakland and Macomb counties have said they will not consider plea bargains that would downgrade the charges and quickly resolve the cases.
There is also pressure on defense attorneys to not take the Macomb case to a jury trial. Malinga chose not to file a charge of using a firearm in a felony, an enhancement that would raise the stakes considerably--with a conviction, that offense calls for a mandatory two-year prison sentence on its own.
The possibility that prosecutors could still file that extra charge puts pressure on Eminem’s lawyers to enter a guilty plea instead of opting for a trial that might introduce the wild-card element of star-struck jurors deciding the rapper’s guilt or innocence.
That star power was on full display during Eminem’s earlier court appearances in the Michigan cases, when giddy teens snapped his picture and young fans--some brought by their parents--cheered the rapper’s name outside the courthouse.
About 8 million fans have scooped up copies of Eminem’s “The Marshall Mathers LP,” and legions of music critics have lauded it as a raw, satirical masterpiece. But the album is also reviled in many quarters for profanity-laced lyrics with graphic violent and sexual images, and Eminem has been accused of advocating violence toward women and gays.
The former view was given a big boost with the Grammy nods announced Wednesday, which include a best album nomination that will see “Mathers” vie against works by Beck, Paul Simon, Steely Dan and Radiohead.
Geoff Mayfield, director of charts for Billboard, said that arrests seem to have little effect on the popularity of rap artists because the genre is so steeped in a gritty street experience.
Jay-Z, DMX, Snoop Dogg and the late Tupac Shakur are just some of the rappers who have faced criminal charges but did not seem to suffer any ill effects with their fan base.
“Tupac was the first artist to debut at No. 1 on the charts while serving time,” Mayfield notes. “In that case and with others, [legal troubles] have either been a non-factor or even helped by stirring up some interest. This is not exactly an audience offended by nefarious activities.”
Sometimes the criminal cases do complicate the career pursuits for other reasons.
Public Opinion
Sean “Puffy” Combs, for instance, is scheduled to appear in court Jan. 17 to face weapons charges in New York that carry a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison. The case stems from a 1999 shooting at a Times Square nightclub where three people were injured, and a Combs associate has been indicted for attempted murder.
That case and an unrelated, high-profile assault charge did not seem to help or hurt the album sales of Combs--observers agree that those sales were sliding because of bad reviews and loss of connection with fans--but they have created a volatile situation with Combs’ other job: A conviction could have a devastating effect on the entrepreneur’s future at Bertelsmann Music Group, where he operates a joint venture label with BMG’s Arista division.
Sources inside BMG have said the German entertainment conglomerate will probably sever ties with Combs’ Bad Boy Records if he is convicted. Even if the record label weathered a conviction, Combs would legally not be able to operate Bad Boy from prison.
So while criminal charges may not hurt rappers in the court of public opinion, industry insiders say it’s a whole different matter in the world of boardrooms and bottom lines.
“It’s all a terrible nuisance to the record labels,” says Bill Adler, a media consultant who was publicity director for rap-pioneering Def Jam Records from 1984 through 1990. “I think fans are essentially indifferent to it if they pay attention at all, but it’s a headache for the labels. It isn’t good for business.”
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b6828de30291e593cf673bb2a3e4c8b5 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jan-07-mn-9426-story.html | Objections Aside, a Smiling Gore Certifies Bush | Objections Aside, a Smiling Gore Certifies Bush
In an ironic final chapter to the most disputed presidential election in modern history, Vice President Al Gore presided over his own defeat Saturday, as a joint session of Congress formally declared George W. Bush the next president of the United States.
“May God bless our new president and new vice president, and may God bless the United States of America,” Gore said at the end of a two-hour proceeding at the Capitol that was held to certify the state-by-state votes of the electoral college.
Compared to the agonizing 36 days of doubt and confusion that followed the Nov. 7 election, Saturday’s proceeding was almost anticlimactic, its final outcome never in doubt.
More than a dozen Democratic lawmakers, most of them members of the Congressional Black Caucus, formally objected to the certification of Florida’s electoral votes and walked out on the proceedings because of what Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas) described as “the millions of Americans who have been disenfranchised by Florida’s inaccurate vote count.”
But because the objectors failed to recruit a single senator to join their cause, under congressional rules they were unable to open debate on the Florida controversy.
So it was left to Gore, who presided over the event in his duties as president of the Senate, to overrule their objections one by one, ensuring that Florida’s 25 electoral votes would be certified for Bush.
“Is the point of order signed by a senator?” Gore asked each of the Democrats in succession as they brought their objections.
“I don’t care that it is not signed by a senator,” answered Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), who was among those who walked out.
Gore quickly overruled her. “You will be advised that the rules do care,” he said.
A few minutes later, an exasperated Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) told Gore, “It’s a sad day in America when we can’t find a senator to sign these objections.”
Gore said he was powerless under parliamentary rules to do anything about it.
“The chair thanks the gentleman from Illinois, but hey . . . .” He paused and shrugged his shoulders, drawing laughter from members of Congress and listeners in a chamber that appeared only half-filled.
Indeed, amid all the parliamentary procedure, Gore managed to mix in a good bit of self-effacing humor and emotion.
When one vote counter had difficulty reading a tally for a state that the vice president had won, a smiling Gore volunteered: “I’ll tell you what it says.”
And he pumped his fist in the air when California’s 54 votes were awarded to him and his running mate, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.).
Gore’s face was emotionless, however, as he called for the votes from his home state of Tennessee, which could have put him over the top. Its 11 votes went to Bush.
After the tallies for all 50 states and the District of Columbia were unsealed from two ornately carved lockboxes and read aloud, Gore announced the final results.
“George W. Bush of the state of Texas has received for the president of the United States 271 votes. Al Gore of the state of Tennessee has received 268 votes,” Gore said. A total of 270 electoral votes was needed to win.
In an election filled with historical oddities, this too was an unusual spectacle.
No vice president defeated for the White House has presided over his opponent’s certification since Richard Nixon did so in 1961 after losing to John F. Kennedy. In 1969, Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey had the chance to certify Nixon’s victory, but he declined.
If the event signaled Bush’s formal coronation, it also marked a graceful and conciliatory exit from the national stage for Gore, at least for now.
Republicans and Democrats alike applauded him roundly at the beginning and end of the event. Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove), whose planned fund-raiser at the Playboy Mansion last summer caused a flap before the Democratic National Convention, approached him midway through the vote count to give him a kiss. Members of Congress introduced their children to Gore after the proceedings, congressional pages and staffers lined up for autographs, and the parliamentarian got him to sign the gavel that he used to convene the meeting.
And through it all, Gore kept smiling.
“We did all we could!” Rep. Alcee L. Hastings (D-Fla.), one of the lawmakers who lodged objections over Florida’s tally, called out to Gore during the proceedings.
“The chair thanks the gentleman from Florida,” Gore answered with a smile.
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3e7e2ae80f54b070f4e08bab33e124c4 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jan-09-fi-10087-story.html | In Disney Experiment, Spanish Speakers Prefer English ‘Groove’ | In Disney Experiment, Spanish Speakers Prefer English ‘Groove’
Don’t expect to see the Spanish language version of your favorite new movie at a theater near you any time soon.
Disney’s effort to lure Spanish speakers with a dubbed version of its animated movie “The Emperor’s New Groove” flopped. Although Latino audiences showed up to see the movie, they largely passed over the Spanish version in favor of the English one. The simultaneous release in 16 Los Angeles-area multiplexes was a first large-scale effort by any Hollywood studio to broaden its moviegoing base among Latinos.
Still, the experiment provides insight into an elusive Latino market that appears to prefer unaltered versions of American movies.
“I would rather see it in English,” said Pedro Nungaray, who went to the El Monte Edwards Cinemas on New Year’s Eve with his wife and 5-year-old daughter--both of whom speak more Spanish than English. “When the movies are changed to the Spanish version, they lose a lot in translation.”
Nearly half the prime moviegoing audience in Los Angeles is Latino, according to recent data, and Latinos nationwide are the fastest-growing audience segment among ethnic groups. Although a majority of Latinos are bilingual or prefer Spanish, the experiment reveals that dubbed prints may not be the way to attract them.
“It is an unbelievably big audience that we’re going to continue to mine in a variety of ways,” said Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group Chairman Richard Cook, adding that the studio isn’t likely to release dubbed versions again.
According to Cook, the dubbed “Emperor” drew less than one-fifth of the audience that the English-language versions generated at the same theaters.
For the 19 days beginning with the film’s Dec. 15 release, the Spanish versions had total ticket sales of $96,000 versus $571,000 for the English-language prints at those theaters. After the second week, the multiplexes pulled the Spanish versions from dedicated screens, showing the film instead at select times on the same screens where the English versions played.
It has now been pulled entirely from seven AMC locations and is available only in single daily showings at most other venues.
“The Latino audience clearly came out for the movie, but that audience definitely preferred to see it in English,” said Cook, noting that the English version of the film played well in heavily Latino neighborhoods.
Other studios had said they would watch the Disney trial closely.
The experiment came with little financial risk to Disney, which routinely dubs its animated fare for international release and spent only $250,000 for the prints, dubbing and advertising, Cook said.
Theater owners, however, reluctantly agreed to the experiment at a time when many are in financial straits and during the second-busiest moviegoing season of the year.
“We started out dedicating a screen for an entire week and a holiday week, so we made a pretty big commitment,” said Rick King, spokesman for Kansas City-based AMC. “We subsequently scaled back due to demand.”
There has been little in-depth study of Latino moviegoing habits, and studios have made only spotty attempts to cater to Spanish speakers, with largely poor results. Even Disney was armed with little more than U.S. census data. But the sheer mass of bilingual Latinos in the region is no guarantee of success with Spanish prints.
In recent years, studios have discovered that targeting bilingual Latinos through advertising and promotion in Spanish is critical, but showing the movies in Spanish may not be.
Myrna Evangelista, 21, read about the dubbed movie in Spanish-language media. But the former El Monte resident who now lives in Mexico opted to take her 10-year-old brother to the English version instead.
The actors and consequently the characters’ voices are different in Spanish versions, she said, leaving her with the sense that the movie has been altered.
Wendy Medrano, the El Monte Edwards Cinemas assistant manager, said customers applauded the effort as “important to their culture.” Yet on New Year’s Eve, the 5:30 dubbed showing played to an empty house.
To be sure, the experiment was not a complete wash. At the Pacific Theaters in Commerce, attendance was split nearly evenly between the dubbed and English versions, with the Spanish one playing better on most Saturdays, said theater manager Jorge Escobar.
Those theaters, planted in a shopping mall filled with immigrant-owned businesses, have been booking Spanish subtitled prints for nearly a decade so customers are accustomed to having choices there, Escobar said.
On Sunday, the theater showed subtitled prints of “Dracula 2000,” “Cast Away,” “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas,” and “102 Dalmatians,” along with the dubbed “Emperor.”
Margarito Valentin and his wife, Mireya Navarette, came to see “Emperor” in Spanish because, after four years here, their English is still weak. Reading subtitles makes it difficult to view the action, said Valentin, but with the dubbed animated movie, “you can concentrate on the drawings.”
Other bilingual parents came with small children. Although the kids are U.S. born, they are not yet fluent in English because Spanish is spoken at home.
“My baby doesn’t speak English and neither does my wife,” said Ismael Hernandez, whose 3-year-old son nevertheless goes to the movies about twice a month. “It’s better for us to see it in Spanish.”
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bcc1b589a6cb73d7168aa4f9d3b64c02 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jan-20-mn-14817-story.html | Friend Expecting His Baby, S.F. Mayor Brown Says | Friend Expecting His Baby, S.F. Mayor Brown Says
Mayor Willie Brown, one of California’s best-known and most controversial politicians, is having a baby with his chief fund-raiser, an aide acknowledged Friday.
The 66-year-old grandfather, who is separated from his longtime wife, Blanche, is expecting a daughter in late April or May, said P.J. Johnston, the mayor’s spokesman. Brown and his wife have been separated for nearly 20 years.
The expectant mother, 38-year-old Carolyn Carpeneti, could not be reached for comment Friday.
Brown also would not comment on his impending fatherhood. But Johnston said the mayor notified his wife, his three grown children and close friends of the news several weeks ago.
“Mayor Brown has been fairly open about his marital status and how he lives his life,” Johnston said. “He’s happy about this new development. He’s completely supportive of of Miss Carpeneti. But beyond that, this is really a private matter between the two of them.”
Brown was in Washington, D.C., this week attending a gathering of the National Conference of Mayors. On Thursday, he told San Francisco Chronicle columnist Phil Matier he has no immediate plans to get divorced or to marry Carpeneti.
“I wouldn’t burden her with that,” he told the newspaper. “This was something certainly not planned, and to be honest, it’s something that I never in my life expected to happen at [this] age.”
The news about Brown came one day after prominent civil rights activist and two-time presidential candidate Jesse Jackson admitted that he had fathered a daughter during an extramarital relationship.
Brown told the Chronicle he is making no excuses about his relationship with Carpeneti. “There is nothing unseemly about this at all,” he told the newspaper. “She’s a great friend.”
Added Johnston: “She isn’t a city employee. She’s a private businesswoman, a fund-raiser and an events planner.”
Some San Franciscans were shocked by the news.
“That dirty old man!” said Nanette Enriel, a 47-year-old mortgage loan processor. “Like every other politician, he thinks he can get away with whatever he wants. I just wish he’d start acting his age.”
Businesswoman Jules Grey disagreed. “I say live and let live,” she said. “He’s committed no crime.”
At City Hall on Friday, the mayor’s expected baby was a much-discussed topic.
“Like the mayor, I think this is a personal matter,” said newly elected Supervisor Aaron Peskin. “But around City Hall, I’ve seen some raised eyebrows and large smiles.”
Johnston was critical of a Chronicle report detailing how the mayor’s reelection committee paid Carpeneti’s company $380,000 for recent fund-raising services. She also received $181,000 from a political group aligned with the mayor, the paper said. The aide said the payments were legitimate.
“We’re not concerned about it, but if others want to raise this as an issue that’s their choice,” Johnston said.
Peskin said he had heard of no move at City Hall to investigate the arrangement. “But if I was one of this political group’s campaign contributors,” he said, “I’d be wondering where my money went.”
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088bf0b298d3f4ef01ac2c053ce12eed | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jan-21-mn-15140-story.html | Clinton Pardons McDougal and Hearst but Not Milken | Clinton Pardons McDougal and Hearst but Not Milken
In his final hours as president, Bill Clinton on Saturday granted pardons to 140 Americans, including Patricia Hearst, an heiress kidnapped in the 1970s; his half-brother, Roger, who was convicted on drug charges; and Susan McDougal, who spent 18 months in jail rather than testify about the Clintons’ role in the Whitewater scandal.
Former Housing Secretary Henry G. Cisneros, ex-CIA Director John M. Deutch and former Arizona Gov. Fife Symington also received last-minute pardons.
But Clinton chose not to pardon financier Michael Milken, who pleaded guilty in 1990 to six counts of securities fraud. Milken’s request for a pardon had been championed by influential business and political figures.
In the end, strong opposition from law enforcement and the investment community--including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. attorney in New York--convinced the president that Milken did not deserve a pardon, according to a former administration official who asked not to be identified.
“A lot of influential people on Wall Street weighed in against the pardon,” the official said. “The press obsession with Milken and whether he was going to get a pardon was out of proportion.”
Milken, who heard of the decision early Saturday at his Encino home, is optimistic that one day he will be pardoned, said his spokesman, Geoffrey Moore.
“This man is never bitter,” Moore said. “He’s been through a lot worse than this. I’m sure he would have preferred another decision, but he never looks back.”
Ari Swiller, a spokesman for Ron Burkle, the Los Angeles grocery magnate who spearheaded Milken’s pardon efforts, would not comment on whether a campaign for a Milken pardon will continue. Burkle, who heads the Yucaipa Management Co., is a close friend of Clinton and one of his early campaign contributors.
“We don’t want to judge the process,” Burkle said. “On the good side, this has provided the opportunity for more people to know of Mike’s philanthropic efforts.”
The White House had been expected to announce its final pardons Friday, but Clinton was preoccupied with a more pressing issue--a deal with Whitewater independent counsel Robert W. Ray in which he acknowledged making false statements about his affair with Monica S. Lewinsky. In return, Ray promised not to prosecute Clinton.
During his eight-year term, Clinton pardoned 395 people, about the same as President Reagan, and commuted the sentences of 61 prisoners. Former President Bush pardoned 74 people during his four-year term.
McDougal learned of her pardon while watching the inauguration on television with friends in Arkansas.
“I have carried this burden with me since I was convicted,” said McDougal, who has repeatedly proclaimed her innocence. “I never realized how heavy the burden was until today. Now all of that has gone away.”
Los Angeles attorney Mark Geragos, who defended McDougal, said her pardon was one of a handful that Clinton wanted to sleep on before making a final decision Saturday morning.
“Susan is a very polarizing figure, and [Clinton] didn’t want to give the perception that a deal was cut,” Geragos said. “This is the final vindication for her.”
As part of the pardon, McDougal also avoids repayment of about $300,000 in court-ordered restitution plus interest, Geragos said.
Kenneth W. Starr, the former independent counsel who charged McDougal with civil contempt, did not return phone calls Saturday.
The pardon for Hearst ends a saga that began in the 1970s, when the newspaper heiress was kidnapped by revolutionaries of the so-called Symbionese Liberation Army and then joined them as “Tania.” She served a prison term for bank robbery.
Former President Carter, who commuted Hearst’s prison sentence, and his wife, Rosalynn, were strong advocates of a pardon for her.
“The Carters weighed in, and the president took their advice seriously,” the former Clinton official said. “She’s reformed and deserves a chance to vote.”
But Sarah Jane Olson, a former SLA member who was captured in 1999 after being a fugitive for nearly 25 years, said Saturday that Hearst fabricated much of her account of the kidnapping.
“Just because Clinton pardoned Patty Hearst does not mean that her story is true,” said Olson, who is scheduled to face trial this spring for allegedly planting bombs under two police cars. “Money, access to power and friends in high places have once again--as with her earlier commutation--influenced presidential prerogative in favor of Patricia Hearst.” Hearst could not be reached for comment.
Symington, a Republican, was convicted in 1997 of bank and wire fraud stemming from his days as a Phoenix real estate developer. The conviction was later thrown out when an appeals court ruled that one of the jurors had been improperly dismissed.
Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles had been attempting to restore criminal charges against Symington.
“Obviously, that’s not going to happen now,” said Thom Mrozak, spokesman for the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles. He said prosecutors had no comment on the pardon.
Cisneros resigned in 1996 amid controversy over his statements to the FBI about paying “hush money” to a former mistress. Formerly head of Univision, he now is chairman of American CityVista, an affordable housing venture at Kaufman & Broad Home Corp..
Former CIA Director Deutch, who was accused of transferring classified information to his home computer, had been discussing a possible plea deal to settle his case.
Roger Clinton pleaded guilty in 1985 to conspiring to sell cocaine.
In addition to Milken, Clinton declined to grant pardons to Jonathan Jay Pollard, convicted of spying for Israel; Native American activist Leonard Peltier, convicted of killing two FBI agents in 1975; and Webster L. Hubbell, a former law partner of Hillary Rodham Clinton who was convicted in a Whitewater-related trial. He had not requested a pardon.
The ability to grant pardons is a uniquely presidential power designated by the Constitution.
The purpose of a pardon is to grant official forgiveness of a crime. It does not expunge a person’s criminal record, but it can have the effect, depending on the state in which the person lives, of restoring some of the civil rights that a criminal conviction takes away, such as the right to vote, to run for office and to carry a firearm.
Clinton also acted Saturday to commute the prison sentences of 36 Americans. Unlike a pardon, a commutation does not imply forgiveness of the underlying offense but merely shortens the punishment.
Among those granted clemency were Peter MacDonald Sr., former leader of the Navajo Nation, who was imprisoned for his role in a 1989 riot that resulted in two deaths; and former Chicago-area Democratic Rep. Mel Reynolds, sent to prison for having sex with an underage campaign worker and for bank fraud.
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Rosenblatt reported from Washington and Vrana from Los Angeles. Times staff writers Edmund Sanders and Alissa J. Rubin in Washington and Ann O’Neill and Richard Winton in Los Angeles contributing to this story.
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3ea2eff97c03b0807169aa3f9f124813 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jan-24-me-16180-story.html | Bush Starts Off by Defying the the Constitution | Bush Starts Off by Defying the the Constitution
The very first act of the new Bush administration was to have a Protestant Evangelist minister officially dedicate the inauguration to Jesus Christ, who he declared to be “our savior.” Invoking “the Father, the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ” and “the Holy Spirit,” Billy Graham’s son, the man selected by President George W. Bush to bless his presidency, excluded the tens of millions of Americans who are Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Shintoists, Unitarians, agnostics and atheists from his blessing by his particularistic and parochial language.
The plain message conveyed by the new administration is that George W. Bush’s America is a Christian nation, and that non-Christians are welcome into the tent so long as they agree to accept their status as a tolerated minority rather than as fully equal citizens. In effect, Bush is saying: “This is our home, and in our home we pray to Jesus as our savior. If you want to be a guest in our home, you must accept the way we pray.”
But the United States is neither a Christian nation nor the exclusive home of any particular religious group. Non-Christians are not guests. We are as much hosts as any Mayflower-descendant Protestant. It is our home as well as theirs. And in a home with so many owners, there can be no official sectarian prayer. That is what the 1st Amendment is all about, and the first act by the new administration was in defiance of our Constitution.
This was surely not the first time in our long history that Jesus has been invoked at an official governmental assembly. But we are a different and more religiously diverse nation than we were in years past. There are now many more Muslims, Jews, Buddhists and others who do not accept Jesus as their savior. It is permissible in the U.S. to reject any particular theology. Indeed, that is part of our glorious diversity. What is not acceptable is for a presidential inauguration to exclude millions of citizens from its opening ceremony by dedicating it to a particular religious “savior.”
Our first president, George Washington, wrote to the tiny Jewish community in Rhode Island that in this new nation, we will no longer speak of mere “toleration,” because toleration implies that minorities enjoy their inherent rights “by the indulgence” of the majority. President Bush should read that letter and show it to the Rev. Franklin Graham, who told the media on the day before the inauguration that his prayer “will be for unity”; instead, it was for the Trinity. Uniting for Jesus may be Graham’s definition of unity, but it is as un-American as if a rabbi giving the official prayer had prayed for the arrival of the “true Messiah,” thus insulting the millions of Christians who believe Jesus is the true Messiah.
Inaugurations are not the appropriate setting for theological proclamations of who is, and who is not, the true Messiah. Perhaps at Bob Jones University it is appropriate for an honorary degree recipient to declare Jesus to be the only king of the United States, but the steps of the Capitol should not be confused with the lectern of a denominational church.
The inauguration ended with another Protestant minister inviting all who agree that Jesus is “the Christ” to say, “Amen” (ironically, a word that originated in Jewish prayer or, alternatively, originally a Jewish acronym for “God, the King, forever.”) Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), along with many others who do not believe that Jesus is the Messiah, was put in the position of either denying his own faith or remaining silent while others around him all said, “Amen.” This is precisely the position in which young public school students are placed when “voluntary” prayer is conducted at school events. If they join in prayer that is inconsistent with their religious beliefs, they have been coerced into violating their conscience. If they leave or refuse to join, they stand out as different among their peers. No student should be put in that position by their public schools at an assembly, just as no public official should be placed in that situation by their government at an inauguration.
If George W. Bush wants all Americans to accept him as their president, he made an inauspicious beginning by sandwiching his unity speech between two divisive, sectarian and inappropriate prayers.
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83d54603ea64f3d81d875be529e54148 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jan-27-ca-17616-story.html | Alfred Stieglitz, Revisited | Alfred Stieglitz, Revisited
Alfred Stieglitz is best known these days as an early genius of photography and as the husband of Georgia O’Keeffe. But historians regard Stieglitz, who died more than 50 years ago, as far more than that.
Through his galleries, publications and persuasive palaver, the New Jersey-born Stieglitz was also guru, muse, promoter and impresario of modern art in America. In fact, Sarah Greenough, curator of photographs at the National Gallery of Art, describes him as “the single most important figure in American art in the first half of the 20th century.”
To prove this, Greenough has put together an exhibition that combines Stieglitz’s photographs with the paintings, watercolors, drawings and photos of his American disciples and of the European masters that he championed. Stieglitz and his tiny galleries introduced Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri Rousseau, Paul Cezanne and Constantin Brancusi to America.
The exhibition, called “Modern Art and America: Alfred Stieglitz and His New York Galleries,” opens at the National Gallery on Sunday and remains there until April 22. Because some of the owners of the rarest pieces in the show refused to give them up for more than a few months, it will not be mounted anywhere else.
Virtually all 190 works in the show, which include masterpieces by O’Keeffe, Charles Demuth, John Marin and other Americans, as well as works by the Europeans, were exhibited by Stieglitz in his galleries at some point from 1905 to 1946. It has taken Greenough and her staff more than five years of research to sift through news clips, photographs, letters, brochures and highly idiosyncratic exhibition checklists to identify the works and then find them somewhere in the world.
It was virgin art historical territory for the most part. “There has never been an exhibition like this one,” Greenough points out. Greenough and company were the first to systematically pull together the raw material that explains Stieglitz’s seminal role in modern art in America.
“Modern Art and America” brims with art that can be savored for its own sake. There is Stieglitz’s photograph, “The Flatiron,” Brancusi’s marble sculpture “Mademoiselle Pogany,” Matisse’s painting “Nude in the Forest,” Marin’s watercolor “Lower Manhattan (Composition Derived from Top of Woolworth Building),” O’Keeffe’s painting “Cow’s Skull with Calico Roses.” History, however, powers an excitement that enhances the pleasure of these works of art.
Stieglitz was born in 1864 to German immigrant parents who sent him as a young man to Berlin to study engineering. He dropped engineering, however, and turned instead to the relatively new technology of photography. He soon won acclaim as a photographer who could create scenes as impressionistic as a painting. By the turn of the century, Stieglitz was a well-known advocate for photography as a form of art.
He opened his first gallery in 1905 in three tiny rooms on the top floor of a building at 291 Fifth Avenue. He wanted 291, as the gallery became known, to promote photography but he soon decided to expand it to all the arts, especially art that was emerging from Europe. Many young artists and critics crammed into the little rooms to hear him declaim and spur discussion about the works. “Stieglitz quickly realized,” says Greenough, “that he could be as much of an attraction as the art.”
In fact, critic Edmund Wilson described Stieglitz as “something of a mesmerist.” For more than 40 years, according to Wilson, Stieglitz delivered “a monologue, a kind of impalpable net in which visitors and disciples were caught from the moment they came within earshot.”
He was more intent on challenging ideas than in forcing his own on others. His own, in any case, changed often. “He thought aloud,” Georgia O’Keeffe wrote after his death in 1946, “and his opinions about anything in the morning might be quite different by the afternoon . . . There was such a power when he spoke--people seemed to believe what he said even when they knew it wasn’t the truth.”
Stieglitz wanted to shake up American artistic thinking with the revolutionary ideas coming from Europe. His associate, the painter and photographer Edward Steichen, acted as his emissary tracking down the latest work from Paris and shipping samples to New York. After providing Stieglitz with a selection of erotic drawings by the sculptor Auguste Rodin, for example, Steichen wrote his friend, “I have another crackerjack exhibition for you. . . . Drawings by Henri Matisse, the most modern of the moderns.”
The National Gallery of Art exhibition attempts to suggest some of the atmosphere of 291 with partial reconstructions of two 1914 exhibits: on Brancusi and on African art. The latter marked the first time an exhibit of African carving had ever been mounted as art rather than ethnography.
Also reconstructed is a temporary installation that Stieglitz photographed in 1915: A Georges Braque Cubist collage and a Picasso Cubist drawing on either side of an African carving. Greenough has even placed a wasp’s nest in the display just as Stieglitz did. But she could not track down the Braque collage in the photo. Instead she substituted the only work by Braque that she and her staff could both lay their hands on and prove actually hung in a 291 exhibit.
291 collapsed during World War I, brought down mainly by the declining income of the Brooklyn brewery owned by Stieglitz’s first wife. His galleries always had to be subsidized, because he never took more than a small commission for expenses from the sales. After the war, he opened a series of other small galleries, but he no longer felt the need to import modern European art. Everyone else was doing that now.
Instead, Stieglitz decided to extol modern American art. It was time for American artists to come into their own and produce works that reflected “America without that damned French flavor,” he said. He spent the rest of his life promoting seven Americans: O’Keeffe, Marin, Demuth, Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, the photographer Paul Strand and himself. Demuth supplied the metaphor for the group with his portrayal of the grain elevators of Lancaster, Pa., as if they were the great pyramids of Egypt. He titled the painting, “My Egypt,” and Greenough has put it on the cover of the catalog as a signature image for the show.
The National Gallery exhibition offers extensive selections of the work of all seven Americans. The most dramatic are probably the paintings by O’Keeffe and the Stieglitz photos of her.
O’Keeffe’s work was first brought to Stieglitz’s attention in 1916. He mounted a show of hers a year later, and he separated from his wife and moved in with O’Keeffe a year after that. They were married in 1924, when he was 60 and she 37. Stieglitz praised her early abstract work for its depiction of female sexuality and, as a complement to her work, exhibited many of his photos displaying her in the nude.
But all the critical chatter about suppressed Freudian sexuality in her work disturbed her. She posed for Stieglitz’s camera fully clothed from then on, and she began to ground her extravagantly colored abstractions into the flowers and landscapes she found in the Southwest.
Stieglitz probably frowned on her show of independence. “He was the leader or he didn’t play,” she wrote, describing his relations with the artists he promoted. “It was his game and we all played or left the game.” But after a disciple left, she went on, he or she usually returned, “as if there existed a peculiar bond of affection that could not be broken, something unique that they did not find elsewhere.”
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* “Modern Art and America: Alfred Stieglitz and His New York Galleries,” National Gallery of Art, National Mall, Washington, D.C. Sunday-April 22. Mondays-Saturdays 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Free. (202) 737-4215 www.nga.gov
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9db06371825d2b0ec65c11540e513dc1 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jan-31-fi-19213-story.html | Sega to Quit Production of Dreamcast Console, Develop Games for Rivals | Sega to Quit Production of Dreamcast Console, Develop Games for Rivals
Sega Enterprises will stop manufacturing its money-losing Dreamcast video game console in March to focus on the company’s more lucrative software business, said Peter Moore, president of Sega of America.
Sega instead will create games for a variety of consoles and devices rather than make games only for the Dreamcast.
Moore confirmed that Sega has agreements to make video games for Nintendo’s upcoming Game Boy Advance device and for Sony’s new PlayStation 2 console. Sega is also in talks with Microsoft Corp. to make games for the Xbox game console, set to debut in the fall, Moore said.
Moore’s announcement confirmed widespread rumors in recent weeks that Sega would quit the console market.
Sega’s end to its 11-year involvement in the console business amounts to a capitulation to rivals Sony and Nintendo. Sega has sold a little more than 6 million Dreamcasts worldwide, more than half of that in the U.S. But that won Sega a meager 15% console share in the U.S., with Sony and Nintendo claiming the balance.
“It’s a sad day whenever the underdog gets licked,” said P.J. McNealy, an analyst with Gartner Group Inc. “It’s also a sad day for Dreamcast consumers. There’s no commitment to making software for the Dreamcast in 2002.”
Sega will stop manufacturing the Dreamcast on March 31, the end of its fiscal year. To unload its existing inventory, on Feb. 4, Sega will slash prices of its Dreamcast from $149 to $99 in the U.S. Sega will also release 30 new games this year in the U.S. for the console.
But Dreamcast owners cannot be assured a supply of new games after 2002.
On Monday, Sega announced plans to license its Dreamcast chipset to Pace Micro Technology, a TV set-top box manufacturer in London. Sega will also make games for Motorola cell phones and Palm-based hand-held organizers.
In the next few weeks, Sega will lay off an undisclosed number of employees in its San Francisco office, which currently employs 195 workers, Moore said.
A marketing executive from the footwear industry, Moore also addressed rumors that his own job might be in jeopardy.
He said his fate was in the hands of executives in Japan, where Sega is based. “I don’t make that call.”
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8a6f7c9f7d0844f8d4fe700eb2846051 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jul-04-me-18575-story.html | Alex Padilla, 28, Defeats Galanter to Become President of City Council | Alex Padilla, 28, Defeats Galanter to Become President of City Council
Favoring a relative newcomer over the old guard, the Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday elected its youngest member, Alex Padilla, to serve as council president for the next two years.
On a 9-5 vote, the council backed the 28-year-old Padilla over the far more experienced Ruth Galanter, who held the coveted job since John Ferraro died in April.
“It came down to a choice between promise or experience,” said veteran Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, who will serve as council president pro tempore. “I think promise is a very important ingredient in making leadership happen in a way that is meaningful. There is no replacement for experience, yet I think Alex will be very, very conscientious in his efforts.”
Padilla--the first Latino to serve as council president in more than 100 years--said he felt humbled by the council vote.
“I will be a council president--just like I am a councilman--for all constituencies, for all communities,” said the San Fernando Valley lawmaker, adding that he hopes to “capture that spirit . . . of energy and optimism that the new council brings.”
As council president, Padilla will run the council meetings and make committee assignments--the sort of thing that gets little notice outside political circles. But within City Hall, those powers give the president great influence over the council’s agenda.
Although Mayor James K. Hahn said he stayed out of the politicking for the council presidency, he was clearly pleased by the election of Padilla, who made frequent appearances with Hahn during the mayor’s race to support for the then-city attorney.
On Tuesday, Hahn called Padilla’s election “outstanding.”
“Alex Padilla is just a remarkable young man who, in his first two years in office, really demonstrated the kind of maturity you don’t expect from a 26-year-old,” said Hahn, during an appearance at an elementary school in Van Nuys, where he helped children plant trees. “And now that he’s 28, I’m sure that he’s the youngest council president in the city’s history.”
Hahn said that he and Padilla will be “a great team.”
“He, like me, is very supportive of keeping the city together, and that’s something that we’re going to work very closely on,” the mayor said.
All but one of the City Council’s six newest members--and four old-timers--voted for Padilla in an alphabetical role call vote. They included Eric Garcetti, Janice Hahn, Cindy Miscikowski, Nick Pacheco, Padilla, Ed Reyes, Joel Wachs, Jack Weiss and Dennis Zine.
After weeks of behind-the-scenes lobbying, both Galanter and Padilla were given five minutes to make their cases before the vote was taken.
Galanter--who has served for 14 years on the council--suggested that her experience and institutional knowledge would benefit the council during a time of unprecedented turnover due to term limits.
“The most significant thing to happen in the coming two years is the departure of all the longtime council members,” said Galanter, who has two years left on her fourth and final term. “We have lost and are losing a number of veterans at this time.”
Besides herself, voting for Galanter were Hal Bernson, Nate Holden, Ridley-Thomas and newcomer Jan Perry.
Afterward, Galanter appeared bitterly disappointed. “The double-cross is alive and well,” she said.
Wachs said he had not made up his mind when he arrived at the meeting on Tuesday. He said he decided to vote for Padilla when he heard his speech.
“Alex moved me by what he had to say,” Wachs said. “He rose to the occasion.”
Weiss, who took office this week, said Padilla will bring a fresh perspective to the job.
“He represents a new generation of leadership, which is what this council and this city needs,” he said. “It was a theme in my campaign. It was a major theme in many of the campaigns. I think it is appropriate for the city to move forward with a new crew.
“It’s a very exciting time to serve on the council with so many new people, with so many fresh ideas. I think it’s only fitting that we have new leadership. I’m very encouraged.”
Padilla--a Pacoima native with a degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology--won a special election in 1999 and was reelected this year.
After winning the council presidency, Padilla thanked God, his staff and his colleagues “for trusting me and having the confidence in me to serve you.”
“As president, I hope to be a little bit more active than I think we’ve seen historically” Padilla said. That includes working with each member to set a citywide agenda for public safety, education, job creation, transportation and other priorities, he said.
“I recall two years ago the excitement, the idealism and the energy that you have right now,” Padilla told the new council members. “I believe we can come together to capture that and do some tremendous things for the city of Los Angeles.”
Times staff writer Matea Gold contributed to this story.
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be3c16e26f5378f01b5a4f88b0f6e50a | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jul-04-sp-18650-story.html | Loyola Staffers Sue Over Brawl | Loyola Staffers Sue Over Brawl
Five Loyola High assistant football coaches and the school’s athletic trainer have filed a lawsuit against the Fontana Unified School District, charging that Fontana High coaches were negligent in disciplining their players during a 1999 Southern Section playoff game marred by a postgame fight.
Defensive coordinator Greg Wells, offensive line coaches Ric Pedroarias and P.J. Pascale, linebackers coach Drew Casani, running backs coach Mike Gilhooly and trainer Tim Moscicki allege they were injured during the brawl and are seeking undisclosed compensation for general damages and medical expenses.
An arbitration hearing is set for July 19 and each side will present a resolution in Riverside Superior Court Aug. 3. If no resolution is reached, the case could move to trial Sept. 14.
Fontana Unified School District officials declined to comment and the district’s attorney, Robert Granasei, was unavailable Tuesday.
In a formal response filed in November, Granasei denied all charges.
Thirteen Fontana players were suspended, two were expelled and one, running back Anthony Robinson, faced a misdemeanor battery charge as a result of the fight. Robinson pleaded no contest in February 2000 and was put on three years’ probation. The incident also contributed to the resignation of Fontana Coach Bob Stangel Jr.
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2497e46aac1d3aba4f93aebfe7a2e67d | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jul-05-ca-18763-story.html | A Viking Helmet for ‘Hamlet’ in Satirical ‘Mad Boy Chronicle’ | A Viking Helmet for ‘Hamlet’ in Satirical ‘Mad Boy Chronicle’
For a less conventional version of the “Hamlet” story--a downright kooky one, in fact--look no further than “Mad Boy Chronicle” at 24th Street Theatre.
In the U.S. premiere of Canadian playwright Michael O’Brien’s perplexing parody, Shakespeare’s tragedy has been transposed to a fanciful Helsingor in the Viking era (circa AD 999), as Christian missionaries begin their first penetration into barbarian Denmark.
Though given new names, the characters and their actions parallel their Shakespearean counterparts; however, the plays diverge not only in their outcomes but also in their focus.
Assuming considerably greater prominence than even “Mad Boy” Horvendal/Hamlet (Michael McGroarty) is Lord Fengo/Claudius, a lusty, bellicose thug brilliantly portrayed by Adam Bitterman. Perhaps it’s a sign of the times that illegitimate rulers garner more emphasis and ultimately more sympathy than weak crusaders for justice.
In other upheavals, Lilia/Ophelia (Carolyn Palmer) becomes a deranged warrior, while her father Mathius/Polonius (David Mersault) flips from meekness to child-molesting lechery (though he’s still as ineffectual as ever).
Denise Gillman’s direction sustains interest though striking visual flourishes, such as having the dying Gerutha/Gertrude (Terra Shelman) slide across the stage, unfurling a long red swath of fabric in her wake.
But the uneasy question remains: What to do with the references once we get them? Echoing the original in couplets like “The baptism’s the place/Where I’ll rub Viking justice in his face” underscores the central problem here: The conceit is too weirdly elaborate for parody, but not strong enough to extricate itself from the shadow of a greater play.
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* “Mad Boy Chronicle,” 24th Street Theatre, 1117 W. 24th St., Los Angeles. Fridays, Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m. Ends July 15. $15. (213) 745-6516. Running time: 2 hours, 50 minutes.
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52967b14b5ad777391ea2d5f54d5b024 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jul-08-ca-19636-story.html | Our History, Her Language | Our History, Her Language
The phone rings, again, but playwright Suzan-Lori Parks lets the machine get it, again. She has just realized something.
“We came here a year ago. A year ago today!” In the tiny office on the second floor of her Venice Beach rental house, down the hall from her friendly faced pit bull, Lambchop, Parks jumps up to check the wall calendar.
Confirmed. One year to the day. She likes the timing. And when she likes the timing of something, her face turns into, well, a sunny day in Venice.
These days the orb shines brightly on Parks. The 38-year-old dramatist, screenwriter (“Girl 6"), novelist (first one coming soon) and essayist is best known for nonlinear, zero-gravity plays dealing with ghosts and icons of all kinds, carrying ordinary names such as Lucy or George. Or extraordinary, racially charged ones, such as Black Man With Watermelon, Lots of Grease and Lots of Pork, and Old Man River Jordan.
Her titles alone indicate the high-flying leaps taken therein: “The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World,” for starters.
Despite an ever-widening stylistic palette and an improbable array of projects, few would think of Parks and “kitchen-sink realism” in the same lifetime, let alone the same sentence.
This may change. Her play “Topdog/Underdog” begins previews Tuesday at New York’s Public Theater. Parks is trying to tune out the buzz that this project--on its surface, a slice of old-style, mainstream American realism--may accelerate an already fleet-footed career. The play stars Don Cheadle (“Traffic”) and Jeffrey Wright (“Shaft”), and is directed by George C. Wolfe, a longtime Parks supporter and artistic director of the Public Theater.
As if readying a major off-Broadway production wasn’t enough, two days before her play’s official July 26 opening, Parks is marrying the blues musician Paul Oscher, 51, in a Brooklyn courthouse. (They’re honeymooning in Amsterdam.)
In her office not far from the Pacific, such events seem distant. The reason Parks and Oscher set up shop in Venice a year ago lies to the north, in Valencia. Parks now heads the A.S.K. Theater Projects Writing for Performance Program at CalArts. She’s entering the second year of a three-year commitment.
“We like it here,” Parks says. “Paul’s a New Yorker, born in Brooklyn, and I thought [comical low murmur]: He’s not gonna like it.
“But we do. Moving here, we were like two kids, bringing our favorite things along, a favorite guitar, our favorite books. You know how when you’re kids and you play fort? We’re playing fort.”
The fort’s office has a bookshelf on which sits a dogeared copy of “Basketball for Dummies.” Reason? Parks has gone Disney without, one hopes, going Disney. She is 11/2 drafts into “Hoopz,” a Disney Theatricals stage project about the Harlem Globetrotters. Typical for any new musical, or a new play with music, depending on which way this one goes, it’s years from fruition.
On and above her desk, various CDs and pictures of blues and jazz giants, ranging from Memphis Minnie to “Ella and Basie,” provide some portable inspiration.
“Topdog/Underdog” sprang directly out of an earlier Parks effort, “The America Play” (1993). In that play, a figure named the Foundling Father, a black gravedigger, leaves his wife and child to pursue his dream. He becomes an Abraham Lincoln impersonator, charging customers a small fee to take part in the reenactment of John Wilkes Booth’s murder of Lincoln.
“Topdog/Underdog” goes a new way with the same historically charged names. It tells a tale of family secrets, three-card monte and a pair of brothers named Lincoln and Booth.
“I’d been thinking about ‘The America Play’ for a long time,” she says, turning down the “Ella and Basie” album a bit. “I thought it’d be fun to write a completely different take on the idea of Lincoln and Booth.”
In early 1999, Parks found herself in residence at the Wilma Theatre in Philadelphia, reading a lot of Shakespeare in the off hours. She mentioned her idea to the Wilma dramaturge, and “she looked at me and said, ‘Why don’t you go home'--meaning back to my little apartment--'and write?’ So I went home and wrote.”
Three days later, there was “Topdog/Underdog.”
Some of her plays took several years; “torture” is one word Parks has used to describe the birthing of a new work. Not this one. It was, says the grateful playwright, “a gift from God, like someone was pouring silver liquid into my head. It was the most wonderful writing experience I’ve had so far.”
Co-star Wright still can’t get over it. “I’m slightly awed at someone creating something so layered and so connected and dramatically logical in such a creative rush,” he says.
Cheadle, who graduated from CalArts in the mid-1980s and now serves as a board trustee, met Parks at a welcome-to-campus affair. At that get-together, he recalls, “she told me about this play of hers, and right away, when she said the brothers were named Lincoln and Booth"--their father’s little joke--"I was like, ‘What?”’ Cheadle says with a laugh.
In a series of sharp, harshly funny and explosive scenes, the history of the “historical” Lincoln and his assassin repeats itself in “Topdog/Underdog.” The brothers share a $400-a-month hole in the wall. Lincoln (Cheadle), former three-card monte whiz, has gone respectable, albeit by way of an odd line of work: He’s a white-face Abraham Lincoln impersonator at an arcade who gets hot with blanks for a living. Better than nothing, he says. His brother, Booth (Wright), disagrees while cajoling Lincoln into teaching him the niceties of three-card monte. Along the way, the story of their thorny childhood is revealed and relived.
“It’s so much about male energy in a confined space--who’s the alpha male,” Cheadle says. “But I’ll tell you, there’s not a moment in it where I thought: A guy wouldn’t say that, or a man wouldn’t do that.
“If she keeps writing like this, she’ll be around for a long, long time.”
“Topdog/Underdog” will likely strike many longtime Parks fans as a disarming change-up in form. Cheadle acknowledges that from one angle, the play recalls such dramas as Athol Fugard’s “Blood Knot,” in its careful dissection of a ritualized brotherly relationship.
Director Wolfe says that Parks’ theatrical career may be on the cusp of wider acceptance, the way Sam Shepard sidled up to the mainstream with “Buried Child” and “True West.”
In the latter, Wolfe says, “the rhythms and rituals and the intensity of Shepard’s earlier plays were suddenly contained within an environment that was more recognizable to most people.
“But I don’t think ‘Topdog’ is straightforward. It’s just contained in a room. It’s confined to a realistic space, but it has all the earmarks of the rest of Suzan-Lori’s plays, the language that is so . . . cascading and brilliant. And in a sense, she’s still writing about history chasing people’s souls.”
In a 1993 Times interview, she described an early work, “Imperceptible Mutabilities of the Third Kingdom"--which remains the sole Parks title to receive a major L.A. staging, eight long years ago--as “the first and last play of mine to deal with black people as an oppressed group. I thought about it, I did it, it was interesting. But it is no longer.”
Former Mark Taper Forum staffer Peter Brosius staged “Imperceptible Mutabilities” at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble in 1993. Even the recent and widely traveled “In the Blood,” a free-hand response to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Scarlet Letter” and a 2000 Pulitzer Prize finalist, has yet to land on a local stage.
No way around it: Parks is “weirdly underrepresented” here, according to CalArts School of Theatre dean Susan Solt, who wants to help right that wrong. After all, Parks’ “America Play” has been part of her theater school’s directing course work for years.
“It’s silly that she’s so close, and we haven’t been able to hook up with her yet,” acknowledges Taper dramaturge John Glore. He adds that Taper artistic director Gordon Davidson is a fan of Parks’ work, and that the Taper’s planned second stage in Culver City, with a target opening date of spring 2004, would be a good spatial fit for “In the Blood.”
One of three children in a military family, Parks was born in Fort Knox, Ky., to Francis and Donald Parks. The family lived in various states on various military bases, including Ford Ord, Calif. Parks spent the majority of her teen years in what was then West Germany. Her nomad’s life helped her to develop a surveillance expert’s ear for the traps, permutations and power of language.
Donald and Francis Parks eventually settled in Syracuse, N.Y., where both became educators. Suzan-Lori’s sister, Stephanie, recently moved to Syracuse after their father was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Her brother, Buddy, lives in Tucson.
Parks attended Massachusetts’ Mount Holyoke College, graduating cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 1985 with a double major in English and German. At nearby Hampshire College, she took a creative writing course from the noted author James Baldwin. He nudged her toward playwriting, and her mentor later declared her “an utterly astounding and beautiful creature who may become one of the most valuable artists of our time.”
After Mount Holyoke, Parks spent a year studying acting in London and then moved to New York to write, supporting herself in various odd jobs (including a brief stint as a phone-sex operator, which came in handy years later for her first screenplay, “Girl 6").
“I knew that the only way I could become a better writer was to study acting,” she says. “But I never wanted to be an actor. Never. Ever. Ever.” She laughs. “I knew what I wanted to do; I just set out to do it in my own way.”
As head of the A.S.K.-funded CalArts Writing for Performance Program, Parks is throwing at her students everything she appreciated in her own education. The CalArts student-teacher ratio is enviable: two students, one teacher in the first year; two more students added the second; two more the third. The course work set up by Parks includes a wide variety of theatrical training in acting, movement, and African dance, plus reading reams of Shakespeare.
One technique Parks favors involves interviewing the student playwrights’ characters.
“Two of my favorite questions have been: ‘What are you afraid of?’ and ‘What can you tell me that you think I don’t want to hear?’ ” says CalArts first-year student Patty Cachapero. “It’s a way of getting us to listen to the characters and to not impose a political agenda on them.”
Parks’ own work never carried an obvious polemical theme. From the late 1980s onward, she found supporters for her experimentally bold excursions. She self-produced her first New York project (“Betting on the Dust Commander”), eventually finding creative homes in such places as Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven, Conn.
Early influences, she says, were many: poet and playwright Adrienne Kennedy (“Funnyhouse of a Negro”); playwright Ntozake Shange (“For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf”); the circular, incantatory rhythms of Gertrude Stein; the fierce invention and discombobulations of James Joyce.
In something akin to a trance state, Parks’ characters speak sorrowfully and joyously and strangely in theatrical poetry unlike anyone else’s. That poetry is lace-like in its aural details and repetitions, yet surprisingly muscular.
Like British master Caryl Churchill, says director Wolfe, Parks has the ability to “invent a new form to suit her subject matter--to suit the energy of the play.” In the forthcoming Parks play titled “F------A,” already seen in Houston and due at the Public Theater next season, Parks concocted a kind of code-language called “Talk,” euphemistically twisted argot used primarily when the characters--which include an abortionist--discuss sex or body parts.
Example: “Every month when her period comes she is in hysterics” is translated as “Falltima ovo ella greek tragedy woah-ya.” A phrase such as “They’re so expensive” comes out a new way: “Woah-ya priceypricey.”
On the page, Parks often indicates a transitional moment, or “a spell,” by repeating the character names involved. In “Topdog/Underdog” you’ll see something like:
LINCOLN
BOOTH
LINCOLN
BOOTH
The actors involved, according to Parks, can fill such spells with “great (unspoken) emotion.”
Such moments, Cheadle says, are “a great place to surf. They can be anything.
“But they can’t be everything.”
Parks’ “Hoopz” collaborator, director Marion McClinton, himself a playwright, says that when he met Parks years ago at New Dramatists in Manhattan, he told Parks her work “both fascinated and infuriated me. And she said: ‘Oh! Thank you!”’ McClinton chuckles at the memory.
“I had no idea where her work was taking me sometimes,” McClinton says of “The America Play.” “But it challenged me to sit down and say, I’m gonna get it. I’m gonna read the work out loud, and find out what she’s going after. And reading it out loud made a huge difference. Her work is what all great dramatists’ work is supposed to be: Heard. A lot of her language is old black English juxtaposed against modern language, so that it has both an old blues feel and an avant-garde jazz feel to it.”
Parks and McClinton now find themselves in the “Hoopz” seats vacated by the project’s former collaborators. (The original team consisted of director Kenny Leon, and Savion Glover and Reg E. Gaines, who co-created “Bring in ‘Da Noise, Bring in ‘Da Funk” with Wolfe.) Parks’ story outline begins with a present-day basketball hotshot, a guy “with an attitude, who gets into it on the court with somebody for some reason, and he gets shot and killed.
“So we’re in there with Stuart Oken,” Parks says of a recent story meeting with the executive vice president of Disney Theatricals, “and the Disney folks are thinking, OK, main character gets killed in the first 10 minutes....And I say: ‘But then! But then! The guy gets a second chance at life. The catch is, second chance takes him back to 1946, so he time-travels and has to hang out with the Globetrotters. And that’s how we get into the story.”
Parks realizes “Hoopz,” whose composer has yet to be hired, will undergo several years’ development. She knows this, though: She didn’t want to write a conventional “biopic, bio-musical, you know. Bio-musical--sounds like a fungus. What we’re trying to do is find a way to integrate the present into the past.”
In “F------A,” a densely plotted fairy tale that took several years to complete, a butcher speaks of his troublemaking daughter, Lulu, “always into something bad.” As evidence, he reels off a hilariously long list of infractions, before getting to the charges of “raising the dead, envisioning the future, remembering the past.”
It’s true of every character to wander a Suzan-Lori Parks landscape.
“Most playwrights who consider themselves avant-garde spend a lot of time bad-mouthing the more traditional forms,” Parks wrote in a 1994 essay. “The naturalism of, say, Lorraine Hansberry [‘Raisin in the Sun’] is beautiful and should not be dismissed simply because it’s naturalism....I don’t explode the form because I find traditional plays ‘boring'--I don’t really. It’s just that those structures never could accommodate the figures which take up residence inside me.”
So how did “Topdog/Underdog” happen? One-set, two-character realism, from one of America’s most inspired experimentalists?
“Each play is different, because the stories are different,” she says. “I don’t think there’s one style going on. ‘Topdog’ is different from ‘In the Blood’ but kinda the same, you know, ‘gritty,’ ‘violent.’ But this next one has people breaking into songs [lyrics by Parks], ‘The Meat Man Is a Good Man to Marry,’ all kinds of stuff. And I wonder what people are going to think. I mean, I don’t know what to think.”
After the May interview in Venice, Parks returned to Mount Holyoke to deliver the commencement address. In a rousing, funny speech (you can read it online at https://https://138.110.28.9/offices/comm/oped ), she exhorted the graduating students to not merely spend their lives, but to “splurge” them, to “envision yrself living a life that you love.”
The reception she got, she says, “made me feel like a rock star--all those screaming women! Incredible.”
Later that month, she returned to New York for “Topdog/Underdog” rehearsals.
“I’m having a great time,” she said recently by phone. “I’m taking a day off because the men need to do their male bonding kinda thing, the secret handshakes or whatever. It’s more intense than usual, this play, because there are only two actors, who are greater than great. And working with George brings everything to another level. Everyone’s focusing more, and concentrating harder, and digging deeper.
“I was thinking just this morning how much I like to pick a writer and hole up, read a whole bunch, really soak it up. And I kept thinking, When? When? Right now I don’t have any time to be all by myself for a couple of months, reading. School starts up in September. We’re having a reading [at the Public] of ‘Peer Gynt,’ which I’m adapting. And there’s a wedding coming up! I have to think about the dress!
“So, yeah. It’s a very busy time. But I told George the other day that for some reason, the combination of this play, the director and the actors just feels incredible. What is [‘Topdog’] going to turn out to be? I don’t know. It’s hard not to have expectations. But then, expectations depend on the actions of people I’ve never met.
“I do know that every day, with the changes and tweaks that I make, it’s getting better. Sometimes George’ll say: ‘We need more of this; you don’t go far enough here.’ So I’ll write a whole page in rehearsal, which I never do, because it feels sure. Not safe. But sure.”
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286cf18d821bdd7a78604f3b4c40e758 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jul-14-me-22273-story.html | Dog Killer Sent to Prison | Dog Killer Sent to Prison
A San Jose judge on Friday threw the book at the man who threw Leo the bichon frise into traffic, sentencing him to the maximum three years in state prison for a road rage incident that left the dog dead and animal lovers outraged.
In sentencing Andrew Burnett, 27, Superior Court Judge Kevin J. Murphy ignored a probation report that recommended a lighter sentence and brushed off Burnett’s apology and plea for leniency.
“If there’s anything I could ever say or do to bring back Leo, I would,” Burnett told the court.
During the 90-minute sentencing hearing in San Jose, Burnett’s mother begged the judge for a lighter sentence for her son, who was convicted of felony animal cruelty three weeks ago.
But Leo’s owner, Nevada real estate agent Sara McBurnett, exhorted the judge to punish to the fullest extent of the law the man who killed her dog. During the trial last month, the childless McBurnett compared seeing Leo killed with watching the murder of her “baby.”
“Words can never convey the depth of love I had for my dog, Leo,” McBurnett told the judge Friday. Burnett’s “clear intent was to terrorize me in the fastest and most severe way possible.”
Leo was killed near San Jose International Airport on Feb. 11, 2000, after Burnett cut off McBurnett and she bumped into his sport utility vehicle on a rainy Friday night in heavy traffic.
During the short trial, witnesses testified that an angry Burnett stormed to McBurnett’s car door, grabbed Leo and tossed him onto the busy road. But in opening statements during the trial, his attorney, Marc Garcia, said Burnett grabbed Leo only after the dog bit him.
Although McBurnett left her Subaru Legacy and followed Leo into the road to rescue him, she was unsuccessful. The small white dog was struck by a vehicle as his horrified owner looked on.
Burnett was not indicted in the case until more than a year had passed, a time that prosecutors alleged he was hiding from authorities. During that time, dog lovers and others who sympathized with McBurnett’s loss raised $120,000 to help find Leo’s killer.
The former telephone repairman was in jail on unrelated charges when investigators received an anonymous tip that the slender, white, goateed suspect portrayed in police sketches as Leo’s attacker was Burnett.
Leo’s death, combined with several other recent high-profile dog and cat cases in the Bay Area, has raised public and media interest in crimes committed by and against animals.
Hardly a week goes by without at least one animal story breaking. This week, in addition to Burnett’s sentencing, a Central Valley man was arrested for allegedly dumping four puppies into an agricultural shredding machine because he was tired of the mess they made.
On Friday, McBurnett applauded what she described as the judge’s “good judgment and wisdom.” The message that Murphy sent, she said, is that “animal cruelty will not be tolerated by society. Perpetrators will be prosecuted. Don’t act out against animals.”
The stiff punishment Burnett faces is “not a victory for me,” McBurnett said. “I don’t get my Leo back. But it’s a statement for animal rights and against violence in general. The judge emphasized that it was a crime against Leo and a crime against me.”
*
Associated Press contributed to this story.
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2bcd0534afaa4bf87798ceb73ea77d94 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jul-23-me-25646-story.html | Milosevic Awaits Tribunal, but Prisons Still Hold His Victims | Milosevic Awaits Tribunal, but Prisons Still Hold His Victims
When former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic said in his first appearance at The Hague, “I consider this tribunal false tribunal,” he was not only ungrammatical but also insincere. After all, back in 1995 he signed the Dayton peace agreement, thus recognizing the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, as this court is formally known.
Milosevic is also unoriginal. The man who said it first was the future father of Yugoslavia, Josip Broz Tito, at his trial in 1928 for his political activities as a communist. His statement then--"I do not recognize this court; I can only be tried by the court of my party"--is supposedly must reading for every child in Yugoslavia.
One child who learned it and took it to heart is a Kosovo Albanian who does not recognize the Yugoslav tribunal or Yugoslavia as such. At his trial in Nis in southern Serbia in March 2000, 26-year-old Albin Kurti repeated almost word for word what Tito had said. This was one year after Kurti’s capture in Pristina by the Serb forces at the height of the crackdown in the southern province.
I first met Kurti in 1997 when we traveled with Mort Abramowitz, the International Crisis Group’s founding father, to a then little-known possible trouble spot called Kosovo. Kurti was a recent college graduate and the leader of the Independent Students’ Union in Kosovo. He was fluent in English and Serbian and very outspoken.
“We are trying to implement the will of our people for a free Kosovo through peaceful demonstration,” he told us then about the student union’s goals, and he repeated it at his trial. This strategy of peaceful resistance failed; the armed resistance was successful (albeit not entirely and at a very high cost).
In August 1998, when Adem Demaci, who had spent 28 years in Serb prisons, assumed the role of political representative of the Kosovo Liberation Army, Kurti became his secretary.
The Nis court sentence condemned Kurti for being a member of the students’ union (though it was not an “enemy organization” but a peaceful, even passive, one). It also condemned him for organizing first-aid courses and blood donations and for having been a translator and facilitator of meetings between representatives of international community and leaders of the KLA. Never mind that these meetings had the goal of avoiding bloodshed.
Kurti was sentenced to 13 years for “threatening the territorial integrity” of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and four years for “associating for the purpose of performing hostile activities related to terrorism.”
A hundred other Kosovo Albanians still held in Serb prisons went through false trials that had no relation to justice and were condemned for “terrorism.” They did not benefit from the amnesty declared by Serbia earlier this year. Kurti is the only one of them to have a clearly political sentence; i.e. he is not accused of committing any violent acts or terrorism. What makes his case more difficult to resolve is that he refuses to have a defense lawyer, arguing (ironically, just like Slobo), that the court judging him is illegal.
Belgrade has now dispatched to The Hague the man who conducted the war against Kosovo. Serbs are discovering mass grave after mass grave of Kosovo Albanians who were less lucky than Kurti and simply got murdered. Yugoslav state television is broadcasting a BBC documentary about the massacre in Srebrenica committed by Bosnian Serbs. Yet the authorities from Belgrade are keeping in jail a man who opposed the Milosevic regime, who narrowly escaped the fate of Srebrenica Muslims and who would probably appear moderate today in the Pristina political picture.
President Vojislav Kostunica of Yugoslavia is shortsighted if he does not understand that he hurts his own government by keeping in jail Kurti and the other Kosovo Albanians sentenced on trumped-up charges. Kostunica gained so many popularity points among his own people for opposing the extradition of Slobodan Milosevic to The Hague that he can spare a few of these points to pardon Kurti and the other Kosovo Albanians. Otherwise, he will surely turn them into the new heroes and martyrs of Kosovo.
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6faf6154a8a409388837d23d1f0ce99b | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jul-27-ca-27032-story.html | Some Serious Monkey Business | Some Serious Monkey Business
“Planet of the Apes” is the least surprising movie of the summer. It’s not only that after the original 1968 film, four sequels plus two television series, everyone who cares knows the underlying material; it’s also that the sensibility of its director is equally well-known and twice as predictable. They haven’t called this “Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes,” but they might as well have.
Grimmer than the Brothers Grimm put together, Burton is the creator of increasingly bleak and unhappy fairy tales like “Batman,” “Batman Returns” and “Sleepy Hollow.” His thrust is dark, morose and deeply interior, so much so that it’s one of the paradoxes of today’s Hollywood that his hermetic tendencies have made him the director of choice for multimillion-dollar mass entertainments.
The key reason for Burton’s preeminence is very much on display in “Planet of the Apes,” and that is his exceptional visual gift. The film’s look is always the first thing on this director’s mind, and he is quite good at making believable the strange worlds he and his frequent collaborator, production designer Rick Heinrichs, dream up, in this case that familiar planet where apes rule and humans are considered soulless slaves.
Making even more of an impression this time is the physical presence of the apes themselves. With complex makeup created by six-time Oscar winner Rick Baker that took more than three hours to apply and with Colleen Atwood’s vivid costumes, including nifty conical military headgear, these apes are, as might be expected, considerably more plausible than those of three decades past.
What Burton is less good at is investing his strange universes with a convincing interior life. The film’s script, credited to William Broyles Jr. and Lawrence Konner & Mark Rosenthal, is over-plotted and under-dramatized, and its sporadic attempts at comic relief end up being neither comic nor a relief. Outside of a hyper-energetic, irresistibly evil portrayal by Tim Roth as General Thade, the baddest ape in town, the sad truth about “Planet of the Apes” is that, disappointingly, it’s just not very much fun to watch.
The original 1968 film and its topsy-turvy social order, coming out as it did at a particularly volatile time in American history, was not intended solely as fun either, and the author of the underlying novel, Frenchman Pierre Boulle (who also wrote “The Bridge Over the River Kwai”) apparently wanted his book considered “a social fantasy.”
That sense of through-the-looking-glass reverse racism remains at the heart of the new project. “Take your stinking hands off me, you damn dirty human,” is the first sentence downed American Leo Davidson (Mark Wahlberg) hears from a dominant ape on his new planet. As the film progresses, apes wonder if humans have souls or are capable of real culture, and are cautioned to always to use gloves when handling this violent, sub-simian species.
Although racial problems obviously persist today, those kinds of lines play as more quaint than provocative in the new film. Out-and-out silly are the attempts to give apes more clearly human characteristics by having them wear frilly nightgowns, use deodorants and complain about bad hair days. Worse still is the idea of giving orangutan slave trader Limbo (Paul Giamatti) the kind of “you are giving me such a headache” dialogue usually associated with Jackie Mason.
What plays best, frankly, are apes on the attack. Riding horses or hanging from branches, leaping high off walls or loping along on all fours, these armored, uniformed apes in action convey the sense of another world better than anything else.
As fearless as their apes, Burton and his screenwriters have not hesitated to depart in ways large and small from the first film. This new planet is not Earth, humans on it can talk and the inevitable twist at the film’s conclusion goes all the way back to the one featured in Boulle’s novel.
Also new is what gets Leo Davidson onto the planet in the first place. He and his fellow astronauts are on a huge space station doing, of all things, research on ape intelligence, seeing if they can get chimpanzees to pilot small spacecraft in dangerous situations.
A series of things going wrong lands Davidson in ape territory, where he is captured along with renegade humans Karubi (Kris Kristofferson) and his fetching blond daughter Daena (Estella Warren). Even worse is no doubt in store for him, but he attracts the attention of the politically well-connected ape Ari (Helena Bonham Carter), a human rights activist who believes “it’s disgusting the way we treat humans. It demeans us as much as it does them.”
Taking the opposite point of view is the human-hating General Thade, likely the most terrifying chimpanzee in movie history, who can be taken at his word when he says, “Extremism in defense of apes is no vice.” Few actors can be as forceful as Roth, a quality that is an advantage when playing a role inside an ape suit. The ferocious Roth, who shares a strong scene with unbilled “Planet” veteran Charlton Heston as his dying father, knew what he was doing when he reportedly turned down the role of Professor Snape in the new Harry Potter film in favor of this juicy, galvanic performance.
On the other side of the species gap, Wahlberg displays welcome presence and a natural gravity, but he doesn’t get much help from “Driven” veteran Warren or the rest of the human race. With their simian characteristics amplified by time in “Ape School,” the actors in the nonhuman roles are mostly too buried by makeup to make strong impressions, although rival big men Attar (Michael Clarke Duncan) and Krull (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) do get our attention.
Unfortunately, none of the good work counts as much as you’d think it would. Filled with ponderous musings about the dangers of technology and the way history rewards cruelty with power, “Planet of the Apes” shows that taking material too seriously can be as much of a handicap as not taking it seriously at all.
*
MPAA rating: PG-13, some sequences of action/violence. Times guidelines: The tone is often dark and threatening, but the action is not overly intense.
‘Planet of the Apes’
Mark Wahlberg: Leo Davidson
Tim Roth: General Thade
Helena Bonham Carter: Ari
Michael Clarke Duncan: Attar
Paul Giamatti: Limbo
Estella Warren Daena
A Zanuck Co. production, released by 20th Century Fox. Director Tim Burton. Producer Richard D. Zanuck. Executive producer Ralph Winter. Screenplay William Broyles Jr. and Lawrence Konner & Mark Rosenthal. Cinematographer Philippe Rousselot. Editor Chris Lebenzon. Costumes Colleen Atwood. Music Danny Elfman. Production design Rick Heinrichs. Supervising art director John Dexter. Art directors Sean Haworth, Philip Toolin. Set decorator Rosemary Brandenburg. Running time: 1 hour, 59 minutes.
In general release.
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5ceef6dbd791ba80420b422ae6dda02d | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jul-29-ca-27720-story.html | In a Big Rush | In a Big Rush
There’s no charm like Southern charm, and Georgia’s pride Chris Tucker has bushels at his disposal. After pulling a disappearing act for his interview a couple of weeks previous, this time Tucker’s right on time, showing up in his best Sunday going-to-church clothes--navy-blue pinstripe suit and matching white satin shirt and tie.
In person, the 28-year-old comedian and actor is tall, lithe, much more handsome than the frenetic, rubber-faced characters he’s played on screen, with a demeanor that is all molasses and honey. But just beneath the surface there’s something else going on, a guy with enough energy to solve California’s electricity crisis.
The seams of his garments can barely contain him. He has to will himself into the leather chair of his Santa Monica office while he talks to a reporter. And although he’s never less than cooperative, if sometimes as evasive as a politician, Tucker is clearly a man who has traveled far but has many miles to go before he sleeps.
As he says at one point, sometimes the day doesn’t have enough hours and “it’s night already. Life is real short, real precious and I don’t want to waste any time.”
Publicity is something Tucker begrudgingly accepts as part of his job description, though it’s not high on his list of priorities. Arthur Sarkissian, producer of “Rush Hour” and “Rush Hour 2,” explains that Tucker “shies away from interviews. He does them, but he doesn’t seek them out. He enjoys being a star, but maybe not being a celebrity.”
Tucker cursorily apologizes for his earlier disappearing act, explaining that he was busy traveling to London and Paris and “doing a lot of last-minute stuff getting the movie out,” holed up in the editing room massaging “Rush Hour 2,” which opens Friday, “finding ways to make it funnier.” Even now that the movie is “locked,” he is still doing some vocal fine-tuning.
“Rush Hour 2" is vital to Tucker’s future. It’s his first film since the original three years ago and his first mega-star payday--$20 million, putting him in the elite category of superstar comic actors Jim Carrey, Eddie Murphy and Mike Myers, although he has yet to star solo in a movie. While his “Rush Hour” co-star Jackie Chan, a veteran of Hong Kong and Hollywood films, got $15 million for the sequel, Tucker vaulted into the $20-million club based solely on one major hit.
How he got there so quickly is the story of “a self-made man,” according to Michael De Luca, former president of production at New Line Cinema, who saw Tucker’s potential in the amiable 1995 low-budget comedy “Friday,” in which the comic hit the ground running as a neighborhood screw-up with a fondness for weed.
“I’d never seen him before,” De Luca recalls, “and when I was watching the dailies, I saw he was one of those guys who can barely be contained by the movie. It reminded me of the stories I’d heard about Michael Keaton when he first starred in “Night Shift"--the emergence of a great comic personality, and I was rabid to cast him in something else.”
Tucker agreed to appear in another small New Line comedy, “Money Talks,” opposite Charlie Sheen, but insisted on working with a young video director, Brett Ratner, who had cast him in a Heavy D music video in 1994. It proved to be a fortuitous pairing based on nothing but intuition.
“I’m not afraid to trust my instincts,” Tucker says. “I try to keep to who I am, to listen to myself and not just go with the flow.”
Ratner brought harmony to Tucker’s often cacophonous improvisational style developed as a stand-up comic in clubs and on HBO’s “Def Comedy Jam,” and sensed when to rein him in and when to let him wail.
“There are just a few directors like that, Brett [Ratner], Gary Gray [who directed ‘Friday’] who let us do our thing, who don’t keep us in a box,” Tucker says. "[Making a movie] is like stand-up: You got to keep doing it to enhance it.”
Like “Friday,” “Money Talks” was a modest box-office hit that exploded on home video, according to De Luca. The Tucker cult was growing, and all he needed was a breakout hit. That movie proved to be “Rush Hour” in 1998, which had the added difficulty of featuring a co-star, the great martial-arts performer Jackie Chan, whose grasp of American English--particularly street slang--was limited.
“Jackie has a hard enough time with his own dialogue,” says Ratner. “The way he remembers dialogue is by remembering the last word of Chris’ sentence. Ninety-nine percent of the time that word never comes.” Even though Tucker worked out his improvisations in rehearsal, when the cameras rolled, they rarely came out the same way twice and “that was very hard for Jackie. It freaked him out,” Ratner adds.
But Tucker was so immersed in what he was doing that he didn’t know there was a problem “until the director told me he [Chan] was trippin’.” Curiously, the miscommunication between the two characters was part of “Rush Hour’s” charm, and a multicultural Hope and Crosby team was born.
In the sequel, the tables are turned--much of the movie takes place in Hong Kong and Tucker had to learn Cantonese.
“That language is hard,” he says, laughing. With a bigger budget--reportedly $90 million, compared with $35 million for the first--"Rush Hour 2" is able to more fully exploit Chan’s acrobatic brilliance. “There are a lot more fight scenes,” Tucker says. “Jackie saved up some of his best stuff for this one.” Although Tucker wanted to use a double in some scenes, Chan insisted they do all their own stunts. “When we’re 40 feet up hanging on a bamboo pole, we’re really 40 feet up,” Tucker says, and he knew enough to get out of the way of the master.
“Jackie’s a little genius,” Tucker says admiringly of his co-star. “He’d get there the day before and pick up a trash can and a broom and work it into the action. Then he’d tell me, ‘You do one, two, three punches’ "--he demonstrates with his fists--"and make it so simple I looked like I knew what I was doing. I never interfered. I’d just say, ‘You work it out and call me to the set when you’re ready.”’
Born in Decatur, Ga., just outside of Atlanta, Tucker is the youngest of six children. The continual teasing and torture from his three older brothers meant he had to either stand up for himself or be pummeled into the pavement. He decided on the former. “As a kid, there was a lot of crying and fighting with my brothers--for days.”
That feisty, competitive spirit has never left him. “You should have seen me when I was playing basketball the other day. I change into another person. When I win, I remember. When I lose, I remember how good it felt to win.”
Not only is Tucker competitive, he possesses a driving ambition. Comparisons to Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy may sound facile, but they are also dead accurate. “I had a dream as a kid: I wanted to be big, big like Richard and Eddie. I imagined it. I studied it. I had a passion.”
By the time he hit the comedy club stage in Atlanta at age 19, he had fused elements from the two performers, Pryor’s broad facial and vocal contortions and Murphy’s assured presence. Pryor and Murphy (and before them, Bill Cosby) had ushered the way for African American performers to use their everyday experiences as comic fodder.
“What made them was their realness,” Tucker says. “They came from a real place. And Atlanta is real. It’s not like L.A. I used my family, funerals, weddings, growing up in the church--not just punch-line jokes. People related to that. They could feel it.”
One of his natural gifts proved to be his high voice, which he ratchets even higher on stage and in movies to great comic effect. At the encouragement of comics such as Martin Lawrence and Jamie Foxx, who caught his act in Atlanta while they were on tour, he migrated to the West Coast, where he was scooped up by Russell Simmons for his show “Def Comedy Jam” and almost immediately broke ahead of the pack.
After stealing the show in “Friday” and taking a small, over-the-top role in the sci-fi film “The Fifth Element” (along with turning in two credible dramatic performances, supporting roles in 1995’s “Dead Presidents” and Quentin Tarantino’s “Jackie Brown” in 1997), Tucker rapidly rose to the $20-million club as much for the films he made as the ones he didn’t make.
The actor who was paid $3 million for “Rush Hour” was offered $7 million to star in Universal’s James Bond spoof “00Soul,” and a reported $13 million to $15 million plus a profit percentage for “The Black Knight,” a time-travel comedy at 20th Century Fox. He eventually walked away from both films.
“It was either script problems or director problems or both,” he says. He decided that not working was better than just doing it for the paycheck, even if it meant being off the screen for almost three years. “I’m young,” he says, shrugging. “I got plenty of time. My fan base isn’t going anywhere.”
By the time he was ready to sign his deal for “Rush Hour 2,” his asking price had risen to $20 million. And he got it.
“I think you should make as much as the movies make,” he says with a polite smile. “The studios don’t give you anything unless they’re making a lot themselves.” (“Rush Hour” grossed $245 million worldwide).
Along the way he shed his agent and any semblance of an entourage, and revised his game plan, returning to his roots, professionally and personally. As has happened to many a live performer who made the transition to movies or television, Tucker realized that he was in danger of losing touch with the very elements that made him unique.
“When you start out, it’s just you and your dream and that’s how you become well-known. And suddenly there are a lot of new people--agents, managers, even your family--and everyone has an agenda. It happens to everyone. It happened to me. But I got back to the clubs and restructured my life.”
After largely abandoning stand-up for movies, he’s returned to the circuit, touring on the outskirts of L.A. and honing a new routine that will incorporate his old material as well as observations on his rise to stardom, his travels and even the current political climate. “My character has evolved a lot since ‘Def Jam,’ ” he says. “Before I was just a kid growing up, but now I’ve experienced so much, met a lot of people. My scale is much broader than back then.”
Also waylaid for a time were his spiritual roots. Having been raised in a very religious family, that component remains vital to him. “In this business and in life you have to be spiritual,” he says. “You have to have that base. If you’re just living an earthly life, you’re not living it to the fullest.”
As a star he’s aware that some of his younger fans now look up to him in the same way he idolized Pryor or Murphy. For that reason, he says, he’ll no longer take on certain kinds of roles, like the casual drug user he portrayed in “Friday.”
“I won’t do things in movies that I wouldn’t do in real life,” he says. He would still tackle the part of a veteran he played in “Dead Presidents” because it illuminated a moment in recent history, the real-life drug problems of many returning Vietnam veterans.
“Harry Belafonte once told me something I’ll never forget. He said, ‘Movies shouldn’t be how life is, but how it’s supposed to be.’ That’s what I’m striving for.”
Tucker is disarming and not at all sanctimonious about his beliefs and sees them as a way to enhance his career goals. “If I do a comedy now, it’s on another level. I’m more important than the movie. The better I get [as a person], the better I perform in the movie. What you are comes first.”
Now that he’s a $20-million-a-picture star, Chris Tucker makes it clear that he’s not satisfied. He wants to be a bigger star. “My dream is way higher. I got to keep going.” In the meantime he’s enjoying the perks of stardom, although not the typical extravagances. He’s bought a comfortable, but not ostentatious, home in the San Fernando Valley, and travels about the state in his home away from home, a fully equipped bus.
The real perks, however, are travel and meeting famous people from all walks of life--politicians, celebrities, sports heroes. Anyone who watched the last game of the Lakers championship in Philadelphia got a chance to see Tucker fraternizing in the locker room afterward with the NBA victors.
“I went down there because I figured it might never happen again that Kobe and Shaq and Iverson would all be playing together, though I hope it happens again next year. It was a good game. There’s nothing like winning in someone else’s hometown.”
While shopping on South Street in Philadelphia, he purchased a Lakers warmup suit. Because he’d agreed to let “Entertainment Tonight” follow him from the hotel to the game, when he arrived “and they saw the cameras, they thought I was a player and I walked straight in with the team.”
Anyone who’s forgotten about Tucker’s fascination with Michael Jackson will get a refresher course in “Rush Hour 2,” when the actor pitches a fit at a karaoke bar over the mangling of the singer’s “Don’t Stop (Till You Get Enough)” and jumps on the stage to show how it’s properly done. Although he’s met sports legends, former President Clinton, Jesse Jackson and even Nelson Mandela (on a recent trip to Africa), Tucker says the greatest perk of all was the chance to spend time with the gloved one.
The introduction came through a mutual friend, a young boy named Gavin, who was, at the time, suffering from cancer. “He’ll be glad to see his name in the paper,” Tucker says, laughing. “He’s always saying, ‘Why don’t you tell anyone I’m the one who introduced you to Michael?’
“We both just clicked,” he adds of his meeting with Jackson. Tucker found Jackson “a regular person, real humble.” (Humility ranks high on Tucker’s list of admirable character traits, and he mentions it several times during the interview when talking about various people.) Jackson imparted the following advice on long-term success: “Stay focused, always be creative and keep on reinventing yourself,” and that’s exactly “what I want to do,” Tucker adds.
In the short term, Tucker’s reinvention includes a concert film, which he will begin shooting shortly, with plans for a December release. Then he’ll star (solo this time) in the political comedy “Guess Who’s the President?,” in which he’ll play the commander in chief. No director has been signed for either project and he’s considering directing the political comedy himself. If “Rush Hour 2" is a hit, “Rush Hour 3" is a distinct possibility.
Beyond that, he wants to move toward drama, and he says that after a long drought, some good material is finally coming his way. “I know what I want. I want to work with the best people,” he says. “I’m ready to work.”
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3113b2b978b1535b52fc5bf57b54991c | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jul-30-cl-28120-story.html | The Story of Natalie Wood Is Also the Story of Her Mother | The Story of Natalie Wood Is Also the Story of Her Mother
One of the most striking things about Hollywood is the extent to which people all over the world came to regard it as the center of the universe. What the Holy Land was to true believers, Hollywood became to believers in make-believe.
One such believer was Maria Gurdin, who fled her native Siberia in the wake of the Russian Revolution, ending up in Northern California. A woman of immense drive and ambition, she found an inspiring contrast to the struggle of her daily life in the movies. Quite simply, she made up her mind that her second child, pretty, dark-eyed Natasha, was going to be a star. In 1943, when the little girl was just 5, Maria literally thrust her into pictures, instructing her to hop into the lap of director Irving Pichel, who was shooting a movie on location in the rustic town of Santa Rosa. Although little Natasha got a tiny part in “Happy Land,” the kindly Pichel tried to warn Maria that the film business was no place for a sweet little girl. Maria’s response was to move the entire family to Hollywood.
A sensitive, delicate child, quick to learn and desperately eager to please, Natasha became a child actress, playing a war orphan in the 1946 film “Tomorrow Is Forever.” When she was unable to cry on cue, her mother tore a butterfly to pieces in front of her, then pushed her sobbing daughter back onto the set. Given the more American-sounding name of Natalie Wood, Natasha, incessantly coached by her mother to do as she was told, soon became known as “one-take Natalie,” one of the most cooperative and professional young actresses in Hollywood. Even after the child had acquired a team of agents, Maria continued to micromanage most aspects of her career.
Only in her teens did Natalie begin to rebel, insisting on trying out for a role in the offbeat film “Rebel Without a Cause.” Unlike the cinematic antihero so memorably played by her co-star James Dean, Natalie had good cause to rebel, especially after her mother broke up her first serious romance with a high school sweetheart. (Maria had no such objections when her 16-year-old daughter spent unchaperoned nights with Hollywood VIPs.) Yet, for all the reasons she had to resent her mother, Natalie also recognized how much she owed her.
Suzanne Finstad, a lawyer and magazine writer whose previous books include a true-crime story, “Sleeping With the Devil,” and a biography of Priscilla Presley, presents a poignant, intensely sympathetic portrait of the vulnerable, sensitive little girl who grew up to be the quintessential Hollywood star, swathed in sable or mink, never seen in public without her makeup. Yet, as Finstad shows us, there was another side to Natalie: She wanted to become a serious actress, not just a star, and to this end she sought out opportunities to work with directors like Nicholas Ray and Elia Kazan, actors like James Dean and Scott Marlowe. “On the surface,” writes Finstad, “Natalie’s life seemed like a Sandra Dee movie fantasy of a teenage star ... in her cotton-candy-pink bedroom filled with toy tigers--gifts from male admirers.” Yet a lot of her private time was spent reading books like Nietzsche’s “Thus Spake Zarathustra,” the kind of books she would have read had she enjoyed the benefits of a college education.
Almost everyone who came into contact with Natalie (and Finstad has interviewed hundreds of them--childhood friends, actors, directors, costume designers, hairstylists) seems to have been impressed, not only by her intelligence and professionalism, but by her genuine sweetness. One of the few people who refused to be interviewed was Natalie’s husband, Robert Wagner. Finstad paints quite an insightful portrait of their relationship nonetheless. Only as the story moves toward its tragic conclusion do things grow murky. Natalie’s 1981 death by drowning in the waters off Catalina on a boating excursion with her husband and her co-star Christopher Walken on Thanksgiving weekend still remains something of a mystery. Finstad offers detailed accounts of the testimony of various witnesses--waitresses, a bartender, restaurant patrons, people in a nearby boat, and, most troubling of all, the man who captained the Wagners’ vessel--to what was clearly a strained, unpleasant weekend in which huge quantities of alcohol were consumed. What seems clear from Finstad’s account is that when faced with a genuine emergency Wagner’s first instinct was to be more afraid of negative publicity than of losing his wife. And the flight from truth rippled outwards. In time-hallowed Hollywood fashion, make-believe triumphed over reality.
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8928cbeb403fe74c3879e395aec207d9 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jul-30-he-28162-story.html | Surgery Has Improved for Scoliosis Treatment | Surgery Has Improved for Scoliosis Treatment
Liken many mothers, Nancy Weiss is full of praise for her 16-year-old daughter, Kimberly. The Port Washington, N.Y., mother commends Kimberly’s writing ability and her quick wit, but she really raves about Kimberly’s long, flat back.
Thirty-nine years ago, at Kimberly’s age, Nancy spent a year in bed recovering from surgery with a cast that stretched from chest to hips. Nancy had scoliosis, a condition in which the spine curves sideways and twists, rotating the rib cage so that the flat part, which normally makes up the back, shifts to the side and a curved side shifts toward the back, creating a hump in more severe cases.
The surgery straightened her spine--it no longer curved like a C across her back--but the hump remained, along with a long thick scar down the center of her back.
Kimberly also had scoliosis. About 20% of children of those with scoliosis will develop it, although in most cases no one knows what causes scoliosis or how it might be inherited.
Just three months ago, Kimberly’s spine was curved, her back humped and she was in constant pain. The pain became so intense she had to stop running track, her favorite sport. “When I ran,” she said, “I could feel my ribs going into my lungs.” On May 21, she underwent an 11-hour surgery to correct the condition.
Kimberly has no cast, and her only scars are 1 inch long and hidden under her arm. She wears a brace when in the car or in other places where her back might get jostled, but she’ll no longer need the brace by the time she goes back to Roslyn High School.
The difference between Nancy’s experience and Kimberly’s is a striking demonstration of progress in medicine. Nancy was diagnosed with scoliosis in 1962. She went into surgery soon after.
Surgeons cut into her back, making a long incision down the middle. They straightened her spine and scraped between the vertebrae to encourage the bone to grow and fuse the vertebrae, immobilizing the spine. A bone from a cadaver was attached to her spine, a standard procedure at the time, to keep it straight while her own bone grew.
Her cast prevented movement while the vertebrae fused, a process that took about a year. Although it straightened her spine, the surgery left her rib cage twisted and her back humped.
“I got a good medical result but not a good cosmetic result,” Nancy said. “It was a terribly horrible surgery to just have a medical result.”
Kimberly was diagnosed with scoliosis in the sixth grade, during mandatory school testing for scoliosis. She wore a brace for 12 hours each night for the next four years to try to prevent her spine from curving more.
After the trauma of her own surgery, Nancy prayed her daughter wouldn’t suffer the same fate. “I felt terribly guilty,” she said. “Surgery is really the scariest thing you think about for your child. You pray the brace will work and think, God forbid my child should have to have surgery.” But the brace failed, and doctors determined Kimberly’s spine had curved far enough for surgery.
The severity of a spinal curve is measured in degrees. In most circumstances, surgeons won’t operate until the curve passes 40 degrees. Kimberly’s curve was 16 degrees when she was diagnosed and 51 degrees when they operated.
Modern surgeries use metal rods to straighten both the sideways curve of the spine and the twisting of the rib cage, but many are still done through a long incision in the patient’s back. Some very severe cases require the surgeons to get at the spine through the front of the body, which is more difficult but gets the best results.
Kimberly and her mother went to Dr. Baron Lonner of Scoliosis Associates in the Bronx. He proposed a new surgery. Rather than cutting in through her back, Lonner entered Kimberly’s chest through several small incisions beneath her arm. He deflated a lung to get a better view of the spine and inserted a camera and various surgical tools through the incisions. Lonner removed disks, tire-shaped cushions between vertebrae, along the curve.
He grafted bone chipped from Kimberly’s ribs into the gaps between the vertebrae, and then attached screws to each vertebra along the curve. He slipped in a long rod that he attached to the screws. Finally, Lonner compressed and straightened the spine. The rod now holds Kimberly’s spine straight while the grafts grow to fuse the vertebrae, eventually locking the straight spine into place.
Kimberly’s surgery, called thoracoscopic surgery, gets cosmetically better results, with less scarring than surgeries that enter through the front or back. In the surgery, doctors work on the front of the spine, which allows them more maneuverability and allows a better correction than a surgery through the back.
“The more I see our results, the more I like the operation,” Lonner said. Patients lose less blood and often don’t need a transfusion. The recovery just after surgery is faster, patients are off pain medication sooner, and they regain mobility more quickly.
Thoracoscopic surgery works only for younger patients with still-flexible spines; of those, only about half have curves that can be straightened with the surgery.
In a year, after Kimberly’s spine has completely fused, she will be able to start running, and her doctor says her back will be as flexible and strong as any other teenager’s.
Waiting for the surgery to finish was tough, Nancy said, but when she saw her daughter try to sit up, it was all worth it. “When she put her legs on the side of the bed to get up, and I saw her back was perfectly straight,” Nancy shakes her head and smiles. “That was totally miraculous.”
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c522a84441c35275da702b9ae291ce28 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jul-30-sp-28248-story.html | Aussies Too Tough for U.S. | Aussies Too Tough for U.S.
A year later and an ocean away, Australia finally defeated the United States at the World Swimming Championships.
A trademark finish by Ian Thorpe was the only thing missing when Australia clinched the title Sunday with a world record in the most grueling race in the pool and capped it with a relay victory. After six gold medals, including four world records, Thorpe had already done his share at Fukuoka, Japan.
He watched with his teammates from the bleachers as Grant Hackett got Australia’s 12th gold medal and Petria Thomas led the women’s 400-meter medley relay team to her third gold medal and Australia’s 13th.
The U.S. team that dominated the last world championships in 1998 and led the Sydney Olympic standings with 33 medals, including 14 gold, finished with nine gold medals and 26 overall to finish behind Australia (13 gold, four silver, six bronze) and China (10-6-4).
“The Americans have been No. 1 for a long time and I’ll make no bones about it. We want to beat them and we did just that,” said Don Talbot, Australia’s coach. “It’s fabulous and it makes me feel great.”
Still, it was against a young American team. Without Lenny Krayzelburg, Gary Hall Jr., Tom Dolan, Jenny Thompson, Dara Torres, Brook Bennett and Misty Hyman, the team was America’s most inexperienced in years.
Tennis
Kim Clijsters of Belgium won the Bank of the West Classic at Stanford, defeating an uncharacteristically sluggish Lindsay Davenport, 6-4, 6-7 (5), 6-1.
Clijsters, seeded third, broke the second-seeded Davenport, who overhit a forehand on match point, for her fourth career win and first of the year.
Clijsters, 18, known for her third-set battle with Jennifer Capriati in the French Open final, broke Davenport’s serve to end it after 1 hour 50 minutes.
“I just felt like I wasn’t 100% there,” Davenport said. “My return was pretty awful through the whole match and I really couldn’t get anything going.”
Nicolas Lapentti of Ecuador withstood courtside temperatures of 113 degrees to win the Generali Open at Kitzbuhel, Austria, defeating Albert Costa of Spain, 1-6, 6-4, 7-5, 7-5.
Lapentti, a wild-card entrant, was playing in his first final of the season. He won the $900,000 clay-court tournament on his ninth match point, completing a match that lasted more than four hours.
Tommy Robredo and Cristina Torrens-Valero won the men’s and women’s finals in the $570,000 clay-court Prokom Open at Sopot, Poland, in which the title matches featured four Spaniards.
Robredo won his first ATP title, defeating Albert Portas, 1-6, 7-5, 7-6 (2). Torrens-Valero defeated Gala Leon Garcia, 6-2, 6-2.
Soccer
Nigeria advanced to the 2002 World Cup, defeating Ghana, 3-0, at Port Harcourt, Nigeria, to win the fifth and final berth for Africa. Nigeria joins Cameroon, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia in the 32-nation event next summer in South Korea and Japan. Nigeria had not beaten Ghana since 1984, and the two nations tied earlier this year.
Jill Oakes scored in the 76th minute as the U.S. under-21 women’s team tied Germany, 1-1, at Dokka, Norway, to advance to the Nordic Cup final.
The United States will play Sweden in the championship game Tuesday. The U.S. and Germany finished Group A play with seven points each, but the Americans won on goal differential.
Residents of Japan and South Korea, who already have been allocated half the tickets for the 2002 World Cup, will be barred from applying for any more “international” tickets until November so everybody else gets a chance, FIFA said.
Mark Santel scored in the 21st minute and Gary Glasgow added a goal in the 65th as the Kansas City Wizards improved to 9-9-2 with a 2-0 victory over the New England Revolution (5-10-5) before 6,071 at Kansas City.
Kim Clark got her first WUSA goal and assist in a span of eight minutes in the second half as the Bay Area CyberRays defeated the Carolina Courage, 2-1, before 5,041 at Chapel Hill, N.C. Bay Area (9-5-4) pulled into a tie for the WUSA lead with Atlanta. Carolina (6-10-2) had won three in a row.
Shannon MacMillan scored two goals as the San Diego Spirit (6-7-4) defeated the Atlanta Beat (8-3-7), 3-1, in a WUSA game before 6,155 at San Diego. . . . Dagny Mellgren scored both goals as the Boston Breakers (6-9-3) beat the Washington Freedom (6-10-2), 2-1, before 11,651 at Boston.
Miscellany
George Gervais of Mira Loma was critically injured in an accident during a Southern California Racing Assn. sprint car race Saturday night at Perris Auto Speedway.
Gervais was racing on the final lap of the featured race when he touched wheels with Jordan Hermansader of Long Beach. Gervais’ car flipped over several times on the back straightaway.
Gervais remained in critical condition Sunday night at Riverside County Regional Medical Center in Moreno Valley. He was unconscious when he arrived.
San Bernardino County investigators hope to interview Mike Tyson this week about a woman’s claim that the former heavyweight champion sexually assaulted her July 16 at a rental home in Big Bear City.
Ryoko Tamura of Japan overcame a knee injury to win a record fifth consecutive title at the judo world championships in Munich, Germany. She needed a referee’s decision to edge North Korea’s Kyong-Ok Ri in the under-106-pound division.
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054c17279d7a646d2b25f9cdbebf04ab | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jul-31-mn-28907-story.html | 3,000 Locked in School for 6 Hours After Gunfire | 3,000 Locked in School for 6 Hours After Gunfire
The early morning shooting of a school police officer outside Belmont High School on Monday led to a nearly daylong lock-down of the huge campus near downtown Los Angeles--a precaution that forced students to scrounge for food, while away the hours listening to rock music and relieve themselves in plastic sacks provided by their teachers.
Nearly 3,000 students spent more than six hours behind closed doors in their classrooms, as dozens of police officers combed the year-round campus and surrounding neighborhood for a gunman and his accomplice after the shooting of school district Officer Conrad Bonilla, 33.
Although Bonilla was only slightly injured, authorities said it took them most of the day to assure that the two assailants were no longer a threat to the school. Teachers finally released students about 2 p.m.
During the most protracted school lock-down in district memory, some instructors went on with their lessons, despite the tension of a police search. A few students managed to get some homework done. But mostly it was a day of endurance and coping, until police confirmed that the gunman was not on school grounds, just west of the Harbor Freeway.
Several dozen parents paced nervously in front of the school for much of the day, hoping to receive some word about their children. But most students seemed to take the ordeal with good humor, as evidenced by a few who hung placards out of classroom windows pleading for water, or to be set free.
“It was boring and scary and exciting all at the same time,” said Marcos Coronel, 13, a ninth-grader.
Zoila Monterrozo was in a school office when she was ordered to stay put. Later, she and other students followed police officers and teachers to the nurse’s office, to use a bathroom. They also received some water and cookies.
“We were looking out the window [of the nurse’s office] to the front of the school,” said Monterrozo, an 18-year-old senior. “We saw police officers eating hamburgers. We were like, ‘OK, when do we get to eat?’ ”
Los Angeles Unified School District policy requires, at the time of a shooting, that all students be immediately secured in classrooms or other campus locations, away from danger. Monday’s Belmont lock-down was reinforced by an order from Los Angeles police, who told school administrators that students could not be allowed in the hallways, district officials said.
Police insisted that the prolonged lock-down was necessary to ensure safety at one of the city’s most crowded schools. The shooting occurred just before the beginning of the day at the campus.
“Unfortunately, we found out several hours later that the suspects had fled out of the perimeter prior to our [SWAT] deployment,” said Officer Jason Lee, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department.
Police acknowledged that students endured hunger and boredom in their cramped classrooms, but they said the lock-down was a necessary evil, given the possible danger.
“I’m sure it was pretty uncomfortable for them,” said Richard Page, of the L.A. Unified police department. “I have teenagers, and I know they don’t like to be held for a long time in one place.”
Belmont Principal Ignacio Garcia said school administrators opted for the trash bag toilets as the only safe alternative. A police officer helped deliver the bags, which were taken from earthquake emergency kits.
Garcia and another administrator even explained in an interview how teachers could use the metal frames of classroom seats to fashion crude toilets. It was unclear whether any teachers actually followed through on such plans. By later in the day, police officers were escorting students to restrooms, school police officials said.
One school board member was not amused by the day’s events, criticizing the length of the lock-down and the fact that some students were expected to rely on trash bags in place of restrooms. “It’s inhumane,” said David Tokofsky. “If this is state-of-the-art approach to lock-downs, then I’m a little confused.”
Tokofsky said that in 1993, when he was a teacher at Fairfax High School, administrators and police escorted students to restrooms during a lock-down after a student was shot and killed.
The long Belmont episode began just after the 7:20 a.m. shooting, when school and police officials ordered students, teachers and staff to remain indoors until a thorough search had been conducted.
With no food and no bathroom trips permitted, many teachers cast their lesson plans aside and did their best to entertain their stir-crazy teenagers during a hot day that seemed to drag on forever.
“I gave them every piece of candy I had in my classroom,” said English teacher Pam Nehring.
One math teacher popped open the CD-ROM on her classroom computer and let her students blare Led Zeppelin and the Beatles. Other teachers let their students play Jeopardy on computers or hangman on chalkboards.
The students in one art class, equipped with a television, watched the police and crowds swell around their campus on the morning news.
As word of the shooting reached teachers, they frantically shepherded students into classrooms on the 78-year-old campus. But once the immediate threat seemed to subside, staff and students appeared to take it all in stride.
As the hours wore on and lunchtime approached, most seemed more preoccupied with their growling stomachs than with the possibility that a gunman was on the loose. Many frazzled parents were not quite so sanguine. They huddled on the sidewalk outside the campus, waiting anxiously for any word on their children.
Responding to the news crews outside their school, students in one classroom waved signs out a window with messages that read: “Food, Water” and “Let Us Go!” and “Need Food--Room 314.”
“I wouldn’t call it harrowing,” said English teacher Jennifer Bunnell, who also coaches the color guard squad.
Members of the color guard were preparing for practice on the ball field when the shooting erupted. Bunnell hustled her students into the auditorium, where the doors were locked. With nothing else to do, the squad members took the stage and practiced their routines.
“Not the whole time,” Bunnell said, “because it got tiring. We also played tick-tack-toe.”
Toiletries Passed Out During Search
As SWAT teams searched for the assailants, janitors and police went from classroom to classroom, handing out more than 5,000 garbage bags and boxes of Kleenex. The teachers were instructed to use the supplies for students to go to the bathroom. One teenage boy laughingly described how he grabbed one of the large black trash bags and stepped into a classroom closet to relieve himself.
But many other students did their best to avoid the makeshift bathroom arrangements.
“I wasn’t going to use a bag, man. It’s unhealthy,” said Doris Velasquez, who said she slipped out of her fourth-floor classroom after telling her teacher she wouldn’t venture far. Instead, she made her way to the cafeteria, two floors below, where she used the facilities. She also managed to split a tuna sandwich with a teacher.
Police said the shooting occurred just before the start of school, when most students were already on the campus. The campus officer had just arrived for work, not yet fully in uniform. A student told him about two young men in the school parking structure who were acting suspiciously.
One was described as a teenager, the other as being in his early 20s. The older one “produced a blue steel handgun and fired a shot” at Bonilla, said Capt. Mike Moore of the LAPD’s Rampart Division.
Authorities said that a bulletproof vest probably saved Bonilla from more serious injury when the gunshot struck him in the chest. He was treated at Good Samaritan Hospital and released Monday afternoon.
The school officer “returned fire, but was not sure whether his assailant was hit,” Moore said. The two young men fled. Not long after, 60 to 70 LAPD officers were on the scene. The school district sent several backup officers.
But it took 2 1/2 hours before the police SWAT team arrived and launched a comprehensive search, LAPD officials said. Police said they needed the time to plot a search that would keep students, staff and officers safe. The gunman had fled long before the search began, police said.
A district spokeswoman said that Belmont staffers followed a school safety protocol: Announcements were broadcast on the school’s public address system ordering all students to proceed immediately to their first-period class or the nearest classroom.
“We were instructed to hold the students in the classrooms until we got an all-clear from LAPD,” spokeswoman Hilda Ramirez said.
As for late arrivals, she said, they were first ordered to the school’s baseball field, and then sent to classrooms.
Students were held in their classrooms until about 2 p.m., when they were released into the quad to eat lunch. They were summoned back to their classrooms and dismissed about 3:15 p.m., about 10 minutes earlier than usual.
Parents paced at the school’s front gate, waiting for their children to appear.
“With all the news about kids being shot in schools, anyone would be freaked out,” said Luis Colon, who was waiting at the gate for his son and daughter. “I just want to take them home.”
A few students had second thoughts about returning to school, saying the shooting had struck fear in them. But most said they were planning to be in school today. And Principal Garcia sought to reinforce the message that his school is safe.
“This is not a common occurrence at Belmont High School,” he said. “It is truly an aberration.”
*
Times staff writer Carla Hall contributed to this story.
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ed459053607547868c7c3b366317e866 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jul-31-mn-28929-story.html | Freak Accident During MRI Exam Kills Boy, 6 | Freak Accident During MRI Exam Kills Boy, 6
A 6-year-old boy undergoing an MRI exam was killed when the machine’s powerful magnet pulled a metal oxygen tank through the air, fracturing his skull.
Officials at Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla said the tank was inadvertently brought into the exam room Friday after Michael Colombini, of Croton-on-Hudson, was in the magnetic resonance imaging machine and the 10-ton electromagnet was switched on.
The tank was “immediately magnetized and drawn to the center of the machine, causing head trauma to the child,” the medical center said in a news release.
Colombini died Sunday of blunt force trauma and a fractured skull.
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a033a4c78919229b2a0da92ac8862049 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jun-01-mn-5086-story.html | Iran Reports Success in Guided-Missile Test | Iran Reports Success in Guided-Missile Test
Iran successfully tested its first solid-fuel surface-to-surface missile, state-run Tehran radio reported Thursday.
The guided Fateh-110 missile was developed at the government-owned Aerospace Industries, the report said.
“Fateh-110, a super-modern surface-to-surface missile, functions with combined solid fuel, is able to cause great damage and finds targets with accuracy,” it said. “The missile is classified among Iran’s most efficient missiles.”
State television broadcast pictures of the missile taking off from a simple launcher at a desert site to cries of “Allahu akbar!"--"God is great!"--and footage of the impact crater.
The broadcast did not give the missile’s range, say when the test took place or provide other details.
Iran has built and tested several missiles, including the Shahab-3, which has a range of about 800 miles and, unlike the Fateh-110, uses a mixture of liquid and solid fuel.
Washington has said that the Shahab-3 enables Iran to hit Israel and U.S. troops stationed in the Persian Gulf.
U.S. State Department officials have said that Iran is a major recipient of missile technology from Russia, North Korea and China.
“We have long-standing concerns about Iran’s proliferation behavior, including its missile development and weapons-of-mass-destruction programs,” U.S. National Security Council spokeswoman Mary Ellen Countryman said.
But Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani, a candidate in next week’s presidential election, has said his country has a sophisticated domestic missile industry and needs no foreign technology. In an interview Thursday with Reuters, he rejected Western allegations that Iran was seeking to develop a nuclear capability.
“Don’t worry, we are reasonable people,” he said. “We have signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and we will not try at all to subvert them.”
Iran had virtually no arms industry before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, when the country, under the U.S.-backed shah, bought virtually all of its weapons from Washington.
Tehran began an ambitious arms development program during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War to compensate for weapons shortages caused by a post-revolution U.S. embargo. Since 1992, Iran has unveiled its own tanks, armored personnel carriers, missiles and a fighter plane.
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c093385ad9ef825e6427a12f0787d707 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jun-04-ca-6228-story.html | For Studios, Junkets Are Just Cost-Effective | For Studios, Junkets Are Just Cost-Effective
Apparently, the Los Angeles Times is shocked--shocked!--to discover that movie studios go to great lengths to secure favorable media attention for their expensive new releases. For a publication that has faced its own accusations of “soft” coverage of the entertainment industry, The Times seems obsessed with decrying press junkets as an affront to honest journalism. Howard Rosenberg’s screed against the recent “Pearl Harbor” junket in Hawaii (“A Junket That Will Live in Infamy,” May 25) and Charles Fleming’s misleading attack on film journalists (“The Journalism of Adoration,” Opinion section, May 20) are merely the latest smears.
As a film critic and reporter, I have attended hundreds of movie junkets, from Hawaii to Paris. The essence of my job has been to inform my viewers, listeners and readers about new releases and about the stars who fascinate them. Junkets provide me with the opportunity to do my job.
Junkets have become a Hollywood institution because they are a cost-effective way for studios to generate publicity (oddly referred to as “free media”) for their movies. They allow dozens or even hundreds of entertainment reporters to get timely access to actors and directors who could never be available to as many people without the assembly-line efficiency of a junket.
Are four-minute, wham-bam television interviews or 20-minute small group “round table” interviews an ideal communication forum? Of course not. But the alternative is providing access to fewer reporters, thus serving the needs of far fewer media outlets and their audiences. The only winners in the latter scenario would be, hmmm, the most powerful media outlets. Like, for example, The Times?
I would not be as upset by Rosenberg and Fleming (and their Times editors) if their disingenuous accounts were merely self-serving. But they are also false and defamatory.
Fleming boldly states that reporters must “refrain from any negative criticism of the movie” to be invited to attend junkets. This is flat-out wrong and spits in the face of the hard-working journalists who spend up to 40 or more weekends a year on the “junket circuit,” gathering whatever juicy morsels they can to satisfy the insatiable appetite for news about Hollywood. Even Rosenberg, after castigating KTLA’s Sam Rubin merely for attending the “Pearl Harbor” marketing events, admits that Rubin gave the movie only a B- in his review.
I have conducted literally thousands of junket interviews and never once submitted, or was asked to submit, my questions to a publicist beforehand, contrary to Fleming’s offensive and inaccurate depiction of the junket system.
I did chuckle, however, at the juxtaposition of Rosenberg’s smug “expose” and Kevin Thomas’ rave review of “Pearl Harbor.” Rosenberg mocks reporters such as KABC’s George Pennacchio and KCAL’s Cary Berglund as “suckers and suck-ups” for being moved by the experience of watching a vivid reenactment of the Japanese invasion of Pearl Harbor aboard a U.S. aircraft carrier, the John C. Stennis, on the very spot of the devastating attack. But right there next to his rant, Thomas is praising the film as “especially moving for those of us old enough to have heard FDR proclaim Dec. 7 ‘a date which will live in infamy.’ ”
As a Times reader, I appreciate when your reporters pull back the curtain and reveal hard truths that powerful interests seek to keep under wraps, whether in public affairs or show business. But these cheap shots aimed at the modern movie marketing system betray the disrespect and contempt The Times has continually shown for its competition in entertainment news coverage.
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633da95388b3544df7ac83b438ac3f96 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jun-06-mn-7066-story.html | Film Explores a Timeless ‘Dust’ Swirling in the Balkans | Film Explores a Timeless ‘Dust’ Swirling in the Balkans
Even before his new movie, “Dust,” has had its premiere, Milcho Manchevski has been asked whether the gunslinging American frontier character Luke--who gets caught up in a 1903 Balkan uprising--symbolizes NATO.
The answer is that he doesn’t--not quite, anyway.
“He’s not NATO, because the script was written before NATO came to have their fun in the Balkans,” the Macedonian-born director said, referring to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s campaign two years ago to protect ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, a province of Serbia, the main Yugoslav republic.
“But once the bombing happened,” Manchevski continued, “it was impossible to ignore it. We had it in the back of our minds. Everything you see influences you, even subconsciously. I guess I was a little more careful in portraying the fact that Luke is absolutely ignorant of what’s going on.”
Like his first film, “Before the Rain,” which shared the Golden Lion for best film at the 1994 Venice Film Festival, “Dust” is a tale that plays games with time and geography. The movie, which will premiere in the summer at this year’s festival, is set in contemporary New York City and the Macedonia of a century ago, which at the time was part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire.
The tale of the misadventures of Luke, played by David Wenham, and his brother Elijah, played by Joseph Fiennes (Shakespeare in “Shakespeare in Love”), is on one level the story of foreigners lost in a situation they cannot comprehend.
Luke and Elijah fight over a woman, and then Luke leaves America for Paris, but he “can’t quite fit in, and then looks for another place,” said Manchevski, 41, who is based in New York City. “He actually sort of stumbles into the last frontier--not ‘the Wild West’ but ‘the Wild East.’
“It’s a place where you can still live as a bounty hunter, you can carry a gun. That’s Macedonia at the turn of the century.” Elijah eventually catches up with him.
Loosely based on history from the final years of the Ottomans, “Dust” can be seen as an artistic commentary on the wars that tore the Yugoslav federation as it broke up in the 1990s.
In some respects, the film foreshadows the current fighting in Macedonia--which seceded peacefully from the Yugoslav federation in 1991--between ethnic Albanian guerrillas and government forces. The guerrillas say they are fighting for equal rights for ethnic Albanians in Macedonia, while the government charges that they are trying to split the country.
At least one-quarter of Macedonia’s 2 million population is ethnic Albanian, and most members of the minority live in western or northwestern parts of the country, close to Albania and Kosovo.
“Dust” jumps back and forth across space and time to tell two ultimately intertwined stories: one about an old woman and a burglar in New York, the other about the two American frontier brothers-turned-enemies caught up in battles between Macedonian Slav revolutionaries, Turkish soldiers and ethnic Albanian and Greek gangs.
The main action, as a trailer for “Dust” puts it, takes place in “the Wild East, where the centuries don’t follow one another--they coexist.”
As Manchevski sat at a sidewalk cafe on one of this capital city’s tree-lined streets and discussed how his art touches today’s reality, street battles between government forces and ethnic Albanian guerrillas raged in a village just 15 miles away, and the army and rebels traded mortar fire in that area.
The killing of eight Macedonian soldiers by rebel forces in late April “was really uncanny, because it’s as if replicating the attack of the Albanian gang in the film,” said Manchevski, who wrote as well as directed “Dust.”
He said he doesn’t really believe that NATO is acting completely without knowledge in the Balkans, but he does think the alliance isn’t very good at foreseeing how things are likely to unfold.
“I wouldn’t think NATO would want to reverse ‘ethnic cleansing’ after their involvement in Kosovo; however, that is precisely what happened,” he explained, referring to violence by ethnic Albanians against Serbs after the NATO bombing campaign. “I would hope they wouldn’t expect or want fighting in Macedonia which is supported from Kosovo, and again that is what happened. You have people with machine guns hijacking the concept of human rights and using it to justify killing.”
The film plays off Luke’s ignorance of Turkish-ruled Macedonia by using “a variation on the ‘Shane’ motif, where he comes into town [and] he doesn’t know anybody,” Manchevski said.
“In a classical Western, he would quickly see who the good guys are and who the bad guys are,” he continued. “In a place like this, it would take him much longer. So eventually he takes the side of the innocent civilians, rather than a side in the war. And in a way the film is dedicated to all the innocent civilians slaughtered in the wars here.”
Manchevski said he got the idea for the film when he noticed the similarities in old photographs between Macedonian revolutionaries and the Mexican rebels led by Pancho Villa.
Until then, he said, he had always thought of Macedonian revolutionaries as belonging to serious history, while Pancho Villa and gunslingers in the American West belonged in comic books.
“The iconography was so similar: bearded men with bandoleers and rifles on their white horses,” he said. “So I’m looking for a way to put those two together. Then I realized they were happening at roughly the same time. At the very same time, you had the beginning of Cubism, the invention of the airplane, Freud, so it’s a peculiar playing with time and place. . . . Freud shows up in the film. So do Cubist paintings.”
Manchevski said he was also inspired by Carnegie Commission reports about the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913. In the first war, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece and Montenegro fought successfully to break Macedonia and Albania away from the Ottoman Empire. In the second, Serbia, Greece and Romania fought Bulgaria over how to divide up Macedonia.
Parts of the Carnegie reports read like “a fragmented film,” with pieces of the story coming first from one witness and then from another, he said.
“Dust” poses to its characters and the audience “the same dilemma as ‘Before the Rain,’ ” Manchevski said. “Do you get involved? Should you get involved? How do you pick sides?
“I don’t believe in picking sides along ethnic lines. You know, ‘This is my tribe, and I’m going to support them.’ In both films, there is an outsider who’s thrown into the middle of a violent conflict. I guess the one thing to see in it is: ‘Do get involved. But do think twice.’ ”
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2897db6e8eafc70e66ee27e6c5724cba | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jun-07-me-7558-story.html | Navigating the Traffic Maze at the City’s Core | Navigating the Traffic Maze at the City’s Core
It rolls off the tongue like an obscenity: The four-level. No place in Los Angeles may conjure more dread. This roaring maw of hurtling steel and gasoline fumes accounts for an ungodly number of radio traffic reports, all of them bad: spilled loads, lane closures, jackknifed big rigs.
Nearly half a million drivers a day enter this granddaddy of all freeway interchanges, where the tentacles of the Harbor Freeway cross and hook up with those of the Hollywood. Half a million drivers who share one thing in common: not where they are going--oh, puh-leeease--but the fact that not one of them really wants to be here.
The downtown four-level is filled with harrowing merges. One of the worst comes when you’re traveling from the southbound Hollywood to the southbound Harbor. You have to veer three lanes to the left--into traffic that might be stopped, or traveling three times your speed--or face being shunted onto downtown streets, a broken grid of one-ways that can swallow up the most nimble Ferrari.
It is task enough for hardened commuters. For out-of-towners, those poor souls trying to navigate the core of the city with rental cars and hand-scrawled directions, this is the worst kind of tourist trap.
At the point where traffic merges, “you can see the terrified expressions as they’re trying to get to the right,” says attorney William Moore, who is usually trying to merge left. The right-mergers are trying to get off the freeway at 3rd Street, 4th Street and Wilshire Boulevard. They look at Moore “sort of mouth agape,” he says, “like, ‘Ah! What’s he doing?’ ”
Joan Didion wrote about the same terrible confluence of cars 31 years ago in her novel “Play It as It Lays.” Didion’s character was a woman who “drove it as a riverman runs a river, every day more attuned to its currents, its deceptions. . . . On the afternoon she finally [completed the merge] without once braking or once losing the beat on the radio she was exhilarated, and that night slept dreamlessly.”
Marianne Hooper drives it, sometimes with her 3-year-old son in the back seat. She is more likely to have nightmares.
“All these big SUVs, they’re barreling down on you,” she says. “It’s horrible.”
Like ancient, unfixable plumbing, the four-level is deplorable, annoying, indispensable, prone to clogs and probably stuck here forever. It channels a ceaseless flow of traffic through conduits no longer adequate for the job. When it opened in 1953, at a cost of $5.5 million, it was the first of its kind, the prototype for every multilevel freeway interchange in America, and it worked well enough to spawn thousands.
That it occupied the site of the old town gallows was omen enough that Caltrans officials still note the fact. How many drivers have met their doom on the interchange is uncertain. The fender-benders and lost man-hours due to rush-hour congestion are too numerous to ever tally. The trade-off for a vast, wide-open city and cheap transportation is the fact that, sooner or later, everyone gets squeezed through this sausage grinder.
“From above, it looks otherworldly,” says radio and TV traffic reporter Jim Thornton, who used to gaze down from a helicopter. He’d see nothing moving but the cars and wisps of smoke from industrial stacks. “You can’t hear people honking--you just see them swerve to cut in front of somebody else. You can almost see what people are thinking. . . . ‘Am I going to make it to work on time? Am I stuck? Should I turn back?’ ”
The four-level is no longer the biggest or the busiest of Los Angeles’ many interchanges, but it remains forbidding. Located next to Chinatown south of Dodger Stadium, it is the apex in a troika of busy central-city interchanges.
Roll in from Orange County and you must also negotiate the East L.A. interchange, where the Pomona, Santa Ana and Hollywood freeways snake together. Motor up from San Pedro and you plunge into three miles of concrete jungle that begin where the Harbor and Santa Monica freeways merge near Staples Center.
That stretch of the Harbor Freeway is especially daunting.
Downtown office spires loom overhead. The roadway sinks as you near the four-level; concrete overpasses create a feeling of claustrophobia. It can unnerve some drivers so badly that they wreck or have a panic attack--or both.
“Say they’re from Ogden, Utah, or somewhere in Wyoming--they don’t even have that kind of freeway system,” postulates Dr. Michael Singer, a psychiatrist specializing in anxiety disorders. “The person becomes overwhelmed with fright. ‘What do I do? What do I do?’ The adrenaline is flowing, their hearts are pounding, they can actually get lightheaded to the point they fear they’re going to faint. Sometimes they have to look for the nearest ramp, get off on a side street and try to breathe normally, try to contain themselves.”
Anne McAndrews, a Long Beach golf instructor, is not that bad off, but neither is she an Indy driver. Any time she nears the four-level her pulse quickens, she is on edge.
“I turn off the radio, or turn it down, and think about where I’m going,” she says. “Where I have problems is having all these lanes, these choices, and you have to make a decision very quickly. You feel like it’s the end of the world if you go the wrong way.”
Liane Colsky has done that. Once she ended up downtown, on surface streets, and tried to circle back to the freeway--only to circle and circle.
“I kept missing the ramp,” she remembers. “The sign was a little misleading, and I kept going around and missing it.”
There is no bright side, except the sick satisfaction that some other cities may have it even worse. Freeways and toll roads added to old East Coast road grids are sometimes so confusing as to make us thankful for places like the four-level--or so says Susan Parman, an anthropology professor at Cal State Fullerton. She recalled one horrific experience in Pittsburgh, crossing and recrossing bridges.
Parman sees at least some hint of order in the four-level’s well-marked signs and clearly defined lanes, the pathways that connect the little villages that make up Los Angeles.
On the four-level and its offspring, she is philosophical: “We’ve built these incredible monstrosities, but they are planned and they are rational. They create a sense of place. In some ways the four-levels are a kind of statement: This is our dream, this is our city, and never mind the dangers that might go along with it.”
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699a802443f037e55016c18a13b6627c | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jun-10-ca-8507-story.html | More Than Rock ‘n’ Moll | More Than Rock ‘n’ Moll
“I’m not denying the stuff I’ve said or done,” says actress Drea de Matteo, her off-the-wall humor getting her more lines in magazines than in scripts, “but I think a lot of people are only going for that one side of me that’s the crazy rock ‘n’ roll thing. And that’s so silly. There’s a lot more to me. I’m not just some girl who likes to listen to music, bang my head all day long.”
De Matteo straddles the edge of a well-worn, second-hand red velveteen couch at Filth Mart, the rock ‘n’ roll vintage clothing store she co-owns in Manhattan. She’s wearing her size-4 denim hip-huggers and hand-painted Rolling Stones loudmouth-logo jacket, and taking a drag from her Winston.
“I don’t know her personally, but I love Angelina Jolie. And the reason why I love her is because when I look at her, I don’t see any hard exterior at all. All you’ve gotta do is look into that girl’s eyes and you know that she’s not [hard]. She may put across that thing --I guess I’m talking about myself too, I would imagine.”
De Matteo, 28, ponders the last statement, realizing she may have found a kindred spirit, as one both admired and ridiculed. Read anything about her and the implications are evident--here’s a woman with the total package of intellect, beauty and talent, wrapped up in something tawdry and socially unorthodox. Like the Academy Award-winning Jolie, De Matteo, who stars as Christopher’s (Michael Imperioli) Mafioso moll, Adriana, in HBO’s “The Sopranos,” came out of nowhere, with an attitude that insists she belongs in this business, but the confidence not to care if she’s not accepted.
She’s got the rebel appeal: “tons” of tattoos; a string of nearly nude photo spreads in FHM and Arena (which featured De Matteo in a bikini designed from an American flag); a tough-chick, streetwise way of expressing herself; and a few, well, eccentricities--for instance, she keeps the testicles of her deceased dog in a jar on her mantle. In fact, these days despite the heat of “The Sopranos,” De Matteo gets a lot more mileage in the celebrity magazines from her style than her career. Whether it’s certifiable insanity or savvy marketing in a field with few standouts, Jolie and De Matteo have gotten our attention.
“It’s really the human qualities underneath [that] people are drawn to,” says Imperioli. “If she was just another girl with tattoos and wearing rock ‘n’ roll clothing, she’d be easily overlooked. She’s a very soulful person, very compassionate. She’s very real and down to earth, generous and not full of herself. Generosity is a big trait with her, and those qualities come out in an actor’s work, and people are always drawn to those things, I think.”
As Adriana, De Matteo has captivated audiences with her dead-on portrayal of a New Jersey moll goddess who’s become as noted for her love of Versace and Dolce & Gabbana as De Matteo has for her rock-chick chic, which helped set off the latest retro-rock T-shirt craze.
“She’s definitely one of the original pioneers of the dressed-up rock T-shirts,” says In Style senior writer Eleni Gage. “She was wearing them herself, being photographed in them, and making them for her friends, and also she sells them. So it caught on. For her it’s not so much a trend, but an expression of herself. But now there are some people who get the T-shirts and put it with their regular clothes to be part of a trend.”
“We’ve ruined the whole world with them. Now we wish we didn’t do it,” says De Matteo, eyeing the shoppers rummaging through the racks of label-less flea market treasures that could have been found in the wardrobe room of “Welcome Back, Kotter.”
Those clothes hang alongside $150 low-slung hip-huggers, and rhinestone-studded tank tops and jeans bearing Judas Priest logos or New York City skylines that are priced at up to $500. That’s about what it costs for a pair of Filth Mart shoestring-fly silver leather pants or button-down denim bell-bottoms too.
“This is all Drea’s style,” Michael Sportes, 31, says of his girlfriend and creative muse as he snatches a pair of Filth Mart-label jeans off the rack. The pants are uniquely stitched in purple thread and cut to ride lower on the hip than even Britney Spears would dare. (Then again, maybe not.) “This is how Drea likes ‘em,” he says.
As Filth Mart co-owner, Sportes creates much of the dressed-up casual wear for their East 13th Street shop, which draws celebrity rockers such as Lenny Kravitz and Joan Jett as well as the likes of Liv Tyler (daughter of Steven) and Stella McCartney (child of Paul).
Filth Mart is the couple’s personal homage to ‘70s hard-rock bands as evidenced by the four KISS face masks over the door and the Black Sabbath and AC/DC posters that adorn the red, white and blue walls (“I’m obsessed with the flag I don’t know why,” says De Matteo.)
Although business is brisk, with a line of denim-topped, wood-carved, Candies-style stiletto sandals scheduled to be added to the line this year, this was not intended to be a retail venture.
“We wanted to sell the shirts to companies, but nobody wanted them. We had so many, we just started embellishing them, and everybody and their mother copied us,” De Matteo sighs. “This is our personal style with music. Classic rock shouldn’t be trendy, and now if you’re wearing a classic rock T-shirt, you’re trendy. Most of the kids wearing these T-shirts don’t know any of the songs by these artists anyway. Even the Stones. It’s crazy.”
Filth Mart introduced its line of customized clothing in 1999, just around the time “The Sopranos,” a life-and-times saga of an Italian New Jersey mob boss, hit HBO. De Matteo, a Queens, New York, native, fresh from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, was performing in local theaters when she landed a one-line, one-episode part in the series as a waitress.
Producer David Chase thought De Matteo, with her lithe frame, sandy brown hair and makeup-less angular features, looked too “WASPy” for a supporting role in the cast. Impressed by what he saw of her on-screen--what that was exactly De Matteo says she still doesn’t know--he changed his mind, developing Adriana with her in mind.
“If that part were being cast as a series regular, I’m sure someone like Jennifer Esposito [who played Michael J. Fox’s sassy/sexy/smart assistant on ABC’s ‘Spin City’] would have gotten the part because I can’t audition to save my life,” she says, later admitting she was a “really twisted shy” person in school.
“I went to film school instead of acting school because I was just so nervous about auditioning for the theater department. I’d make comments like, ‘Who wants a degree in drama? What a stupid degree!’ But that wasn’t it, I was just nervous. When I started taking acting classes, I’d sit in the back of the class and never get up and do a scene because I’d be too nervous.
“I’d just be in a corner lookin’ like I’m all tough with lots of eye and I was really there with a mask on, just hiding because I was so scared and shaky,” says De Matteo, who notes she studied with an acting coach. Then she adds, lighting another cigarette, “But I’m like this nervous crazy person. Nothing like Adriana.”
In Adriana, De Matteo sees a vulnerable, trusting soul who’s almost childlike in her adoring devotion to her beau. But, like De Matteo, there are some misperceptions of that image.
“At the premiere of ‘The Sopranos,’ ” she recalls, “this guy came up to me, looked me up and down, and saw that I was wearing all black leather, and I guess to him [that] meant I was tough, and he says something like, ‘How do you play someone who’s so slow when I can tell you move real quick?’ A lot of people tell me that they think she’s stupid, and I get really defensive,” De Matteo says. “People don’t understand, she is the only character on that show who is not jaded. Everybody else is so guarded and she is not. Adriana’s just masked by the accent, the heavy makeup and the hair. That’s all image.”
Her perception in Hollywood, she now believes, has been marred by her on-and off-screen personas. And since she still doesn’t audition for roles, she takes the few offered to her--supporting parts in this month’s ‘50s gangster drama “Deuces Wild” and “Swordfish” with John Travolta, Halle Berry and Hugh Jackman, and upcoming in Jon Favreau’s “Made,” “The Perfect You” with Jenny McCarthy.
In “Swordfish,” she says, “I play Hugh’s ex-wife, but it’s just one quick scene. I originally took the part because she had a Texas accent, and I’m good at accents.
“They gave me the job and said, ‘Now just do a heavy New York accent, we know you can do that.’ People don’t want to cast me because they think I’m this crazy rock ‘n’ roll lunatic or they think I’m Adriana. I can’t win either way.”
“Since she really got known in the last couple of years, and she became known for such a specific kind of character, people think that’s all she can play is this kind of New York tough chick,” Imperioli says, “but in the next coming years, you’re gonna see a lot of different types of characters coming from her.”
She’ll have her opportunity to show another side of herself with the theatrical production of “The Heart Transplant,” a loosely autobiographical play written by De Matteo and her mother, playwright Donna de Matteo, which is expected to debut in Los Angeles sometime later this year.
“I’ve said it before that if it only becomes about [my image], then it’s not worth it to me. I don’t get to act that much, and that’s really what I love to do,” the actress explains.
“I love ‘The Sopranos,’ but I don’t get to do that much. With television, you say a line, and then you wait 40 hours on set. So I’ve been focusing a lot on the clothing line, and I haven’t been on stage for a long time. I’m a little rusty so I need to do some theater before I decide I’m never gonna act again.”
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075327c94d47b30a03a2bcbd98b03e10 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jun-10-ca-8511-story.html | No Experience Wanted | No Experience Wanted
The first person who ever told me I was too old for the job was named Rick Rosner. It was 1970, and he’d taken over as producer of “The Steve Allen Show.” The previous season I’d been the staff member who found what we affectionately called “the kooks,” the eccentrics Steve had such a good time reacting to. Rick told me, “Your resume looks great, but I think I’ll have to find someone young who’ll work their tail off.”
I was 29 at the time. So was he.
So it struck me as ironic when I recently received the legal papers from the attorneys handling the class-action suit by older writers, including myself, against the television industry over age discrimination, that one of the other plaintiffs was Richard Rosner.
Ah, I thought, the lead for my L.A. Times piece. But it turned out not to be the same guy. Rick, who went on to become the creator-producer of “CHiPS,” is about to turn 60 and says he’s still in the game. No discrimination in his career. He sounded a bit desperate to me when he said that, but maybe it’s just my imagination. He also denied saying what he’d said to me 31 years ago.
Richard, the other Rosner, now in his early 50s, told me a typical horror story of the writing jobs just stopping dead in 1990 after a 14-year network sitcom writing career. He moved to Arizona and went into a new career--in telemarketing. This spring, he was hired to write a TV episode, his first in 10 years.
The latest Writers Guild statistics--compiled in 1998--find that out of the 122 prime-time TV series, 77 of them did not employ a single writer older than 50. Five years earlier, only 19 of them didn’t. Over-50 writers make up one-third of guild membership, but only 5% of those writing on episodic comedies. Three years later, it can only be worse.
All 50 of the plaintiffs in the pending lawsuit against networks, production companies and major talent agencies were highly paid, long-time, consistently successful television writers--many earning six figures a year--whose careers were cut short in midlife for reasons that are hard to explain except by the word “discrimination.” Some were as young as 40 when the checks stopped coming in.
The first writer named in the suit is Tracy Keenan Wynn. In his 20s, Tracy was already a platinum-standard TV writer when I began writing in the mid-1970s. He started out by writing “Tribes,” the TV movie that put TV movies on the map. He went on to write “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman,” “The Glass House” and the first of 17 “In the Line of Duty” movies. Today at 56, the father of three, two of them college-age, he’s living in a borrowed house in Aspen, Colo., having lost his $3-million home and been forced into bankruptcy.
“I haven’t had a job in 17 months,” he says, well aware of the irony of the gracious landscape surrounding his personal poverty. “It’s a nightmare; I don’t know why it’s happening. I see movies on TV that I know, had I been able to get hold of, could have been so good. I see the mistakes, and I know how to fix them, but no one has asked me to.”
Tracy was represented for 12 years each by Creative Artists Agency and International Creative Management, two of the top talent agencies. His first agent retired a multimillionaire. His second, he says, “dis-invited me to be a client. I was told they felt there was nothing they could do for me and it was time for me to move on.”
Tracy noticed something was beginning to change in the late 1980s. “Somehow things were slowing down, but I didn’t know until last August that it wasn’t just happening to me.” That’s when he learned about the pending lawsuit and finally realized the 12-year decline in his career wasn’t “because I’d done something to [tick] somebody off.”
All of the writers in the suit can regale you with horror stories of not being taken seriously by the film and television industry to which they’ve more than proved their worth. Here’s one of mine: Five years ago, I wrote a screenplay called “Naomi Weinstein--Private Eye,” about a young Jewish woman in New York in 1953 who gets embroiled in the anti-Communist purge of the early TV industry. About the only negative response, among much positive feedback, was from a young woman named Lisa Moiselle who unfortunately worked for New York-based Miramax Pictures, run by Harvey Weinstein--unfortunate because Miramax was the most likely company to make such a film.
So I entered it in the New York Independent Feature Project script competition, figuring if it did well it would acquire some buzz. This aged, decrepit, out-of-touch, over-the-hill, washed-up, then-55-year-old TV hack was up against hundreds of edgy, fresh, happening, cutting-edge, twentysomething, Tarantin-ish screenwriters.
Well, I was one of the five finalists. (Or why would I be telling you this story?) I got a call asking if I would come to New York for the announcement party. At first I demurred, because in the previous two years, my dependable annual $150,000 income had suddenly shrunk to $7,000, I’d spent all my savings, lost my Malibu hillside house and gone heavily into debt. I couldn’t afford the trip.
But then I had an epiphany. “Is Harvey Weinstein going to be there?” I asked. The lady said, “We think so; he’s invited.” I caught a plane to New York and spent a nervous hour at the awards ceremony in Lincoln Center, ready to whisk the script from my briefcase. Weinstein never showed up. Upon my return, I wrote him a letter saying despite his story editor’s reaction, my script had just been chosen a winner at the IFP competition and asking him to please read it himself.
After repeated calls and faxes, I got a call back from a Miramax development vice president named Jack Leschner asking me to send the script, which I promptly did. Miramax never got back to me.
Eventually I got a Miramax development assistant to track down what had happened. Without bothering to notify me, the company had rejected the script yet again. I asked if Harvey Weinstein had read it. He said no. I asked, who did? He said, “Lisa Moiselle.” They’d given it to the one and only person in the universe who had a vested interest in turning it down to read again.
Along with Tracy Keenan Wynn, probably the most prominent and prestigious dramatic TV writers when I was breaking in were Bill Blinn and the team of Richard Levinson and Bill Link. Blinn, now 63, wrote the pilots of “Eight Is Enough” and “Fame,” the award-winning TV movie “Brian’s Song” and, oh yes, “Roots.”
These days, the assignments don’t come so fast and heavy. “I’m working at the moment,” says Blinn, “but it’s been tougher the past 10 years. And there was a time in my 50s when I was bouncing around needing an agent and William Morris was joining the witness protection program.”
Link, with his late partner, was responsible for “Columbo,” “Murder, She Wrote” and TV movies including “The Execution of Private Slovik” and “That Certain Summer.” Like Blinn and Wynn, he answered his phone on the first ring.
“Today in TV,” he says, “they believe once you’ve hit 40 years old, you no longer can mirror young people 20 and under. So they don’t hire you. They don’t take into consideration that you probably have children that age, or that you might possibly remember when you were that age yourself.” Link is still writing and has a play about to be produced. “There’s very little ageism in theater,” he says. “In theater, they read the material, not the author.”
The equivalents of Wynn, Blinn and Link in the world of books would be names like John le Carre, Jonathan Kellerman, Stephen King, Patricia Cornwell, Sue Grafton, Amy Tan, John Grisham, Barbara Kingsolver, Ken Follett. As far as I know, they’re not having trouble getting work.
The excuse consistently cited to justify age discrimination (which the TV networks work hard to justify while they swear it doesn’t exist) is “audience age demographics.” The theory goes: The sponsors want younger viewers. We get young viewers by putting on shows about young characters. Who can write shows about young characters? Young writers. Ergo, let’s only hire young writers.
Let’s examine these assumptions. First, are younger viewers more valuable to advertisers than older viewers? I ask John Mattimore, director of media groups of ad agency OMD USA. He replies, “I don’t have any studies to support that younger audiences are preferable.” I call up Beth Uyenco, senior vice president and director of research for Optimum Media, another media-buying firm. Is it easier to persuade a younger person than an older person to change brands? I ask. “No, that’s really arcane thinking,” she says. “It’s not true anymore. People are much smarter shoppers than they used to be.” Bob Igiel, president of the broadcast division of the Media Edge, yet another media-buying firm, says, “It’s not true because younger people are essentially not brand-oriented. And I could mention lots of products not interested in people under 25.”
The most earnest attack on age demographics comes from Alan Wurtzel, president of research and media development for NBC. “Age demographics ‘were invented back in the 1950s by ABC,” he says. “At the time, people over 50 were considered ‘empty nesters.’ Their children were out of the nest, so they didn’t need to buy so many products that people who were raising children did. But that was 50 years ago. It isn’t true today. People tend to get married later, to have children later, so that in their 50s, they’re living lives like their counterparts were living in their mid-30s and early 40s a generation or two ago.” Therefore, the concept of cutting off audience desirability at age 49 has become anachronous.
The next assumption: To get young viewers, you must program shows about young characters. Well, it certainly works when it works. “Friends,” about six characters in their early 30s, is the highest-rated sitcom on TV. Its creators/show runners, Marta Kauffman and David Crane, have publicly said that they only hire young writers. “When you’re 40, you can’t do it anymore,” says Kauffman in a Discovery Channel documentary. “The networks and studios are looking for young people coming in out of college.”
This is true as far as it goes, but it’s also disingenuous. Kauffman and Crane are the most powerful sitcom producers in television. They can have total control of who they hire.
Conventional wisdom says that older writers can’t relate to younger characters. But “Friends” is my favorite show and I’m 60. I used to think I was Ross. More recently I’ve morphed into Chandler. However, my feelings for Rachel, I say with some embarrassment, mirror those of Gunther. I completely identify with these characters. And if I can’t quite tell you every story point of every episode from memory, it’s because I have ADD, not Alzheimer’s. And, by the way, Kauffman and Crane, like most show runners, are over 40.
The make-or-break test for older writers seems to be show-runner status. If you’ve got it, you make millions. If not, you’re unemployable. It’s Hollywood’s version of the float-or-sink test they used to administer to accused witches. If you float, you’re a witch and we kill you. If you drown, you’re not a witch but you’re dead. Only in Hollywood, instead of killing you they give you a 13-episode on-the-air commitment.
The WB network’s programs reflect the belief that its targeted, 12-to 34-year-old viewers want dark, hip, edgy shows about teenage vampires, teenage aliens, teenage witches and just plain randy teenagers. And yet the biggest hit by far on the WB is not “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” or “Felicity” or “Dawson’s Creek,” but “7th Heaven,” a sweet, gentle dramatic series about a mother and a father in their 40s with seven children.
For the season, it averaged a 4.8 share with women 12-34, while the network’s prime-time schedule has averaged a 2.9. Among, female teens, the show did a 7.7 against the network’s overall 3.9. Oh yeah, and did I tell you the father on the show’s a minister? Sounds real dark, hip and edgy.
A very popular show on the youth-oriented cable channel Comedy Central stars a 56-year-old man who didn’t even look or act like a teen idol when he was 20. And he’s a Republican. His name is Ben Stein. “I’m a demographic powerhouse for young people,” says Stein, looking like a middle-aged Jewish business professor in his suit and tie and tennis shoes. “I’ve always had a great rapport with young people. I think it’s because they know inside my monotoned exterior I am a big kid.”
“Win Ben Stein’s Money,” the TV series in which he actually competes against the contestants, airs nightly, racking up good ratings and youthful demographics. “I think one of the reasons they like me is because I’m in real agony when I lose. They deduct it from my wages,” said Stein. He came to Hollywood in the mid-1970s after a stint in his 20s as a speech writer for Richard Nixon. “When I had to work late, my mother would bring me a hot dinner from home to the White House,” he says. “Nobody else’s mother at the White House did that.”
Stein, who’s not part of the lawsuit, soon became a hot young writer of features and TV movies. “I was selling scripts like a house on fire when I was in my 30s and early 40s, and then, wham! it was like all the doors closed. It just became impossible to sell one. When I first came to town, they said, ‘He’s fresh, he’s new, he’s got ideas.’ After a few years, I was old and experienced and knowing what I was doing. And apparently they didn’t want that.”
Do you have to be the same age as someone to relate to them? I ask. He responds, “When children go to a child psychiatrist, is it a child?”
Al Burton, co-creator and executive producer of “Win Ben Stein’s Money,” says that he’s celebrating his 56th birthday, but not necessarily for the first time.
The diminutive Burton began his career at age 12 by creating a radio show about and for Boy Scouts in Columbus, Ohio, and has specialized in youth-oriented programming ever since. In 10 years of working for Norman Lear, he supervised series including “One Day at a Time,” “Diff’rent Strokes,” “The Facts of Life” and “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.” Then under contract to Universal, he produced the series, “Charles in Charge.”
“Youth has always been what I do,” says Burton. “And I understand it, and so I have in my back pocket an escape from ageism.” Nevertheless, Universal and he parted ways in the early ‘90s. His mainstream network career dried up, but he’s managed to create a new youthful niche for himself in cable.
Even so, the concept that one must program for young people to be successful is a red herring. The No. 1 show this season, “Survivor,” is a hit across all age groups. It’s followed by “ER,” also an across-the-board hit, then comes the 18-49 mega-hit “Friends,” an older-skewing “Everybody Loves Raymond,” male-skewing “Monday Night Football,” across-the-board hit “The Practice,” the older-skewing “Millionaire,” new across-the-board hit “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” the older-skewing “Law & Order” and the 18-to-49 hit “Will & Grace.” Only two of the top 10 shows skew even slightly youthful.
If it were really true that the networks didn’t want the older-skewing shows on their schedules, they would cancel “Millionaire,” “West Wing,” “Once and Again,” “Everybody Loves Raymond” and “JAG” among others. Since they don’t, they can’t really get away with the argument that they must only hire young writers, even if it were true that only young writers can write for young audiences, which it isn’t.
The same holds true in movies. Last year’s box-office hits are all over the map demographically. “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” at No. 1, had great family appeal. “M:I-2" and “Gladiator” skewed fairly young but were popular with all age groups. “The Perfect Storm” skewed older. “Meet the Parents,” “X-Men” and “Scary Movie” skewed young (despite the latter’s R rating). But older audiences made “What Lies Beneath” a giant hit, along with “Cast Away,” “What Women Want,” “The Patriot,” “Remember the Titans” and “Miss Congeniality.” And “Space Cowboys” did a very respectable $90-million domestic gross despite four stars with a combined age of about 260. Hit movies and TV shows hit various age groups. That hasn’t changed. It’s the culture in the industry that has.
Before the middle 1980s, a producer or a studio or network development VP would have a secretary and perhaps a story editor. And I, as a working TV and film writer with solid credits--but one who was by no means ever on the A-list, ever a member of “the old boys’ club,” or even represented by a major agency--could call up that producer, get him on the phone, and often end up with an assignment or sale.
I got most of these jobs for myself based on my credits, not social relationships. So even though I generally had an agent, and paid out some $250,000 to various agents over the years, I didn’t really need one to get work.
Today, I need an agent desperately.
However, to paraphrase Groucho Marx, today I can’t get an agent to represent me who I’d want to represent me. Why? Because over the past decade, using pure Pavlovian technique, the studios and networks, intentionally or not, have trained the agents at all the major and most minor agencies not to take on older writers.
It seems to work like this: You’re an agent. You have 12 clients. You send them all out to studio meetings, and you send out their scripts. The six younger clients usually get hired, and their scripts get bought. The six older clients usually don’t. This happens again and again. So you learn to drop your older clients. When other older writers come around looking for representation, you tell them you can’t take them on. As a result, most older writers with solid track records end up without agents.
The agents will be the first to tell you it’s all studios’ and networks’ fault. The agents are just responding to the marketplace. They say, “We’re only doing our job.” That’s known as the Nuremberg Defense.
There have been other important changes as well causing the current situation. Once computers came in, producers and studio execs no longer needed crackerjack typists. So they started combining the jobs of secretary and story editor. A new generation was flooding the industry, coming out of film, communications and business schools, and willing to accept ostensibly secretarial jobs, but only with some potential for advancement.
While other businesses were downsizing, TV networks, film studios and production companies, in a state of panic--from eroding ratings, rising costs and increased competition, a panic that hasn’t subsided--quadrupled the size of their development departments.
So today’s equivalent of the producer I used to get on the phone might now have a company president, two vice presidents, a director of development, a story editor, plus a few scattered “assistants.” (The S word is no longer acceptable.)
All the people in these jobs read scripts for the company, and most are between 21 and 35. Although the lower ranks may make as little as $20,000 to $30,000 a year and have virtually no authority, all except actual assistants are called, in our euphemistic society, “development executives.”
So now when I call the producer, she’s so busy interacting with her seven employees, networking with 20 of her counterparts, and keeping in good stead with the six studio executives she needs to get behind her next project (plus her foreign financing partners), the last thing she wants to do is get on the phone with me, a writer she’s probably never heard of because--despite all my credits and awards--I’m not young and happening and I don’t have an agent telling her, over drinks at the Sky Bar, how wonderful I am.
So she places me into the hands of her young gatekeepers, whose concept of time is very different from mine. Many of them simply aren’t interested in anything that happened before they were teenagers unless they see it on VH1’s “Behind the Music.”
Bill Blinn says, “I’m writing a movie for Showtime about Dick Gregory. And it’s amazing how many young people have no idea who Dick Gregory is.”
Maybe four years ago, I pitched doing a series of Charlie Chan movies starring Pat Morita to the then-president of original programming at USA Network, who was in his 40s. He loved the idea, but thought he’d better run it by his head of movies, who was in his 30s. He did, and the younger executive replied, “Charlie who?” That was the end of that sale.
You want an example of how the culture has changed? When I was circulating the “Naomi Weinstein” script, I faxed query letters to Richard Zanuck, who was then 61, and Lynda Obst, a generation younger, asking them to read it. The letters were identical. Zanuck called me up that afternoon and asked me to send it over. Obst--of whose films, by the way, I am a great fan--didn’t respond. So a few days later I called her up. Her assistant grilled me on who I was and what I wanted. When I explained, she said, “Writers don’t call producers, they have their agents do it, and if you were a professional you’d know that.” When I started to explain to her that I had 25 years of experience and awards on my wall, she hung up on me.
The old boys’ club has been replaced by a just as insidious young girls’ and boys’ club. Now that these twentysomething gatekeepers are no longer under their parents’ and teachers’ thumbs, it’s their turn to have a little bit of power--and the only power they have is to say no.
Is it ever deserved? Of course it is, all the time. By older writers as well as younger. But what’s important is all those times that it comes from arrogance, clubbiness, a sense of exclusivity, from a feeling of not having to take seriously those people who they don’t perceive of as hip. In short, to refuse to deal seriously with people who remind them of their parents.
One more story: I’ve been knocking on the doors of Nickelodeon for the past 16 months. I have an idea for a TV series about two teenagers working as interns in a TV newsroom that seemed to me perfect for Nick. And to make doubly sure it was fresh, hip and happening, I got two of my best, recently graduated writing students from Syracuse University, both 21 years old, to write the script with me.
Starting in December 1999, I called, wrote and faxed Doug Grief, Nickelodeon’s vice president of program development, to arrange a meeting. After three months of this, I got a phone call back from one of the lowest-ranking persons in the development department, a young woman with the title “creative executive,” which is one step above “assistant.”
I was very polite and gracious as I explained that as a writer-producer with 25 years of network experience and awards on my walls, I would like to schedule a meeting with her and her boss, Mr. Grief, rather than with her alone.
A week later I received a call from Mr. Grief. I was in heaven! But not for long. The call turned out not to be to schedule a meeting, but to tell me I had hurt his development executive’s feelings. What?! I beg your pardon?! It’s been a year and four months now and I still have not been able to get Mr. Grief’s attention with this idea and script.
I don’t mean to suggest that all or most of the young people in development are mean-spirited or untalented or insincere. They work very long hours for low money and then go home with 10 scripts to read. But many of them simply believe the hype.
They are led by a generation of producers and high-level executives who spread the word that old is bad and young is good, a bias based on their own insecurity about aging, inaccurate and out-of-date beliefs from advertisers, and panic over what used to be two competitors having turned into 200.
It is simply discrimination: choosing by class or group rather than individual merit. It was immoral when it was used against women. It was immoral when it was used against blacks. And it’s no more moral or right or deserved when it’s directed today against a generation of writers, male and female--and many older professionals in many other fields--who have proved, time and again, by the products they’ve produced, that they are more than able to do the job.
I, for one, feel like a blacklisted writer in the 1950s, only I didn’t have to sign anything, join anything or march in anything to get that way.
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c5293394ac7ba286ad3228f1b9dedcdd | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jun-11-he-8906-story.html | Putting the E in Diet | Putting the E in Diet
Brandalyn Taylor was trolling the Internet one night last winter when an advertisement caught her eye. She doesn’t recall exactly what it said except for the operative words: Lose weight.
Taylor had been struggling to drop the pounds she’d gained during her first pregnancy, and she didn’t think twice before lifting her finger and clicking on the ad. Thus began an ongoing and successful cyber relationship between the Aliso Viejo woman and a commercial online dieting company.
A student nurse, wife and mother of a toddler, Taylor, 28, has lost 17 pounds since mid-February. Logging on to her computer each day, she receives software-generated inspirational messages, recipes, meal plans and food shopping lists. Once a week, Taylor weighs herself and reports her weight so that her virtual dietitian can make adjustments to her personal program.
It sure beats her previous attempts to lose weight, including those fat-burning pills her husband brought home one day, she says.
“I was pretty normal until I had my baby,” says Taylor, who gained 50 pounds during pregnancy. “It was so hard to get motivated to take the weight off. With [the Web site], they tell you how to do it. It’s hard for people to lose weight by themselves.”
Online dieting companies are eager to help.
The publicly held eDiets.com, which Taylor uses, saw its number of paying customers soar from 33,000 in 1999 to 250,000 last year. Its main competitors, DietWatch.com and CyberDiet.com (which are part of one company) and DietSmart.com, are privately held and will not release sales figures but claim “tens of thousands” of paying members.
Even the venerable Weight Watchers International is branching out with an interactive Web service.
“I think the Internet is potentially an important source of weight management, says Dr. Thomas Wadden, director of the weight-loss and eating-disorders program at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. “Possible, you’re going to find that Patty, the electronic dietitian, can be just as good as Patty, the flesh-and-blood dietitian.”
But though e-dieting appears to be attracting members in droves, there is no evidence that it works any better than traditional, in-person diet counseling, especially over the long term.
“It doesn’t really have a track record,” says Morgan Downey, executive director of the American Obesity Assn.
And, notes Wadden, dieting is a notoriously fad-driven business, and e-dieting is the low-calorie flavor of the month. “Every new diet goes through a cycle and catches fire, and then it either gets rained on or it continues to smolder,” he says.
Cyber dieting has captured the public’s interest for now, however. Scores of weight-loss Web sites are little more than online stores selling products and pills. Other sites offer free information on dieting and, perhaps, chat rooms for sharing experiences. Online, interactive dieting services go a step further by providing personalized services, much in the way that a local Jenny Craig or Weight Watchers franchise would do.
By sticking to fairly sound medical advice and keeping their fees low, the online dieting services have managed to muscle into the weight-loss industry without ruffling too many feathers, says Downey.
“If these sites can provide a supportive, anonymous, nonjudgmental way for individuals to lose weight, that’s fine,” he says. “There is a lot that would appeal to consumers: the anonymity, the 24-7-365 access, the tips and helpful suggestions. The Internet is a very powerful communications tool.”
You don’t need to tell that to Dave Humble, chief executive of eDiets.
“Look at the basic economics of an online company versus thousands of Jenny Craigs. They have 600 centers [to manage] and I have one center,” says Humble, whose company turned profitable late last year.
EDiets, which recently expanded to Ireland and the United Kingdom, had its origins as a supermarket kiosk that shoppers could access for nutritional advice.
“It can cost $150 to go to a nutritionist for this advice,” says Donna DeCunzo, who created the kiosk idea and is now eDiets’ director of nutrition services. “It’s a shame that people can’t get good advice because they can’t afford it.”
But busy shoppers ignored the kiosks, and Humble suggested putting the program on the Net.
EDiets’ growth exploded last year when it began advertising on heavily traveled sites such as iVillage. Humble says that paying members stay with the program an average of six months--double the time dieters typically devote to traditional walk-in programs.
“Even when they reach their goal weight, they want to stay because they have made friends online,” says DeCunzo.
Dieters Feel Safe in Anonymity
DeCunzo credits eDiets’ success to the anonymity the Internet offers.
“What I found was how open people were to it because they were able to be anonymous,” she says. “When they came to the office, it took them about six weeks before they trusted me enough to get down to the real issues. Online, they are more apt to tell me that they have relationship issues and that’s when they turn to the refrigerator.”
If nothing more, the Internet has been a beacon to people in search of support and solace but who are reticent about seeking it face to face.
Jessy Ellison, 52, was feeling miserable after abandoning her self-imposed diet over the Christmas holidays. She signed up for eDiets in January and has lost 20 pounds.
“I was feeling very out of control,” says the resident of Leisure World. “I would eat because I was upset or bored or happy. I had no discipline.”
Ellison, who had previously attended Overeaters Anonymous meetings, liked the convenience and privacy of dieting online.
“At first, I just followed the meal plans, and I started losing weight,” she says. “Then I got into the chat rooms and bulletin boards, and I started writing about my feelings. I got into some real emotional work with some of the women online about dealing with anger. The online [support group] meetings are fantastic.”
Feedback appears key to managing weight loss, and the Internet is a virtual chatterbox. In one of the first studies to examine Internet dieting programs, researchers from Brown Medical School in Providence, R.I., randomly assigned dieters to one of two Internet dieting programs--one that offered information only and another that also provided feedback in the form of e-mail from a therapist, weekly online submissions of food diaries and bulletin boards.
The dieters in the interactive program lost three times as much weight during the six-month study. The research was published in March in the Journal of the American Medical Assn.
“There is a phenomenon of group support that is very important in weight control,” says Dr. Steven Heymsfield, deputy director of the Obesity Research Center at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital in New York. “People have known this for years.”
In the past, support for dieters was typically found at weekly meetings of people sitting in a circle of metal folding chairs in some church basement. Support in cyberspace may be just as good, says Wadden.
He and colleague Leslie Womble have launched a yearlong study comparing a group of dieters using a weight-loss manual with people using eDiets.
“I think what people would really like is drive-through weight loss. And eDiets is as close to that as you come,” says Wadden. “We live in a society where time is so precious that even spending 60 minutes at a Weight Watchers meeting is a barrier to people.”
Add low fees to the mix, and you get the recent explosion of online dieters.
Personalized Menus Plus Interaction
The major commercial online dieting services all operate in a similar manner. Consumers join at fees that average about $10 to $15 per month, typically with a three-month minimum commitment. Individuals then fill out a detailed questionnaire about their medical history, exercise habits, food tastes and whether they prefer cooking or buying convenience foods.
“If you’re allergic to milk or won’t eat certain foods, they will take that into account. That is very helpful,” says Felicia Busch, a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Assn. who has studied online dieting.
A computer program generates the diet plan, which is updated weekly. Most sites also augment their paid plans with free newsletters (eDiets has a circulation of 5 million for its twice-weekly newsletter), chat rooms, message boards and food calculators that compute calories and do other nutritional number-crunching.
Some sites are trying to carve out distinct features. For instance, members of DietWatch and CyberDiet, part of the privately held DietWatch Inc., can link to one of 350 registered dietitians throughout the country for private online counseling at fees set by the dietitian.
DietSmart offers five general diets to choose from--such as a plan higher in protein or one that features more snacks--that are then further personalized.
Even the granddaddy of weight-loss programs, Weight Watchers, has acknowledged the lure of online dieting--although the company says it is sticking to its belief that face-to-face diet counseling is best.
“The question is: What can we do for people during the six days and 23 hours when they are not at a Weight Watchers meeting?” says Alex Inman, the company’s director of communications. “Obviously, people are spending more time on the Internet.”
Weight Watchers’ cyber program, called eTools, was launched in February and costs $29.95 for a three-month subscription. Available to members only, Inman says, the program helps people keep better track of their “points.” Under the Weight Watchers system, each food is assigned a point value and individuals aim to stay within a certain point range each day.
“ETools is designed to complement the meetings,” Inman says. “It helps members get more out of their experience.”
Though eTools is offered only to Weight Watchers clients who also attend traditional meetings, a program for nonmembers is in the incubation stage.
“The biggest part of dieters are the self-helpers who don’t look to anyone to attempt weight loss,” Inman says. “That’s what we are looking at for the future.”
The leading interactive dieting companies have generally made an effort to abide by mainstream medical advice, Wadden and other experts say. Most programs are designed for a one to two pound per week weight loss, based on a balanced diet consisting of no more than 20% of calories from fat.
“We’ve seen a minor revolution in the marketing of weight-loss programs,” Wadden says. “Most programs are taking the high road now.”
EDiets, for example, is adhering to expert consensus about successful weight loss by adding an interactive exercise program, available for an extra $10 for the first three months and $5 per month thereafter. About 25% of eDiets’ members have subscribed to the exercise plan. They receive a weekly personal exercise plan, instructions, feedback and inspirational messages, says Humble.
However, several questions about the future success of cyber dieting remain, experts say. For example, the appeal seems limited to women. Ninety percent of eDiets’ members are women, Humble says. The company is testing a variation of its program aimed at attracting more men.
And there is no long-term data on whether users will maintain their weight loss, with or without the help of the service.
“Call me in five years and show me the data that it not only helps people lose weight, they keep it off,” says Heymsfield of the Obesity Research Center. “That is where I’m cynical. It’s critical that we find out if members keep the weight off.”
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
Weigh Pros, Cons of Net Services
Thinking of using an online dieting service? Consumers should examine a site carefully before signing up. Weight-loss experts offer these tips:
* Read the site’s privacy policy. Most commercial dieting sites ask users to complete a detailed health questionnaire. Find out how protected this information is and if others will be privy to it.
* Find out just how much counseling you’ll receive. Many sites offer computer-generated feedback. You may have to pay extra for one-on-one consultations with human beings.
* Who is dispensing the advice? Find out if questions are answered by registered dietitians, diet technicians (who are trained to answer basic nutrition questions but do not have the educational degree of a registered dietitian) or mere telephone receptionists.
* Check out the specifics of a site’s chat rooms and bulletin boards. Some sites offer specific chats for diabetics, new mothers, etc.
* Compare fees. Most sites cost about $10 per month with a three-month minimum for basic services. If you’re paying more, find out why.
* Most sites allow you to fill out a “free” profile to give you a sample of how your personal diet plan might look. If you participate in this, be aware that you might trigger countless, continued e-mail pitches from the site urging you to join.
* Find out if the site offers a personalized exercise plan.
* Investigate whether the site offers a maintenance program--and at what cost--after you reach your weight-loss goal.
* Be wary of sites that promise quick and effortless weight loss.
* Avoid sites whose diet plans rely on their own dieting products.
* Check to see if the site subscribes to the principles of the Health on the Net Foundation. (The foundation advocates for high-quality health information on the Internet.) Such sites will display an “HON” icon.
Sources: American Obesity Assn.; American Dietetic Assn.
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
Top Health Sites in April
* WebMD
* eDiets.com
* drugstore.com
* dietsmart.com
* medscape.com
* drkoop.com
* healthandage.com
* po.com
* merckmedco.com
* mayoclinic.com
Source: Jupiter Media Metrix
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d2a4f66337501f15726fe8e0cd328d3f | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jun-12-ca-9266-story.html | Vox Femina Choral Group Balances Light, Serious Sides | Vox Femina Choral Group Balances Light, Serious Sides
The prevailing musical tone Sunday afternoon at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Westchester was of almost pops buoyancy and verve. But there was certainly a serious side to the agenda, as Vox Femina Los Angeles closed its fourth season with the West Coast premiere of Diane Benjamin’s “Where I Live,” a moving choral song cycle dealing with the experience of cancer.
Commissioned by the Denver Women’s Chorus and premiered a year ago, “Where I Live” alternates simple strophic songs with narrations from a variety of sources, here spoken eloquently by six cancer survivors or relatives of survivors. There is much cleareyed aspiration in the music, darkening beyond irony in the fiercely iterative “My Body.”
Conducted by founder Iris S. Levine, the 27-voice choir sang it with dramatic assurance and vocal poise, in a nicely shaded performance benefiting Wendy’s Hope, a support group for lesbians with cancer. A string quintet, piano and percussion provided spare, evocative accompaniment, and five capable soloists emerged from the chorus.
Post-intermission, the choir’s bright, balanced sound was heard to fine effect in more choral songs, with Benjamin’s rhythmically bopping “You Get Proud by Practicing,” Karen Hart’s madrigal-esque “Totally Exposed” and the Wyrd Sisters’ tautly marching “Warrior Song” most distinguished.
The final group, including anthemic songs by Holly Near and Margie Adam, and Sue Fink’s powerful gospel-tinged “Trouble,” moved overtly to the pop side, with bassist Denise Briese and drummer Megan Foley joining pianist Lisa Edwards in the supporting combo, and more strong soloists coming from the choir.
* Vox Femina Los Angeles repeats this program June 23, Zipper Concert Hall, Colburn School, 200 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. $15-$18, (310) 838-8151.
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875cc5ae6fdc9e1894f86f70d7f9d52b | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jun-12-ca-9267-story.html | Two Firsts, and Two Seconds, in Van Cliburn Competition | Two Firsts, and Two Seconds, in Van Cliburn Competition
Pianists from Russia and Uzbekistan on Sunday became the first in the history of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition to be named co-recipients of the gold medal.
Olga Kern, 26, of Russia and Stanislav Ioudenitch, 29, of Uzbekistan shared the honor. In another contest first, two pianists also shared the silver medal: Maxim Philippov, 29, of Russia and Antonio Pompa-Baldi, 26, of Italy. No bronze medal was awarded.
Wang Xiaohan, 20, of China and Oleksiy Koltakov, 22, of Ukraine were the remaining finalists.
Van Cliburn, who hugged all the finalists when they accepted their awards, said the panel of jurors used “utmost discretion” in awarding more than one gold and silver medal. He said all 30 competitors have promising futures.
“All of us try to give impetus to a career, and the winning of a competition is really only a door,” Cliburn said. “You use that room that you go into to the best of your ability.”
The gold and silver medalists will each get $20,000 and a commercial recording. The remaining finalists will each get $10,000. All six will get two years of concert management by the Van Cliburn Foundation.
The Cliburn contest, which started in 1962, was held in 1966 and 1969 and then every four years. A group of Fort Worth music teachers created the contest to honor longtime resident Van Cliburn, who won the first Tchaikovsky International Competition in Moscow in 1958.
Of this year’s 210 applicants, 137 were chosen to perform at screening recitals held all over the world.
Thirty performers were selected to perform in the 11th competition, which began May 25 in Fort Worth. Twelve pianists were chosen as semifinalists May 29, and six finalists were announced June 3.
The competition was judged by an international panel of pianists, teachers, music-company executives and administrators who listened to all performances, from the screening recitals through the contest finals.
Kern has earned top prizes in several international competitions. She competed under her maiden name, Olga Pushechnikova, in the 1997 Cliburn, where she failed to make it past the preliminaries.
Her performances of Rachmaninoff, Liszt, Scriabin and Schumann won her an enthusiastic following among Cliburn concert-goers. Some have called the enthusiasm Olgamania.
Audience members gave her standing ovations after every performance and called her back to the stage again and again.
Kern has toured Europe and Japan, South Africa, South Korea and the United States. She is a postgraduate student at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory.
For the Cliburn’s final round, Kern played Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 27 in B-flat major, K. 595, and Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Opus 30.
Ioudenitch has won top prizes at several prestigious international competitions in the past decade, including first prize at the 2000 New Orleans International Piano Competition.
Just before the semifinals of the 1997 Van Cliburn competition, he severely scalded his left hand while brewing tea and had to withdraw from the round. He watched the semifinals from the audience.
For the final round of the Cliburn competition, he played Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, K. 467, and Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Opus 23.
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1dd4d3c9cff8978dd5846e460482bf9e | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jun-13-me-9870-story.html | Wachs, Tuttle Have Earned Their Gold Watches | Wachs, Tuttle Have Earned Their Gold Watches
Wave bye-bye, L.A.
Say goodbye to the career politicians.
Fifty-some years on the public payroll between the two of them. Five decades of suckling at the taxpayer’s teat.
Finally, they’re leaving.
And this city will miss them when they’re gone.
You can’t in fairness call Joel Wachs and Rick Tuttle the last two men in city government to believe in city government; that would be too sentimental about them and too uncharitable toward those they will leave behind in City Hall when they turn in their titles--Tuttle giving up the city controller’s job in July after 16 years, and Wachs leaving the City Council in October, 30 years and change after he cast his first vote.
The two young lions of the 1960s have become elder statesmen in their 60s. Wachs, the Republican tax attorney turned independent, the social liberal and clipper of double coupons who likes to show he can pinch a tax penny until it hollers, and Tuttle, the freedom-riding “white boy” who got arrested and called Medgar Evers from jail a few hours before Evers was killed, are two decent men who put their faith in public service--a career option that’s probably not even listed on the guidance counselors’ forms any more.
When they were young men, before “career politician” got hijacked by the spinmeisters and held hostage, the phrase meant Stevenson and Kennedy and Earl Warren, and “public service” meant the Peace Corps and the War on Poverty.
In the political millenniums that have passed between then and now--political assassinations, the Vietnam War and Watergate--the ideals were knocked out from under those who came after the “generation which Joel and I share,” says Tuttle. And soon “public service” became “big gubmint” and “bureaucrats,” the things to campaign against, not about.
The two are of the same time but not of the same temper. Wachs practices politics as performance art: witty, genial, quotable, brilliant at taking the public’s temper, not always A-plus on the follow-through. On his fiscal-skinflint M.O., most spectacularly on blocking the way to public financing of the Staples Center, he has stayed on message. Mayor Riordan’s staff took to calling him “Dr. No,” and why Wachs never had that put on a T-shirt is one of life’s enduring mysteries. Thirty years before, he was a greenhorn councilman when he took on a mayor named Yorty, demanding that he come clean on an income tax matter. One campaign consultant was right when he remarked of Wachs, “No one ever voted against someone for being a watchdog.”
Tuttle, on the other hand, is a public official with a private face. He’s rarely seen in the council, and voters who’ve elected him four times couldn’t place him in a lineup.
On a hot afternoon a few years back at a ceremony honoring police killed in the line of duty, Tuttle had taken his place in the big muckety-muck good seats. As “just folks” started arriving and it became obvious there weren’t enough seats, Tuttle stood up and gave his seat away, and stood for the rest of the ceremony.
Like a government paycheck, Tuttle’s headlines have always been modest but steady. He embraced the Watergate admonition to “follow the money,” practicing activism with a pencil and calculator and audit power. He has cracked the City Council’s knuckles over its favorite pork. He got mandatory audits written into the new City Charter, crafted civil rights rules forcing downtown private men’s clubs to integrate, and refused to pay for lavish dinner tabs, yoga classes and a $2,800 chartered jet flight to Sacramento by a former DWP chief, the last “the worst [official] extravagance I’ve ever seen.”
What they share is, as Tuttle says, a belief that when good people stay out of public service, “it leaves the field open to two other types: the rascals, there to put their fingers in the public purse, and the people motivated by a kind of uni-dimensional idealism that . . . can get whole societies into trouble.” What the son of a World War II Marine veteran means here is Hitler.
Egos? Of course they have. You can’t ask people for votes or campaign contributions without ego. Wachs ran for mayor after two big years on the council. Tuttle was on the community college board of trustees, where Jerry Brown got his start, before becoming controller, where Jim Hahn got his start.
So give them the gold watch, L.A., and a moment’s thought for the men and the time when politicians campaigned against each other--not, hypocritically, against the job they’re running for.
*
Patt Morrison’s columns appear Mondays and Wednesdays. Her e-mail address is patt.morrison@latimes.com.
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6dae876d6e39b9add12d3df675062d70 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jun-16-ca-11070-story.html | Drug Czarina Is Preparing New Case | Drug Czarina Is Preparing New Case
The Drug Czarina was the only one who didn’t have an alcohol- or drug-related criminal record, and she led the group toward the box office to buy their tickets to “28 Days,” a film in which Sandra Bullock plays an alcoholic who tries to outsmart her rehabilitation counselors.
“They did see the reality in trying to pull one over on counselors,” said the Czarina, known formally as Judge Ana Maria Luna. “At least they got a chuckle out of it. Maybe looking at Sandra Bullock in recovery might seem glamorous, but they see it for what it really is.”
Luna is a tapestry of contradictions: a former drug court judge who is dutifully leading the implementation of a new drug law in Los Angeles County that she doesn’t entirely agree with. Under the new law, she points out, she won’t be able to throw violators in jail for a few days--a practice called “flash incarceration"--which she says “usually gets their attention.”
On July 1, Proposition 36 goes into effect, offering first- and second-time, nonviolent drug offenders the option of treatment programs rather than jail cells. For the past few months, Luna has relied on Hollywood’s image-makers to represent the tenacity of addiction. In doing so, she’s become a bridge between the imperfect new legislation and the day-to-day reality.
“She knows she’s not talking to judges and lawyers, and she’s trying to explain the system we’re trying to make work,” said Michael Tynan, supervising judge of drug court in L.A., who asked her to head L.A. County’s Task Force to Implement Prop. 36. “If you can use pop references, all the better. . . . We need a spokesperson for Prop. 36, and we need people to go out and explain to the community what we’re doing. Courts are too big of a mystery.”
For her part, Luna is crystal clear about the injustices of the system.
“Robert Downey Jr. will always get Cadillac treatment,” she said, referring to the Golden Globe Award-winning actor. “Our folks will never get treatment. If it could happen to him, someone with money and fame, it can happen to people sleeping on mattresses by the 710 Freeway. For the non-addicts--the general population--they recognize (‘The West Wing’ actor) Martin Sheen, they recognize Robert Downey Jr., and Matthew Perry from ‘Friends.’ The problem of addiction is not based on socioeconomics or education. It cuts across everything.”
In forums all over the county, Luna pulls out an arsenal of pop culture references to support her viewpoint. She mentions the Academy Award-winning movie “Traffic,” which focused on Mexican drug organizations and addiction in the United States. She brings up scenes in “Blow,” a sexy-looking film starring Johnny Depp as the main U.S. cocaine trafficker of the 1980s.
And she refers to Downey, Perry and Charlie Sheen, all of whom are admitted addicts who appear on prime-time network television.
None of these men came through her courtroom when she was earning her “Drug Czarina” handle. It began in 1997 when she established drug court in the Southeast Judicial District of L.A.. She was determined to change the culture of drug proceedings by referring to those brought before her as “clients” not “defendants” or “patients.” If they had stayed clean in the face of challenging odds, Luna would walk over to her clients and give them a pat on the back or a bear hug.
“It gets discouraging to see them again and again, but when you see one success, you’ve saved one starfish,” she said in her chambers on a recent morning. “You may not save the whole beach, but you’ve saved one starfish.” During her tenure on the drug bench, Luna wormed $1,000 or $1,500 out of the local bar association each year for a drug court outing, like a beach party, a softball game, and a viewing of “28 Days.” You might have seen her coming across the movie theater parking lot, but you probably wouldn’t have known she was a judge.
Luna has braces, thick brown hair that she wears in a bob and a large, knotty gold-and-diamond wedding ring. She is 42 years old and pregnant. Raised as a Roman Catholic by her mother and Mexican-American father, she converted to Judaism as an adult.
She understands that things aren’t always what they seem, and she brought that sensibility into drug court when she insisted on going beyond the simple personal history provided in a client’s paperwork.
“If it’s a woman, first-time offender, she’ll look at how a child, the family and a marriage is affected--social pressures that a man might not have to deal with during treatment,” said public defender Anna Armenta-Rigor.
In her own home, Luna and her husband are raising three teenage sons--one from her first marriage and two from his first marriage. She worries about the influence of rap music’s violent lyrics on the young men and about their exposure to alcohol, the substance that drug addicts invariably say was their gateway addiction.
She knows she has only a short time before Prop. 36 goes into effect, so several times a week she closes up her chambers in the late afternoons to spread the word about the new law.
On a recent evening she headed to Raleigh Studios to talk about Prop. 36 at a symposium co-sponsored by USA Films, the studio that produced “Traffic.” The film’s producer, Ed Zwick, introduced the panel, which debated drug laws for more than an hour. Luna mentioned Martin Sheen, who campaigned against Prop. 36 last year with testimonials about turning in his son Charlie, who stars on ABC’s “Spin City.”
The actor turned in his son only after the younger Sheen violated the terms of his probation and didn’t follow through with treatment.
Martin Sheen believes the threat of jail time scared his son into facing his own addiction. Early the next morning, Luna headed to Pasadena for “AirTalk,” a live call-in show on KPCC-FM (89.3).
A few weeks later Luna appeared on “Cafe California with Cris Franco,” a 30-minute discussion program on L.A.'s only bilingual channel, KWHY-TV Channel 22. One of the other three participants was actor Steven Braun, who played a cocaine cartel middleman in “Traffic.” Clips from the film were used as inspirations for discussion.
“She cut through it all,” said Franco, the show’s host. “We had interviewed a lot of judges before to see if they could come on the show, but they all backed out, saying they couldn’t express a personal opinion. Instead, she said, ‘I wouldn’t mind at all. We have a super dilemma here, and people misunderstand what’s at stake here. We all share this burden.’ ”
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89a2a873256b12e63fe02d5345aad71f | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jun-19-me-12221-story.html | Leader of Heist Is Given 24 Years | Leader of Heist Is Given 24 Years
A fired Dunbar Armored Co. security worker who masterminded what the FBI calls the largest cash armed robbery in U.S. history was sentenced Monday to 24 years and two months in federal prison for the brazen September 1997 heist.
Allen Pace III, 32, also was ordered to pay back the $18.9 million that he and five accomplices stole during the takeover robbery at Dunbar’s armored truck depot in downtown Los Angeles.
Asked by U.S. District Judge Lourdes Baird if he had anything to say in his defense before she sentenced him, Pace mumbled, “No. No, ma’am.”
Authorities believe that Pace and his fellow bandits spent several million stolen dollars on homes, cars and gambling sprees before their arrests. They say as much as $10 million is still hidden somewhere, and the convicted robbers won’t divulge where it is.
Baird sentenced Pace under federal guidelines to the middle ground between the prosecution’s request for a 27-year term and a defense lawyer’s plea for 21 years.
Baird characterized the sentence as “a very long time, a very serious sentence,” saying that she wanted to punish Pace for showing no remorse and for denying that he played any role in the robbery.
Baird also tacked on extra prison time because Pace and his armed co-conspirators tied up and terrorized several Dunbar employees.
“You were the employee who knew about [the money],” Baird told Pace as he stood silently in the downtown Los Angeles courtroom, wearing a green jacket and sandals. “You were the one who got everybody else involved.”
Prosecutors Alka Sagar and Ruth Pinkel said they were pleased with the sentence.
“It sends a message to the community that if you commit a crime of this magnitude, there are going to be stiff penalties for it,” said Sagar, who spent several years working on the case, along with a team of federal agents and Los Angeles Police Department detectives.
Under federal prison guidelines, Pace will be required to serve about 18 years. That means that he won’t get out until he is at least 50.
“It could have been worse,” said Edward M. Robinson, Pace’s defense lawyer. He noted that Pace could have been sentenced to three additional years.
Pace must pay any restitution to Dunbar’s insurer, Lloyd’s of London, if any of the missing money is recovered. He and his fellow robbers will be jointly responsible for paying the restitution, Baird said.
The five others have all been convicted and have given sentences ranging from eight to 17 years.
Compton resident Pace was a suspect from the outset because he had been fired by Dunbar a day before the robbery for undisclosed reasons. Dunbar later disclosed that Pace had been fired for tampering with company vehicles.
A safety officer, Pace had been responsible for making sure that fire extinguishers were full and that workers were taking all necessary precautions.
As part of his job, Pace had the run of the fortress-like truck depot on Mateo Street. Authorities say he used that inside knowledge to provide his accomplices with floor plans, the location of security cameras and a way into the vault, where cash destined for automated teller machines was stored.
After midnight on Sept. 13, 1997, the robbers--clad in black and wearing radio headsets--entered the depot with a key provided by Pace. They gained entrance to the vault using another key taken from a supervisor and then loaded a rented U-Haul truck with mounds of cash before heading back to a house party that authorities say they used to establish alibis.
Pace and the other bandits then kept a low profile, temporarily thwarting authorities’ efforts to gather evidence against them.
Some, including Pace, set up front companies to launder some of the cash. Pace also got another man to buy several properties for him so they would not be listed in Pace’s name, according to trial testimony.
The six men were arrested more than two years after the heist. Three others were arrested later for helping launder the money; two have been convicted.
On Monday, after the sentencing, FBI special agent John McEachern III said the investigation will continue.
“Obviously the case is not closed,” said McEachern, who has spent more than three years investigating the case along with LAPD Det. John Licata. “We are continuing to attempt to locate the missing money and find anyone else who might have been involved.”
Pace’s sentence was much longer than those of his collaborators. One, Erik Damon Boyd of Buena Park, was sentenced to more than 17 years. The others received between eight and 10 years.
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1382d1545fa898740133b0bd0ea7a978 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jun-19-mn-12160-story.html | Smashing Car Shop Fraud | Smashing Car Shop Fraud
The banged-up 1992 Toyota Corolla that rolled into Encino Body Works seemed to be a garden-variety repair job and thus a prime candidate for juicing up a little extra profit.
After looking over the bashed-in left fender, Alfonso Outumuro, the owner of the shop, assured the customer that he had nothing to worry about because “I am going to try and save you some money.”
Unfortunately for Outumuro, the customer was an undercover state investigator. Outumuro billed the customer $1,901.59 for a new hood, a radiator support bar and a right side panel. None of those parts was replaced, according to the complaint by the California attorney general’s office.
The sting was executed by the Bureau of Automotive Repair, or BAR, a state agency that brings about 400 cases of consumer fraud and other types of violations, including 180 criminal actions, against auto repair and body shops each year. In most cases, operating licenses are revoked.
BAR’s undercover operations are run from seven secret labs that prepare its fleet of hundreds of automobiles and trucks used in stings. No other state in the country has anything resembling the sophistication and breadth of California’s effort.
“BAR’s operations are impressive,” said Ken Zion, one of the state’s top private investigators specializing in auto body fraud and a longtime Southern California college instructor. “Most shops are aware of BAR stings, but they don’t think it will ever happen to them.”
Next week, BAR will begin its largest initiative against auto body fraud, which the agency contends taints 40% of all body repairs in the state. Under legislation passed last year, BAR will inspect thousands of vehicles after they leave body shops to determine whether the repairs and charges match the invoices and bills presented to customers.
The auto body industry, although it does not generally fault BAR’s approach, says that it is getting a bad rap, and that the majority of shops operate honestly.
But investigators for the state agency and the insurance industry contend that auto body fraud permeates the repair industry. They describe scams in which cars get an extra bashing inside shops to enhance damage, substandard repairs that put unsafe vehicles on the highway, and billing for new parts when the repair is made with Bondo, a plastic filler.
In one case, the owner of a 1993 Mercedes-Benz 500SL sports car found that his compact disc player wasn’t working after his car was repaired for front-end damage. His mechanic found dangling wires that were unattached, though as it turned out, that was the trivial part. The entire right front structure of the car was held in place with a series of spot welds covered up by Bondo, a repair job that had $7,844.70 in fraudulent charges, said Allen Wood, BAR’s director of consumer protection. The car is now in the possession of BAR, too unsafe to be returned to the road.
Plenty of Opportunity for Repair Shop Scams
Nobody is immune from becoming a victim. Game show celebrity Vanna White was named as a victim of auto body fraud in a complaint BAR brought against Distinctive Coachwork by Guest, which charged more than $30,000 to repair White’s 1990 Bentley. White’s agent did not return calls for comment. BAR later revoked the shop’s license.
Auto body shops, of course, are the beneficiaries of the great crumpling of metal and smashing of glass, which occur with amazing frequency. The insurance industry says it pays out about $3.2 billion for body repairs in California at the estimated rate of $2,843 per claim.
Those numbers suggest that 1.1 million cars in the state lose their shape every year. That means an accident occurs in the state about every 30 seconds. Not included in that estimate are accidents not reported to insurers or not covered by insurance, major factors that could double the total. Nobody is sure how many cars get smashed, because state and local authorities no longer require that non-injury collisions be reported.
Whatever the exact volume of highway mishaps, BAR has its work cut out. It receives about 25,000 complaints every year involving mechanical and auto body repairs, said Douglas Laue, its chief. Every complaint is investigated, and shops that leave a trail of unhappy consumers are targeted for a sting.
Investigators Give Attention to Detail
BAR’s labs, one of which was shown to The Times, are in unmarked buildings and protected with cyber-locks on the doors. Inside, they are jammed with hundreds of vehicles being prepared for stings. With more repair bays than many dealership garages, the state has scores of master mechanics and body technicians to tear down engines and transmissions to their smallest components.
Parts are carefully marked with nearly invisible imprints in the metal. Bolts are put on that point in a particular direction. Special devices that sling crud are used to make new parts look old and worn out. In the case of auto body stings, BAR technicians have developed methods to smack dents into cars that would duplicate real-world fender benders. And each step is carefully documented with photographs and notes.
“We put in new parts, mark them, photo them, assemble the vehicle and then truck it to within one mile of the [targeted] facility,” Laue said. “It goes in with a known problem. Then we see if the garage does an honest repair.”
After the repair, it is driven a mile away and again trucked back to the BAR lab, a procedure meant to deflate any later defense that the mechanical problems could have developed in driving on the way to or from the lab.
Once back in the lab, the car is again taken apart and carefully photographed. Technicians look for their secret markings to determine whether parts listed by the repair garage as new actually are the original parts.
BAR technicians use electronic tools that enable them to look underneath the paint to examine the repairs. A “mil film thickness gauge” can measure the depth of paint and bond to determine whether a part is new, for example.
In many cases, BAR will take a second undercover sting car into the same garage to establish a pattern.
That’s what happened at Encino Body Works. Several months after the Toyota Corolla repair job was documented by BAR in late 1997, it took in a Toyota Tercel with rear quarter-panel damage. When the car was returned, the repair order listed a new wheel and a new quarter panel, neither of which was installed.
A default decision was issued by the bureau last year, revoking the shop’s license. It is still operating under a new owner. But Outumuro still works there. In a brief telephone interview, he denied knowing anything about the enforcement action and said the new owner was not available.
“I don’t remember exactly what it was,” he said.
Many Agencies Have Units to Target Fraud
With so much money at stake, BAR is not the only organization policing body fraud. The California Department of Insurance runs its own auto body fraud program, investigating more than 14,000 cases in the most recent fiscal year. In the 1997-1998 fiscal year, the agency’s fraud division opened 295 cases and arrested 418 suspects.
And major insurers have their squads of fraud busters. The Automobile Club of Southern California, for example, trains all of its adjusters to spot fraudulent repairs and has a separate investigative staff of nine employees, said Dan Brogdon, who oversees the special investigations unit.
“Fraud is very prevalent,” Brogdon said.
Among the scams Brogdon said his investigators watch for are staged collisions, sometimes right inside the body shop.
Crooked shops use large payoffs to tow truck drivers to route damaged vehicles into their shops, he said. If owners later demand that another shop repair the car, they “get a huge tow bill and storage fee,” Brogdon said.
“An honest shop can’t afford a $3,000 cut to the tow operator, but [the dishonest shops] make it up with unscrupulous practices,” Brogdon said.
The auto body industry sharply disputes that the problem is as widespread as BAR or the insurance industry claims.
Asked about the BAR estimate that 40% of repair bills have some degree of fraud, David McClune, executive director of the California Auto Body Assn., said, “No, no, no, no. We felt that is very unfair and there wasn’t anything to back it up.”
McClune’s organization represents 800 of California’s estimated 5,500 body shops, which range from modern, well-run shops to dirty and disorganized operations. “We want people to know that the majority of collision repair facilities are very honest. And if they aren’t, then we want BAR to take them out.”
BAR’s estimate was made in a July 1, 1994, report that documented a long list of unsafe repairs, fraudulent billings and inadequate training in the auto body industry. The report cited insurance industry surveys that found 95% of the shops in some areas were not competent, lacked necessary equipment and employed poorly trained technicians.
The 40% figure was reiterated by BAR in a hearing last year by the state Senate Insurance Committee, which subsequently passed AB 1988, mandating the new inspection program that starts July 1. BAR is expected to unveil the program at a news conference today. (Consumers can request free inspections of their cars after they have been repaired at an auto body shop by calling [866] 881-1332.)
Some Blame Insurers for Industry Problems
The program requires the insurance industry and BAR to separately conduct random vehicle inspections over the next two years to develop a new fraud estimate, said Sen. Jackie Speier (D-Hillsborough), committee chairwoman and an advocate of industry reform.
“The payback to the public will be extraordinary,” Speier said. “When you don’t have inspections and enforcement, you have fraud that permeates the industry.”
Jake Tomlinson, an auto body shop owner in Auburn, Calif., acknowledges that there is significant fraud in the industry but blames at least some of the problem on the insurance industry. He recalled being hounded by often poorly trained adjusters to squeeze down his costs below the threshold where he can competently and honestly fix a car. For example, Tomlinson said one major insurer allows him 18 minutes of labor to prepare and undercoat a car, not enough time to do it properly.
“To run an honest business today is real tough,” said Tomlinson. “If insurers have a choice, they want the cheap, screwy job.”
Insurers deny they bear any blame, saying that there are good profits in fixing cars honestly and that they go by standard industry “rate books” that specify how long a particular task should take. Rate books are put out by independent automotive publishers.
Compounding the picture is the increasing sophistication of cars, said Zion, the private investigator who runs Automotive Collision Consultants in Long Beach. Auto body technicians not only bump and paint sheet steel, they are intimately involved in electronic systems like air bags and anti-lock brakes.
Reform Program Will Leave Resale Loopholes
Even if the new BAR inspection program tightens up practices in the auto body industry, there are still gaping holes in consumer protection, experts say. When body shops are caught doing substandard repairs, their first line of defense is often to buy back the vehicle. They then turn around and sell it in the used-car market without having to disclose that it was in an accident.
Steve Knauer bought a 1988 Acura Legend after being assured it was never in an accident, but he later learned it had substantial damage. He eventually sued the now defunct Newport Beach dealer that sold him the vehicle, settling for $27,500. His advice to used car buyers: “Get them to put down in writing that it has never been in an accident.”
Knauer’s attorney, Mike La Cilento, said California’s tough consumer laws provide for treble damages and attorneys fees in cases of auto body fraud, creating strong incentives to sue. He adds, “Juries hate mechanics almost as much as lawyers.”
Another loophole in state law involves the disposition of cars deemed total losses by insurers. An estimated 7% of all vehicles in California have been previously totaled by insurers and sold into salvage pools that cater to the auto body industry.
They are resurrected with often substandard repairs and put back on the road with only minimal state inspections of their lamps and brakes, said Wood, the BAR consumer protection chief.
Speier vows to close that loophole in her next legislative thrust.
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e0f34a4a43eadcb3ab38123e97b2b737 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jun-21-ca-13014-story.html | Itinerary: California Tile | Itinerary: California Tile
Considering the current interest in California art tiles, it’s sad that much of the work produced in the state between 1910 and 1940 has been lost to the wrecking ball. One of the most decorative elements of the American Arts and Crafts movement, these tiles can be found all over Southern California in swimming pools, walls, pathways and the interiors of many California bungalows.
According to Paul Duchscherer, author of “Inside the Bungalow” (Penguin Books), the 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition in San Diego led to a rage of tile popularity as a way to express regional heritage. More than 40 local companies produced beautiful tiles with subjects ranging from nautical themes to American Indian and Mexican designs.
Although most residential examples can only be viewed in books, there are many local places to find excellent examples of California art tile.
Friday
Have dinner at one of L.A.'s top restaurants, Campanile (624 S. La Brea Ave., [323] 938-1447). Charlie Chaplin started construction of this building in 1929 but, before it was done, lost it to his first wife, Lita Grey, in a divorce settlement. The building was adapted in the late 1980s by architect Josh Schweitzer, who kept the stunning tile fountain at the entrance. The tiles were manufactured by the Hispano Moresque Tile Co. (1927-32). The majority of the company’s designs were yellow, orange and turquoise green with Moorish designs.
Saturday
California Heritage Museum (2612 Main St., Santa Monica, [310] 392-8537, Wednesday to Sunday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.) has mounted a magnificent exhibition, “California Tile ‘The Golden Era’ 1910-1940,” which is a fine place to compare and contrast the work of 34 tile companies. More than 1,200 tiles, 50 tile tables and 50 murals are featured in the show, along with a lovely garden installation. Many well-known tile companies, such as Batchelder Tile Co., Rhead, Malibu Potteries and Catalina Pottery are represented, as well as lesser-known Taylor Tilery and Walrich Pottery. The exhibition closes Sept. 30.
Take an afternoon drive on Pacific Coast Highway to the Adamson House (Malibu Lagoon Museum, 23200 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu, [310]-456-8432, Wednesday to Saturday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Free.) The house was built in 1929 for the heirs of the last owners of the Malibu Spanish Land Grant. Well-preserved examples of tiles produced by Malibu Potteries can be found in the house, pool, fountains and bathhouse.
Sunday
For a look at the use of California tile in a Spanish Colonial Revival setting, visit La Casa Neuva, part of the Homestead Museum (15415 E. Don Julian Road, City of Industry, [626] 968-8492. Free tours Wednesday to Sunday, 1 to 4 p.m.). Art tile can be found in every room of the 1920s-era house, and although much of the tile was imported from Mexico by Los Angeles-based B.A. Whalen Co., there are examples in the kitchen and bathroom of American tile that was most likely made by the American Encaustic Tile Co., which had manufacturing plants in Los Angeles. More than two dozen tile patterns can be found in the house, many copying Malibu Potteries patterns. It is difficult to determine the source of much historic California art tile, as it was often unmarked by the manufacturers.
Although the exterior of the Banana Republic building (1202 Third Street Promenade, Santa Monica) features reproduced California art tiles, it is a good example of the work of present-day California Pottery and Tile Works (859 E. 60th St., L.A. [323] 235-4151). The company not only reproduces historic designs from most of the big California tile companies, but can also re-create any tile design, even if the original maker is unknown.
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9342e0e25d80d899a27a474b4de54c17 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jun-24-fi-14133-story.html | Fatal Flaw Dooms an Internet Venture | Fatal Flaw Dooms an Internet Venture
In 1997, David Perry, a mid-level oil refinery manager who had just completed his MBA at Harvard Business School, had a big idea.
Perry envisioned a technology to let businesses buy or sell products or raw materials anywhere in the world over an online system managed by a neutral provider. His business plan won second place in Harvard’s annual competition. Soon after, he drove his decade-old Nissan Maxima west to Silicon Valley in search of venture-fund gold.
The money boys found Perry’s idea irresistible. They showered $45 million on him to start a business-to-business, or “B2B,” trading system to serve the chemical industry. The legendary venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers became a lead investor. Within two years, Perry was widely viewed as a key creative force behind the next wave of Internet-based business efficiency. Analysts quickly projected revenues for the nascent online-exchange industry in the trillions of dollars annually, and Perry’s idea helped spawn hundreds of copycats.
Today most of the B2B industry has been decimated. A stock index of B2B companies, compiled by U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray Inc., has plunged 80% since a year ago.
Meanwhile, Perry’s company, Ventro Corp., has seen its shares fall from a high of $243.50 last year to 39 cents Friday. Ventro, which has no operating revenue, has slashed staff by 80% and faces a shareholder lawsuit filed in federal court in San Francisco that alleges securities fraud by Ventro executives.
Analysts said Perry’s B2B dreams have collapsed largely because of a flaw in his business plan. Ventro “attempted to get between the suppliers and buyers of mainstream products,” said John Bermudez, analyst with AMR Research, which studies online business markets. “Suppliers don’t really want anyone between them and their customers.”
This marks a sharp turnaround from early last year, when Ventro’s market capitalization was a stunning $11 billion. Former refinery worker Perry even traveled to the world’s most prestigious business conclave, in Davos, Switzerland, to lecture top oil executives about how to transform their businesses in cyberspace.
The 33-year-old Perry, who declined interview requests, was born and raised in Magnolia, Ark., near the Texas and Louisiana borders. Like fellow Arkansan Bill Clinton, who hails from nearby Hope, Perry has a soft Southern accent and a magnetic charm that hide ambitions that are anything but small town.
Perry’s plan for his first online marketplace seemed tantalizingly simple: Chemical sellers would pay his firm modest transaction fees of 1% to 2% to find new markets. Perry called the firm Chemdex. The idea was that competition would drive prices down and Chemdex would profit by hosting the online exchange as the service grew.
The company launched its service in October 1998. And Chemdex attracted large bioscience companies, such as Genentech Inc. and Becton, Dickinson & Co., which agreed to buy some goods online through Chemdex’s registry of suppliers. By July 1999, Chemdex had gone public and Perry used its soaring stock to buy Promedix, an online marketplace for specialty medical supplies.
For a while, Chemdex could do no wrong. Perry recruited highly regarded executives, including Robin Abrams, president of handheld-computer pioneer Palm Inc., as his chief operating officer. Perry also began to collect industry awards as a top entrepreneur. “As soon as we went public, we were getting 50 to 60 phone calls a month from major companies, who said, ‘Come here and sprinkle some of your magic dust,’ ” said Andrew Carragher, former vice president for business development, who left Ventro in December.
“You could not help but to be swept away,” said Matt Trerotola, a former Ventro business-development executive who left in October. “There was a kind of electricity that made me more excited about what they were doing than any job in my life.”
The early interest in online exchanges inspired Perry to create four marketplaces: for medical supplies (Broadlane), fluid-processing equipment (Industria Solutions), business services (MarketMile) and food services (Amphire Solutions). Chemdex provided its partners, including American Express Co. and IBM Corp., with technology to operate the online-exchange systems, while the partners would find the buyers and sellers. Chemdex received ownership stakes ranging from 19% to 49%. To reflect the diversified approach, Chemdex changed its name to Ventro.
To celebrate the name change, Ventro hosted a party in February last year at its Mountain View, Calif., headquarters, featuring a rock video starring a lip-syncing Perry. Within days, the company’s stock skyrocketed to its all-time high. A few weeks later, Ventro sold $250 million in bonds to expand its business. Around this time, Perry borrowed against his stock to buy a jet for his personal and business use.
But this apparent success obscured a looming problem: The Chemdex marketplace didn’t work well--as a technology or as a business.
In theory, Chemdex streamlined purchasing with an easy online menu, an advantage over having to flip through catalogs, make calls or fax queries to suppliers.
Yet setting up the Chemdex marketplace cost the company about $50 million and tens of millions more to maintain, according to former executives. Each of the 1.4 million product listings offered by wholesalers--ranging from lab supplies to chemicals and biological reagents--cost Chemdex $3 to $4 to create and an equal sum to change or update, said Pierre Samec, formerly Ventro’s chief information officer.
To entice new users, Chemdex charged tiny transaction fees--so it needed to process billions of dollars in transactions just to break even. At its peak, Chemdex pulled in only 144 corporate customers. That service, along with the medical-equipment marketplace, generated less than $30 million in revenue per quarter, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings.
Big companies sometimes joined online exchanges out of fear of being left behind, then found their own well-established internal purchasing systems to be more efficient, AMR Research’s Bermudez said. “DuPont doesn’t need Chemdex to find Dow,” he said.
To draw new customers, Chemdex had to demonstrate reliable performance, yet its operations deteriorated as volume grew, insiders said. “It’s like building the first car: It’s going to cost 10 times what you thought, and it won’t go as fast” as planned, said Daryl Rolley, a former Ventro business-development executive. And bugs in the system emerged as Chemdex cobbled together nearly two dozen software programs.
By last summer, said Rolley and Dean Dorman, another former Ventro executive, Chemdex was in deep trouble. The Chemdex marketplace began to post losses of $30 million a quarter, according to Rolley. As Ventro opened new marketplaces, costs spiraled out of control because the marketplaces required expensive customization.
“This is when the wheels started to fall off,” Rolley said. Ventro’s board of directors, over Perry’s objections, ordered management to seek a buyer for Ventro, insiders said. The company was on its way to losing $618 million in 2000 alone, and no buyer could be found.
“The professional management Perry had brought in a year earlier . . . they all were jumping ship,” Rolley said.
A few Ventro executives exited with stock windfalls of $1 million to $3 million, according to court records, but most left without cashing out. Partly because of the speed of Ventro’s decline, its stock value largely evaporated during the “lockup” period when executives could not sell their shares. The big exception was William Klintworth, chief executive of the Promedix marketplace purchased by Ventro, who sold $24 million in stock and gave away stock worth an additional $23.5 million.
Perry sold no stock.
As Ventro’s shares collapsed, executives began to joke that instead of traveling by Perry’s jet, they ought to be in the back of a bus. Eventually, Perry gave up the jet.
In December, to preserve cash Perry announced that Ventro would shutter the Chemdex and Promedix exchanges and cut the work force by half. His new strategy was to become a seller of technology services to other operators of B2B marketplaces. Then two online marketplaces--one for medical supplies and one for food service--rejected Ventro’s software as unworkable and opted to replace it, according to SEC records, industry sources and court documents.
“Even where [Ventro has] a significant minority investment, they are getting thrown out,” said George Santana, an analyst with Wedbush Morgan Securities.
Meanwhile, most of the roughly 1,500 B2B exchanges operated by third parties--similar to Perry’s original business plan--have also sputtered. Scores of online consortiums, operated by buyers and sellers directly, and up to 200 private trading networks run by one large company also have struggled.
Some online exchanges will certainly succeed, analysts said. Yet it seems clear that one touted benefit of the Internet has been monumentally oversold.
As for Ventro, the company has not posted any operating revenue for the last two quarters. Yet as of March 31, Ventro still had $96 million in cash and investments on hand.
Said Rolley: “Ventro still has a lot of money, but it doesn’t have a business model.”
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
Ventro’s Struggles
Ventro Corp. (originally called Chemdex) was one of the first operators of online business-to-business exchanges. Such B2B sites promised a massive shift to wholesale buying and selling, but that has not happened. Most B2B firms are struggling, and Ventro is no exception.
VNTR on the NYSE, IPO price, monthly closes and latest
July 27, 1999: IPO price: $25.50
February 2000: Chemdex renamed Ventro; stock hits peak.
June 2000: CEO David Perry named Northern California entrepreneur of the year.
December 2000: Ventro announces it will shutter its B2B chemical marketplace and cut half its staff.
Friday: 39 cents
Sources: Bloomberg News, Times research
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0c954bdde81d842c919203c33b289ccb | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jun-24-re-14007-story.html | For Replacement Windows, Vinyl Is Worth a Look | For Replacement Windows, Vinyl Is Worth a Look
Question: I need no-maintenance replacement windows that tilt in for easy cleaning, don’t sweat and will cut my utility bills. I thought about vinyl windows, but I hear they are cheap and low quality. Is this true?
Answer: As with all products, there is a tremendous range in quality and price. Vinyl windows are no exception.
For what it is worth, I have vinyl replacement windows in my own home. They have performed flawlessly for 14 years and utility bills are low.
Although you can probably find inexpensive, flimsy, locally made vinyl windows, high-quality vinyl windows cost about the same as other high-quality replacement windows. Of all window frame materials available, vinyl and fiberglass frames are the most energy efficient.
Reduced outdoor noise is the first thing you will notice with new vinyl windows. This results from the airtight construction and the efficient glass panes. Over time, you will also notice less carpet and furniture fading.
There are significant differences between high-quality and cheap vinyl windows in the cross-sections, material quality and thickness, and in assembly methods. One of the first design features to look for is welded corners, especially in the sash frames. They are usually thermally welded together.
Better vinyl windows are often more attractive. The extrusions used to make the frames are heavier and have more profile details. Some even have a realistic-looking natural-wood-grained indoor surface finish.
Vinyl itself is a fairly good insulator, but vinyl windows derive most of their energy efficiency from the many dead air spaces inside the hollow frame.
The interior ribs, not visible in an installed window, that create these insulating chambers also add to the frame’s strength and rigidity.
Several window manufacturers inject low-pressure insulating foam into the dead air spaces. This increases the overall insulation value of the frame and adds even more rigidity. My vinyl windows have foam-filled frames. Injecting foam in the frames does not increase the price significantly.
Another unique and efficient type of vinyl window uses a solid cellular foam window frame instead of the more common multichambered hollow frame. It is very strong and has the solid feel of a wood window. It can also be painted.
For convenient tilt-in cleaning, double-hung windows are your best choice.
After five or 10 years, you may have to adjust the counterweight springs a little, but that is the extent of the maintenance required. Vinyl casement windows are the most efficient design and provide better ventilation.
*
A simple 30-minute inspection of your home and some simple, low-cost improvements can control utility bills and help avert the need for rolling blackouts. Download a free list of “100 Energy Saving Tips and Improvements” plus an “Appliance Cost-to-Use” chart from https://www.dulley.com/energy.
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a1c3d8aa2fcf9383ff52f96b0a7ec865 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jun-28-me-16027-story.html | Marital Strife Is Blamed in 2 Deaths | Marital Strife Is Blamed in 2 Deaths
A man who shot his estranged wife to death and killed himself during lunch at a North Hollywood restaurant had appeared depressed recently and had talked about marital troubles, acquaintances said Wednesday.
“He looked kind of sad and depressed,” said Juana Montes, a receptionist at the Family Practice Medical Clinic, who worked in the same building as Rudolfo “Rudy” Morales, 55. She said she last saw him a week ago. “He was usually so nice and polite, but that day he was down.”
Morales, 55, shot Erma Yolanda Montepeque, 38, to death during lunch Tuesday at Don Felix restaurant before turning the gun on himself.
“We can only guess what went wrong, but I don’t think we’ll ever know for sure,” said Los Angeles Police Det. Mike McGlivray. “It had to do with their relationship, but we don’t know exactly what.”
If Montepeque, who had a 10-year-old son from a previous marriage, was troubled by Morales, she did not tell her family about it, police said.
Montepeque, who worked a night shift at a senior citizens’ home in the San Fernando Valley, had a sister in Las Vegas and a cousin in East Los Angeles who knew nothing about problems with Morales, police said.
Most of the victim’s family live in her native Guatemala, where Morales also grew up.
Montepeque’s son, Jeffrey, had been in Guatemala visiting relatives and was due to return the day of the shooting. The slain couple were married about three years ago and had separated three months ago, police said.
Two people who worked in the same Los Angeles business complex as Morales said he seemed depressed lately.
At Oscar’s Flowers in the Vermont Avenue building where Morales ran a real estate business, the owner said Morales spoke about troubles with his wife.
“One time, about a month ago, he told me about a problem he was having with her,” said Oscar, who refused to give his last name.
Another worker at the complex said she saw Morales a week ago.
“He looked kind of sad and depressed,” said Juana Montes, a receptionist at the Family Practice Medical Clinic. “He was usually so nice and polite, but that day he was down.”
Morales, who lived near his office, had visited the clinic that morning for a blood test, she said. “He was worried about his cholesterol,” Montes said. “But everything checked out in the normal range.”
Angela Romero, a neighbor of Montepeque in North Hollywood, said Morales may have been jealous. “They were separated and she had other male friends,” she said.
Romero added that she would occasionally look after Jeffrey.
“This is just so tragic for him,” she said. “Yolanda was an excellent mother, always looking after him. They were very close. Last night I couldn’t sleep.”
Before Morales shot himself, he had called his mother on a cellular phone, McGlivray said.
“I just shot Yolanda and I’m going to be taking my own life now,” Morales told his mother, according to McGlivray. “He apologized and told her he wanted his kids to know he loved them.”
Customers at Don Felix restaurant said they hardly noticed the couple, who appeared to be having a nice time, before the gunshots rang out in the small eatery on Lankershim Boulevard, according to police.
Riccardo Goto, a chef and brother of the restaurant’s owner, said the restaurant would probably reopen today.
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107a5590da6f5800295d6b2efae6c16c | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jun-29-mn-16438-story.html | Jack Lemmon, Everyman Star, Dies | Jack Lemmon, Everyman Star, Dies
Jack Lemmon, whose gift for broad physical comedy and soul-searching drama made him one of Hollywood’s most beloved and accomplished actors, has died. He was 76.
Lemmon died about 9 p.m. Wednesday at USC/Norris Cancer Center with his wife, actress Felicia Farr, two children and a stepdaughter at his bedside. The cause of death was complications from cancer, his longtime publicist Warren Cowan announced.
For the record:
12:00 AM, Jun. 30, 2001 FOR THE RECORD Los Angeles Times Saturday June 30, 2001 Home Edition Part A Part A Page 2 A2 Desk 1 inches; 29 words Type of Material: Correction Jack Lemmon obituary--Friday’s obituary of actor Jack Lemmon gave an incorrect name for the nonprofit organization designated by his family for donations. It is the Natural Resources Defense Council.
The two-time Academy Award winner, whose acting honors included two Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe and two Tony nominations, had been in failing health for some time.
For many, Lemmon was best known for his films with longtime foil Walter Matthau, including “The Odd Couple,” “The Fortune Cookie” and “The Front Page.”
“He was a wonderful guy,” said legendary film director Billy Wilder, whose seven films with Lemmon included the classic “Some Like It Hot.”
“I loved him dearly,” Wilder said, “and he was the best actor I ever worked with.”
The impish son of a doughnut company executive, Lemmon first made his mark in comedy, starring in films by some of the masters of that genre. But during a career that spanned more than 50 films, Lemmon garnered as many Oscar nominations--eight--as Marlon Brando, considered by many the leading American actor of his generation.
And as one of the most versatile actors in motion pictures, the Broadway-trained Lemmon was the first actor to win Academy Awards for both best supporting actor, for the 1955 comedy “Mister Roberts,” and best actor, for the 1973 drama “Save the Tiger.”
“He was that rare combination of a true movie star in the old-fashioned sense and also a guy from Boston, your next-door neighbor,” said “On Golden Pond” author Ernest Thompson, who also wrote “A Sense of Humor,” in which Lemmon appeared at Los Angeles’ Ahmanson Theatre in the mid-1980s. “There wasn’t a lot of pretense,” Thompson said.
Added William Friedkin, who directed Lemmon in the 1997 television remake of “12 Angry Men”: “All I can tell you is that anyone who ever worked with Jack feels the same way. It has been a privilege to have had Jack in your life.”
For his part, Lemmon, though proud of his work, often gave much of the credit for his success to fate.
“My career has been full of remarkable coincidences that have nothing to do with me,” the characteristically humble actor said when he received the American Film Institute’s 16th Life Achievement Award in 1988.
From the opportunistic Ensign Pulver in “Mister Roberts,” to Tony Curtis’ sidekick in “Some Like It Hot,” to the baleful C.C. “Bud” Baxter in the romantic comedy “The Apartment,” Lemmon in just the span of 1955 to 1960 established himself as one of America’s top comic actors.
Indeed, the three roles earned him Academy Award nominations and he won an Oscar for “Mister Roberts.”
Comic Actor Turns to Drama
Over time, the Everyman qualities that guided him in comedies enabled Lemmon to deliver one searing dramatic performance after another.
In 1962, he and actress Lee Remick offered a devastating depiction of alcoholism as a couple whose addictions destroy their marriage in “Days of Wine and Roses,” for which he received an Oscar nomination.
A decade later, in “Save the Tiger,” Lemmon epitomized the confusion and disillusionment of the 1970s with his portrayal of Harry Stoner, a Los Angeles garment manufacturer in the throes of a breakdown.
And in many subsequent roles--the nuclear power plant official in “The China Syndrome,” the father searching in Chile for the truth about his son’s disappearance in “Missing,” both Oscar-nominated performances, the conniving real estate salesman in the movie of David Mamet’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, “Glengarry Glen Ross"--Lemmon played ordinary characters confronting extraordinary events.
“From his comic turns in ‘Mister Roberts’ and ‘Some Like It Hot’ to his flawed characters in ‘Save the Tiger’ and ‘Days of Wine and Roses’ to his suddenly politicized common men in ‘Missing’ and ‘The China Syndrome,’ Mr. Lemmon has sent one consistent message to his audiences, ‘This could be you,’ ” Samuel G. Freedman wrote years ago in the New York Times.
Or as Lemmon said in a 1980 interview, “I’ve never had to dodge that particular bullet of having to do [comedy or drama]. . . . I’ve been able to do both and sometimes both at once.”
George Stevens Jr., founder of the American Film Institute, said Thursday that “when you look at [Lemmon’s] career, there is a surprising diversity.”
On a set or on stage, the actor always seemed to treat his craft with a mix of workmanlike professionalism and awe.
Before he shot a scene, Stevens recalled, Lemmon would say, “It’s magic time.”
“He would say it very quietly,” Stevens said. “It was just a little tradition of his.”
Born two months prematurely on Feb. 8, 1925, in an elevator at Boston’s Newton-Wellesley Hospital, John Uhler Lemmon III was the only child of John Uhler Lemmon Jr., vice president of the Doughnut Corp. of America, and Mildred LaRue Noel Lemmon.
While he often credited his parents for his sense of comedy, Lemmon’s youth--though privileged--had its share of pain. As a child, he was frequently sick, and he underwent three serious ear surgeries before the age of 10.
As he reached adolescence, Lemmon pushed himself past illnesses through athletics, excelling as a distance runner--he broke the New England record for the two-mile run. As an adult, he remained physically active as an accomplished golfer and a fisherman who made yearly treks with his son to Alaska.
His parents’ troubled marriage also left its mark. “I had a happy childhood, but it was tempered with an acute awareness of the pain,” he said in one interview. Another time, he said: “The trouble is that, while my parents were great when they were apart, they were terrible together.”
Easing his troubles by performing, Lemmon developed comedy routines to entertain company and classmates.
“If I was [a natural comic], I didn’t know it,” he once said. “I remember trying to be funny and both of my parents were terribly funny. My father was also very dignified, but my mother was an absolute ding-a-ling, a ripper. Whenever I think of her, I think of her laughing.”
Lemmon first appeared on stage at the age of 4 with his father, an amateur soft-shoe dancer and singer in a barbershop quartet. After graduating from Philips Academy in Andover, Mass., Lemmon attended Harvard University, where, as a junior, he served as president of its Hasty Pudding theatrical club.
He left Harvard in 1945 to serve as a communications officer--an ensign--aboard the aircraft carrier Lake Champlain, and finished his studies after World War II ended.
After graduating in 1947, Lemmon went to New York City with great aspirations and a $300 loan from his father. But Broadway did not beckon, not immediately anyway, and Lemmon struggled to survive. An accomplished, self-taught pianist, Lemmon, among other jobs, performed in various bars.
“If I’d been bright,” he once said, “I’d have realized that I was horribly uncomfortable, amazingly frustrated, and like any sensible person, I’d have quit. But it never occurred to me that I wouldn’t be successful eventually.”
That success, on stage alone, would earn Lemmon Tony Award nominations in 1979 for “Tribute” and in 1986 for a revival of Eugene O’Neill’s “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.”
400 Appearances on TV in 5 Years
In 1948, Lemmon landed a role in a radio soap opera and soon thereafter began a five-year string of 400 appearances on a new medium: television.
It was during that period that Lemmon met and married his first wife, actress Cynthia Stone. The couple were married six years before divorcing and had one son, Christopher, who would become an actor and, Lemmon would later say, “In many ways . . . my best friend.”
Lemmon’s first film was director George Cukor’s “It Should Happen to You,” starring Judy Holliday.
“If it wasn’t for Judy,” Lemmon said, “I’m not sure I would have concentrated on films. I was a snot nose. . . . I would rather have sat around the old Walgreen’s drugstore in New York with all the other out-of-work actors, pooh-poohing guys in films.”
During that movie, Lemmon would often recall, the legendary director struggled to rein in the young actor’s performance. In early rehearsals, Lemmon remembered, Cukor would yell out, “Less, less, less” after Lemmon’s scene.
“Don’t you want me to act at all?” Lemmon asked.
“Dear boy,” Cukor replied, “you’re beginning to understand.”
In 1955, at age 29, Lemmon’s career began its meteoric ascent with his Oscar-winning performance in “Mister Roberts” opposite two screen giants--Henry Fonda and James Cagney.
Director John Ford first saw Lemmon in a farcical screen test set up by Lemmon’s longtime friend, director Richard Quine. (Quine would direct Lemmon in six of his own films, including “How to Murder Your Wife.”)
After spotting Lemmon, Ford immediately settled on the actor to play the role of the frenetic Navy ensign. Cornering him on a studio lot, the director implored Lemmon to immediately take the role and spit in his palm for a handshake to seal it. Lemmon, stunned, eventually took the role, though at that moment, he would say later, he had no idea that he had been talking to John Ford.
From there, Lemmon went on to a string of comedies and collaborations with some of Hollywood’s biggest talents.
In a 1996 interview, Lemmon said the legendary Wilder influenced his acting more than any other director.
Wilder also brought Lemmon and actress Shirley MacLaine together in film: first in “The Apartment” and later in “Irma la Douce.”
Lemmon appeared in several films--among them, “Days of Wine and Roses” and “The Great Race"--directed by another longtime friend, Blake Edwards.
And he gave several memorable performances in Neil Simon comedies, including “The-Out-of-Towners.”
But his best-known collaboration was with his close friend Matthau, with whom he made 10 films.
In their first film together, Wilder’s 1966 “The Fortune Cookie,” Lemmon was cast as a television cameraman injured during a football game and prodded by his conniving brother-in-law, Matthau, to fake injuries for a lawsuit.
Two years later, the two were paired in Neil Simon’s “The Odd Couple,” with Lemmon cast as the fastidious Felix Unger and Matthau as the slob sportswriter Oscar Madison.
Their comedic chemistry, as contentious cronies, delighted audiences in film after film, including Wilder’s 1974 remake of “The Front Page,” the 1993 hit “Grumpy Old Men” and the 1995 sequel “Grumpier Old Men.” Their last film together was “The Odd Couple II” in 1998.
Describing himself and Matthau as “very, very close” from their first film together, Lemmon said in a 1996 interview that their friendship made movie roles easy.
“The working relationship was heaven because we were always on the same wavelength and we never got off it,” Lemmon said. “So, it’s just sort of like sitting down and chatting with each other when we rehearse--there’s nothing to it. We just run the lines a couple of times and say, ‘Let’s go.’ ”
Lemmon was devastated when Matthau died last July 1 at age 79. “I have lost someone I loved as a brother, as a closest friend and a remarkable human being,” Lemmon said. “We have also lost one of the best damn actors we’ll ever see.”
Love of Acting Never Faded
Through hits and disappointments, Lemmon’s love of craft--and sense of self--never dimmed.
In 1984, Charles Champlin, then the Times arts editor, wrote that Lemmon, despite two Oscars and as many decades of acclaim, had hardly changed from the days he first arrived in Hollywood.
“He still has the excitement, spontaneity, idealism and vulnerability of the new boy in town,” Champlin wrote. “He rejects roles that seem merely profitable and, unlike some of his starry contemporaries, accepts projects that offer little if any financial reward, simply because he feels passionately about the importance of the material.”
“Save the Tiger” was but one example. Lemmon felt so strongly about playing businessman Harry Stoner, a turning-point role after a series of comedies, that the actor agreed to work for scale--$165 a week--because studio executives refused to pay more than $1 million to make the film. That same movie today, he estimated, would cost $40 million.
The film role was so demanding, Lemmon would later say, that he, like the character, teetered on the edge of a breakdown. “I started to crack as the character did,” he said. “I just kept getting deeper and deeper into the character’s despair.”
Because of his association with the character, or perhaps in spite of it, the actor delivered a performance that many rank as his best.
A popular figure in Hollywood, Lemmon was as well regarded for his humanity as for his acting. “In a town where reputations are served up shredded with your salad,” columnist Roderick Mann wrote in 1980, “hardly anyone has a bad word to say about Jack Lemmon.”
That’s not to say that Lemmon was a colorless goody-goody.
He was well-known for enjoying his martinis, though he always insisted that the stories about his drinking were exaggerated. He gave up drinking, as well as smoking, at age 60.
He was unabashedly passionate about certain causes, such as the environment and animal rights, and was never one to shy away from controversial films or blunt language.
“This is the only country where you can do a film like I did and then end up in the [bleeping] White House,” Lemmon said after a 1982 visit with then-President Ronald Reagan following the release of “Missing.” The film, based on a book about the disappearance and death of an American journalist during Chile’s 1973 military coup, sharply criticized U.S. foreign policy.
In 1983, Lemmon helped pay to fly the body of a 21-year-old San Diegan back to the United States for an autopsy that showed that the youth suffered “blunt force” bruises before being shot by Salvadoran troops.
A Devoted Fan of Golf
Those who knew Lemmon for years recalled his love of golf.
“His great aim was to make the cut at the AT&T; Pro-Am tournament in Pebble Beach, and he almost did about four years ago,” said publicist Cowan. “But then on the last day, it rained and he didn’t make it.”
Longtime friends also remembered Lemmon’s devotion to his family’s black standard poodle, Chloe.
“His dog used to come on the set,” said director Friedkin. “She would watch takes and if she saw too much of it, she would amble back to Jack’s dressing room on her own. That was one of the endearing things about Jack.”
With no thought of retirement, Lemmon’s acting--and the accolades--continued throughout his life.
In 1999, three years after receiving Kennedy Center Honors, Lemmon received two Golden Globe nominations, appeared in a Showtime remake of “Inherit the Wind” and won an Emmy for his performance as an inspiring teacher stricken with Lou Gehrig’s disease in the television film “Tuesdays With Morrie.”
“I loved him,” said actor Peter Gallagher, who worked several times with Lemmon and played his son in the Broadway production of “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.”
“What I learned from him is that people who are really at the top are at the top for a reason,” Gallagher said.
Though first and foremost an actor, Lemmon took a turn or two behind the camera. He co-produced the classic “Cool Hand Luke,” starring Paul Newman, directed the 1971 film “Kotch,” which won Matthau an Oscar nomination, and composed a song for the 1957 film “Fire Down Below,” in which he starred.
Lemmon married Farr in 1962. She survives him, as does their daughter, Courtney; his son, Christopher; stepdaughter Denise; and three grandchildren.
In lieu of flowers, his family requests that donations be made to the National Resources Defense Council, a New York-based nonprofit organization.
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Times staff writers Susan King, Thomas Bonk and Suzanne Muchnic and Times librarian John Tyrrell contributed to this story.
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5ee3da99cef5ec8dcf95228e3f1389a1 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-mar-01-me-31938-story.html | Gin Kanie, 108; She and Twin Sister Became Elderly Celebrities in Japan | Gin Kanie, 108; She and Twin Sister Became Elderly Celebrities in Japan
Gin Kanie, the 108-year-old celebrity twin who was a poster child for graceful longevity in rapidly graying Japan, died Wednesday of natural causes. She outlived her sister, Kin Narita, who died early last year.
The image of the beloved twins--spry, laughing, wrinkled and always identically dressed in traditional kimonos--adorned items ranging from prepaid telephone cards and stamps to household cleaners throughout Japan.
Nearly everyone who saw the tiny, cheerful great-grandmothers, with their close-cropped, snow-white hair, hamming it up on talk shows and meeting celebrities had the same reaction: kawaeee, or “sooo cute.” Their deaths made front-page headlines across Japan. On Wednesday, tapes of their television appearances highlighted many news programs.
Her local Nagoya newspaper splashed a headline across its front page that read, “Japan’s Granny: Sayonara.”
The twins, whose real names were indeed Gin and Kin, translated respectively as Silver and Gold, were unknowns until vaulting into the limelight on their 100th birthday in 1992. The mayor of Nagoya and the prefectural governor came to visit them at Kanie’s home on the national holiday known as Respect for the Aged Day, trailed by television cameras. The attention landed the twins a spot in a popular commercial touting a household cleaner, each in her heavy Nagoya accent saying “Hyakusha,” or “I’m 100.”
The twins traveled more as centenarians than they had in their first 10 decades. First it was the bullet trains across Japan to make appearances. Then they traveled overseas for the first time at age 102, to a conference in Taiwan attended by 1,000 pairs of twins. In 1997, they visited South Korea.
Then there were the nonstop meetings with Japanese celebrities. The twins dined on chanko-nabe--the staple stew-like dish--with famed sumo wrestler Akebono. They chatted it up several times with the Oprah of Japan, Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, on her talk show.
They were models of health: Narita was hospitalized for the first time in 1998 for 17 days because of a stomach ulcer. Kanie was hospitalized for the first time the same year for 10 days because of pneumonia.
But their shared birth date wasn’t always an asset. In traditional Japan, twins were thought to be jinxed. “When we were little, we didn’t go places together, because being a twin wasn’t cool,” Narita once said in a television interview.
Born Aug. 1, 1892, the twins saw Japan evolve from a destitute, isolationist nation into a modern economic power. During a TV interview in which Narita mentioned “the war,” the host had to ask her to clarify which one.
Like many other peasants at the time, their parents were illiterate. The father asked a respected Shinto priest to name the little girls.
Though born second, Narita was considered to be the elder sister, recalled Mineyo Kanie, her niece, in a phone interview last year. It was believed at the time of their birth that an older twin needed to remain a little longer in the womb while sending the younger twin out first.
They were the first and second of seven children, and their tenant-farmer parents had to give most of the rice they grew to the landlord. The family had little to eat.
In those days, girls often didn’t go to school. But their father believed in education, Narita later recalled. They took turns going to school on alternate days, taking care of the other children on their days off while their parents toiled in the fields.
Both sisters also married farmers. In an arranged marriage, Narita was wed at 19 without having previously set eyes on the groom. And the honeymoon? “I went back to work in the field on the next day” cultivating wheat and bean crops, she later said.
Narita bore 11 children, but five died young.
Kanie, who married two years after her sister, had five daughters, four of whom are still living.
Both husbands died decades before the twins.
Commenting last year on their personalities, Mineyo Kanie, now 77, said the twins were similar, though Narita had more of a sense of humor.
In a television special shortly after Narita’s death on Jan. 23, 2000, the hostess mourned with son Yukio Narita and daughter-in-law Kikue. As they watched clips of the sisters appearing on past shows, Yukio Narita said, “Her death was very peaceful, but the whole family felt like we wanted to take care of her longer.”
When Kanie saw her twin’s body, all she could say was, “My sister, you’ve grown so cold, you’ve grown so cold.” Later she kept repeating, “What to do, what to do?” She told reporters: “I can’t think of anything. Only tears keep coming down.”
In the weeks after the death, her daughter said last year, Kanie began to slip. “She appears a bit lonely, and she says so,” said Mineyo Kanie. “Sometimes she misunderstands, as if Kin were still around, only sick. My heart aches for her.”
The elderly Kanie never really recovered.
Like many Japanese families who care for their aging parents at home, Kanie was tended in her last weeks by her daughters. Until just a few weeks ago, she’d ask them to carry her outside on their backs.
Kanie also is survived by four grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. The funeral is scheduled for Friday.
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fcaf20d5a09a9d597d50be94127d3b60 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-mar-03-ca-32506-story.html | Neil Young, Chili Peppers Show Survival Skills | Neil Young, Chili Peppers Show Survival Skills
Defiant individualist Neil Young is a man whose music over the course of some35 years has proven ageless.
The wacky Red Hot Chili Peppers are a band that in 20 years has refused to grow up.
When they shared the bill at the Hollywood Palladium on Thursday, it was Dorian Gray versus Peter Pan.
But the very presence at an intimate facility of two acts that normally headline arenas was evidence of each’s true maturity.
The show was a benefit for Gloria Scott, a longtime Hollywood addiction counselor whom several Peppers (and many others in and out of the rock world) credit for nothing less than saving their lives.
With her life now threatened by lung cancer, “A Night for Gloria” was a chance to pay her back, not just in money to help with expenses, but in recognition for work generally done anonymously.
With that lineup, plus a terrific, spirited set by the re-formed Thelonious Monster (whose singer Bob Forrest also credits Scott for his success fighting addiction) and between-set spinning by superstar English DJ Paul Oakenfold, it was anything but a somber affair.
Young, paying back the Peppers for their appearance at his annual Bridge School Benefit concert last October, was at his garage-rockiest. Working with backing band Crazy Horse after a few years touring with other musicians, Young powered through his edgiest material, from the opening “Sedan Delivery” and “Hey Hey My My” to the windstorm of feedback and noise that ended “Like a Hurricane.” No one rocks like Neil Young rocks. And no one has done it with such commitment over such a long time.
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That the Chili Peppers are still going full-bore after two decades is nearly as remarkable given (a) the serious addiction problems some members had to overcome, and (b) the cartoon-like nature of their music and persona.
In its headlining set Thursday, the band at first did little to counter critics’ dismissals of its success as having more to do with shirtless punk antics than with artistry, with singer Anthony Kiedis careening spasmodically and bassist Flea mugging and spitting as he popped out staccato funk lines.
But midway through, more complex textures and emotions emerged, embodied most profoundly in the instinctive, understated, Hendrix-like beauty of John Frusciante’s guitar. It was the musical manifestation of the heart that has made the Peppers community-minded leaders over the years, their support of such friends as Scott defining their legacy as much as anything else.
Arguably, the success story of the night was Thelonious Monster, which never had the music business support system provided by commercial success to keep it going through its drug problems and other crises.
Yet the band played a set of fiery and personal rockers as rich and enticing as you’ll find, with earnest fervor given to Forrest’s poetic, caustic songs.
This was true rock ‘n’ roll heart.
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ec6763ed3485016a72b97d36f0beff14 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-mar-07-fi-34293-story.html | Firm Wins Lawsuit Against 20th Century Fox | Firm Wins Lawsuit Against 20th Century Fox
A small Detroit publishing firm won a $19-million lawsuit against 20th Century Fox after a jury in Michigan agreed that the movie studio had stolen the script for a hit Christmas movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Murray Hill Publications claimed in the lawsuit that the script for the 1996 movie “Jingle All the Way” bore a remarkable resemblance to the screenplay “Could This Be Christmas?” written by high school teacher Brian Alan Webster. The screenwriter for “Jingle All the Way,” listed as Ed McQueen, was actually an alias for Randy Kornfield, a script reader at 20th Century Fox, said Mayer Morganroth, a lawyer for the publishing firm. Murray Hill, which bought the rights to Webster’s screenplay, pitched it to several movie studios, including 20th Century Fox, a unit of News Corp., in 1993 without finding any interest. Soon after, 20th Century Fox purchased the rights to “Jingle All the Way,” which grossed $80 million at the box office and through video sales. Lawyers and officials for 20th Century Fox did not return telephone calls from Reuters seeking comment.
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f5e2012516daeca3cd122f4e835e2327 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-mar-12-mn-36618-story.html | Congressman Tests His Winning Streak | Congressman Tests His Winning Streak
Rep. Xavier Becerra isn’t worried that he has less money and fewer endorsements than other candidates running for mayor of Los Angeles. He isn’t worried because the lessons he has gleaned from his 11 years in public office are that Things Work Out. Opportunities Arise. The Underdog Surprises People.
If you lived a life shaped by luck and discipline and powerful patrons, a life that propelled you, after one term as a state assemblyman, to become a respected member of Congress, you might feel the same way.
At age 43, driven less by a determined vision than by a strict work ethic and influential allies, Becerra has accumulated a fair share of political success, particularly considering he had no ambition for public office until about a decade ago.
As chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, he forged strong relationships with Capitol Hill leaders and President Clinton. He won a plum assignment on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, the first Latino so named. Colleagues from both parties regard him as sharp and fair-minded.
This time around, however, happenstance and hard work may not be enough. The mayor’s race is testing Becerra’s political acumen and his sunny string of luck. The candidate once perceived as the “favorite son” among up-and-coming Latino leaders is jousting for recognition in a crowded field. Even former allies such as County Supervisor Gloria Molina say they are puzzled that he is running.
Becerra has been slow to develop a compelling message for his candidacy. He has infuriated some Latino leaders who fear that he will split community support with fellow candidate and former Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa, preventing either one from winning. He has come under fire for his role in President Clinton’s controversial commutation of a drug trafficker’s sentence.
Becerra’s involvement in the commutation flap was a jarring contrast to the most persistent image of the congressman--that of a clean-cut, above-the-board legislator, a man some colleagues admire as the “Boy Scout” of politics.
Becerra’s mother, Maria Teresa, has a favorite story about her son. One Sunday morning when he was about 8 years old, he tired of waiting as she readied his three sisters for Mass at their south Sacramento church.
“Vamos, Mama,” he said. “Mass starts in 10 minutes.”
“Si, hijo,” she responded. “Paciencia.”
But Becerra couldn’t wait. Not willing to risk being late, he walked out the door and down the seven blocks to church by himself.
The entire truth about that Sunday may be a little less saccharine.
“I probably didn’t want to go to a later Mass and miss football,” Becerra said recently, laughing.
Hard Work and Good Grades
The only son among four children, Becerra always got good grades. He broke up fights in high school. He helped his father do construction work as a teenager, quick to handle the heavy labor.
Even then, he succeeded with a combination of chance and by-the-books meticulousness.
Take golf.
It was not the obvious sport for the son of a construction worker growing up in a one-bedroom house. But an elementary school friend’s father was an avid player, and gave his son a set of golf clubs. The two boys putted around in the friend’s backyard after class. When they grew older, they played at a small public course nearby, sharing a single set of clubs.
Finally, Becerra’s father scraped together enough money to buy him a cheap set of Kmart clubs. But he didn’t have enough to pay for lessons. So Becerra mastered golf much as he would tackle politics: by cramming.
He went to the library and checked out golf books. He cut the weekly golf tips column out of the Sacramento Bee. Finally, by his senior year at C.K. McClatchy High School, he made the varsity golf team.
During high school, Becerra also mastered a very different hobby: poker. He became so good that years later, during a trip to Las Vegas with his parents, a casino offered him a job as a dealer.
While he gained command of some subjects with focus and diligence, chance also set him on his course to college.
One day in high school chemistry class, a friend who had botched an exam tossed aside his application to Stanford University. Becerra picked it up and, on a whim, filled it out. He didn’t know where the campus was until he and his mother drove there to enroll him in the fall of 1976.
The son of Mexican immigrants--his mother grew up in Guadalajara and his father, Manuel, was born in Sacramento but raised in Tijuana--Becerra would become the first in his family to graduate from college.
Close friend Arturo Vargas, who met Becerra at Stanford, said he “always had a clean-boy image, almost to a fault.”
“On campus, people tended to drink beer and be rowdy,” said Vargas, now the executive director of the National Assn. of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, based in Los Angeles. “The time I knew him, he was more likely to drink milk.”
Another college acquaintance said he was “the straightest Chicano I knew. It looked like his short-sleeved shirts were ironed.” (They were.)
When his girlfriend--now wife--Carolina Reyes was downstairs in the lounge of the Casa Zapata dorm leading meetings of the Chicano activist organization MEChA, Becerra was more likely to be upstairs studying. Friends encouraged him to take a greater leadership role on campus, but Becerra was intent on getting into law school. (He did, graduating from Stanford Law in 1984.)
“I was the grandiose one who wanted to conquer the world, and he did too, but he wanted to do it step by step,” said Reyes, now an obstetrician.
After working for Legal Aid in Massachusetts while his wife attended Harvard Medical School, Becerra came back to Sacramento to work for state Sen. Art Torres, who had been his boss during a post-college fellowship. He moved to Los Angeles in 1986 to run Torres’ district office.
Soon, he met Eastside political operative Henry Lozano, chief of staff for the venerable Rep. Edward Roybal, the dean of local Latino politics. One day on the golf course, Lozano asked Becerra, so when are you going to run?
He wasn’t.
“I’m a policy guy,” Becerra told Lozano.
A few years later, Lozano and other Eastside community leaders invited Becerra--by then a deputy attorney general--to meet. They posed the question again, more specifically: Will you run for the open state Assembly seat in the San Gabriel Valley?
“I guess we were considered kingmakers,” said Frank Villalobos, a longtime Eastside activist who was at the meeting. “When we asked someone, it was pretty much considered giving them el dedazo.”
El dedazo, literally the fingering from a powerful person: It’s your turn.
New Generation of Latino Leaders
Becerra looked stunned. He thought they were kidding, until he realized no one was laughing. He’d have to talk to his wife, he said.
“My vision was I was going to be the right-hand person that an elected official counts on to do the memos, to advise,” he said. “You know, the one you always see in the movies whispering in the ear of the official, and then all of a sudden the eloquent question comes out.”
But once planted, the idea took root.
A group known as the “macho dogs"--Lozano, Villalobos, future city Councilman Mike Hernandez, future Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg and Molina’s husband, Ron Martinez--put together his campaign.
Torres, Becerra’s old boss, loaned staff and helped Becerra raise money. They challenged the candidates being backed by two other powerful Latinos. (Later, Molina, then an assemblywoman, endorsed Becerra and brought on her political team.)
The fresh-faced, Stanford-educated Becerra fit the image voters were seeking, weary as they were of scandal in the wake of state Sen. Joseph Montoya’s political corruption conviction.
Becerra’s victory kicked off a new era in Latino politics, a rise in young, polished college graduates who offered a different mold of leadership than many of their roughhewn elders.
Two years later, Roybal decided to retire from Congress after 16 terms.
The power brokers, including Molina, approached Becerra again. This time, he had the support of both the powerful county supervisor and Roybal.
Becerra moved into the district, sleeping on his friend Villaraigosa’s couch for a few nights before he found an apartment. Fending off criticism that he was a carpetbagger, he won a tough primary against school board member Leticia Quezada and handily beat his Republican opponent that November.
Last fall, he won reelection with 83% of the vote.
Becerra’s relationship with Villaraigosa--and their competition on the ballot--has served as a tense undercurrent to the mayor’s race. Becerra resisted efforts last year by Molina and Henry Cisneros, the former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, to broker a compromise so that only one Latino would be in the race.
Becerra has repeatedly told supporters that he refused to cut a deal with Villaraigosa because he doesn’t believe in el dedazo.
But isn’t that exactly how he got into office?
He laughed at the question.
“Those were tiny dedos,” he said. “What they offered wasn’t enough to push me over the finish line.”
Others disagreed.
“He’d be nowhere if Gloria Molina hadn’t put him in office,” said one Latino leader and longtime associate who did not want to be identified.
When pressed, Becerra acknowledged he got help.
“I am where I am because of others,” he said. “What I’m saying is I’ve never been part of the establishment.”
‘Not the Best at Playing the Game’
Whatever the origins of his success, Becerra thrived in Congress. His diligent attention to detail earned praise from members of both parties. A fluent Spanish speaker, he has spent much of his time pressing issues affecting his Latino constituency, such as restoring benefits to legal immigrants and defending bilingual education.
“He’s sort of one of the few young dynamic Latino leaders in the House,” said Amy Walter, a congressional analyst for the Cook Political Report. “He’s very intelligent and well-respected, even by Republicans I talk to.”
Although he has succeeded in climbing the Washington ladder, Becerra has also, on occasion, dramatically demonstrated his political naivete.
“I understand the politics,” Becerra said. “I’m not the best at playing the game.”
In 1993, the freshman legislator took on Dan Rostenkowski, then the powerful chairman of the Ways and Means Committee--which Becerra was trying to join.
Rostenkowski wanted to cut welfare benefits to legal immigrants, to fund an extension of unemployment benefits. Becerra and other Hispanic Caucus members objected. They negotiated with House leaders to preserve the payments to blind, elderly and disabled legal immigrants.
An amended bill was drafted with Rostenkowski’s reluctant approval. But before it went to the floor for a vote, Becerra made a fatal mistake. During a weekly Democratic whip meeting, he rose to thank the leadership for supporting the bill. Rostenkowski, still frustrated at the change, growled at him.
Becerra could have stopped talking at that point. But he didn’t.
Breaching House protocol, the young congressman took on the veteran chairman, arguing that legal immigrants had every right to be in the country.
What ensued was an almost unheard of shouting match, as Becerra continued to raise his voice over the chairman’s bellows. Later, on the floor, Rostenkowski lambasted the amended bill as damaging to jobless Americans. The compromise failed. The next day, the original plan passed and was signed into law.
“I learned a lot from that,” an unrepentant Becerra said recently. “There were people who said to me afterward, ‘Xavier, if you just kept your mouth shut, you had it. You had won.’ I said, ‘Why do we have to win that way?’ ”
Becerra’s actions also backfired in late 1996, when he took a four-day educational trip to Cuba just as he was bidding to become chairman of the Hispanic Caucus.
Predictably, his trip set off a firestorm of criticism in the Cuban exile community. The three Cuban American legislators were furious he had visited the island and not denounced Fidel Castro’s regime.
Becerra was eventually elected chairman of the caucus, but its two Cuban American Republicans resigned from the group, ending its bipartisan clout.
Over time, Becerra did develop some political prowess: Under his guidance, the caucus successfully lobbied to win back some of the benefits for legal immigrants cut in 1994, and pushed Clinton to include more Latinos in his administration.
But questions about his political judgment persist, most recently centering on the case of convicted drug dealer Carlos Vignali. Becerra, who has received nearly $14,000 in political donations from Vignali’s father, Horacio, wrote a letter to Clinton in November asking for a review of Vignali’s conviction. He also called a White House counsel--on Clinton’s last night in office--to inquire about the status of the case. Vignali’s sentence was commuted the next day.
His involvement, along with that of other Los Angeles leaders, contributed to the firestorm of controversy that flared over the pardons and commutations granted by Clinton.
Surprised by the criticism, Becerra said that it did not occur to him that he might be seen as using his political leverage on behalf of a donor. He was merely trying to get information, he said. He insists that he never asked Clinton outright to give Vignali clemency--merely to see if his 15-year sentence was too harsh.
Becerra entered the Los Angeles mayor’s race with a few advantages, some shrewdly obtained. He has won convincingly in a district that ranges from Boyle Heights west to Hollywood. Facing minimal competition in his last reelection campaign, he spent almost $860,000--including almost $400,000 on television ads--to boost his name recognition citywide just as the mayoral election approached. It may have paid off: A recent Los Angeles Times poll put Becerra in the thick of a many-candidate tussle for second place behind the front-runner, City Atty. James K. Hahn.
But Becerra’s campaign has suffered from a central disadvantage. Having been fingered by fate for so long, Becerra has found it difficult to answer the most basic of questions: Why is he running?
As recently as December, almost a year after he entered the race, he told Times reporters that he had not yet come up with a message for his candidacy. “I have to figure that out,” he said.
More recently, he said his interest in becoming mayor grew after he battled with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Los Angeles Unified School District over their federal funding.
“It was real frustrating and I thought, we have to do better than this,” he said. “The more it became clear that no one was stepping forward who I felt inspired by, the more I started thinking about it. It’s worth a shot.”
(Friends also confirm that his wife, an obstetrician at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, wanted him to return to Los Angeles so he could spend more time with their three young daughters.)
Not the Only Golden Boy
After casting about for a campaign theme, Becerra eventually sought to tie his disparate proposals together under the rubric of “neighborhoods first.” But his specific ideas tend to resemble mom-and-apple-pie bromides.
He talks about getting every child a library card, about making the Los Angeles Zoo the best in the nation, about making sure everyone has a good school, grocery store, fire station and place to worship near home.
During mayoral forums, while the other candidates draw specific rationales for their candidacies, Becerra repeats his neighborhoods theme religiously, often redundantly.
“We have to do the little things right,” he tells audiences. “Some people say, that’s small thinking. But there’s no way I can think about these big things until we start to get the little things right.”
Some wonder aloud why Becerra is running. He has raised the least money of the top six candidates in the April 10 primary election, and had only about $600,000 on hand at the end of February, compared to Hahn’s $2.2 million. Villaraigosa’s presence on the ballot further complicates Becerra’s chances.
“At one time, he was the golden boy of Hispanic politics in Los Angeles, and now he’s finding out there’s others who have a claim to that title,” said Sergio Bendixen, a Miami-based political analyst and pollster who has experience in California campaigns.
While some say his political path has been made easier by influential champions, Becerra insists that his lack of sheer ambition means he is not overly enticed by the power that accompanies elected office.
“I don’t covet it,” he said. “I fear people who must have it, whatever it takes.”
He brushes aside criticism that he is ill-positioned for victory. People had the same doubts about his prospects when he first ran for office, he said.
His sunny analysis of the toughest race of his career: “We have nowhere to go but up.”
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
Xavier Becerra
* Born: Jan. 26, 1958, in Sacramento.
* Education: Stanford University, bachelor’s degree in economics (1980); Stanford University Law School (1984).
* Personal: Married to Carolina Reyes, obstetrician at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Three daughters: Clarisa, 7, Olivia, 5, and Natalia, 3.
* Party: Democrat
* Career: Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, 1993-present; state assemblyman, 1990-1992; deputy attorney general, 1987-1990.
* Strategy: Becerra is counting on the support of nearly 78,000 people who voted for him in his congressional bid in November. His campaign hopes to win more votes by pushing his “Neighborhoods First” theme in small community meetings. He is also working to shore up Latino support with frequent appearances in Spanish-language media.
*
Times researcher Maloy Moore contributed to this story.
About This Series
The Times today presents the first of six profiles of the major candidates for mayor of Los Angeles. The articles will appear in the order in which the candidates will appear on the ballot.
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a84357b392d127922e67be42bd5deb93 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-mar-12-sp-36669-story.html | Brain Doctor Predicted Leaf Would Be Falling | Brain Doctor Predicted Leaf Would Be Falling
The Brain Doctor made a house call.
He phoned mine last week from the Ozarks, where he now lives and works.
The subject was Ryan Leaf.
In 1998, Jonathan P. Niednagel’s research formed the blueprint for a story we did on brain typing in sports.
Niednagel is not really a doctor, he doesn’t even play one on TV, but several professional sports franchises have enlisted his services to help dissect the minds of their athletes.
Niednagel has spent more than 20 years studying brain types and believes everyone is one of four pairs of preferences: Introverted or Extroverted, Sensing or Intuitive, Thinking or Feeling and Judging or Perceiving.
Niednagel says combinations of preferences can determine success or failure in sports.
After our series ran, we got letters.
A PhD from Santa Barbara wrote: “His claims are better placed in the trash bin of pseudo-science.”
Really?
The San Diego Chargers hired Niednagel in 1998 to evaluate the top quarterbacks in the draft, Peyton Manning and Leaf.
The football experts could not distinguish between the two. Manning and Leaf were considered can’t-miss prospects--the top quarterbacks to emerge in years.
A month before the draft, the Chargers traded two first-round draft choices and players to Arizona to move up from No. 3 to the No. 2 slot to assure they would get either Manning or Leaf.
Niednagel did his work-up. He reported that Manning had the ideal brain type for an NFL quarterback: ESTP (Extroverted, Sensing, Thinking, Perceiving). It’s a brain type shared by Joe Montana, Johnny Unitas, Joe Namath, Brett Favre, according to Niednagel.
Niednagel said Leaf had one of the worst types : ESTJ (Extroverted, Sensing, Thinking, Judging). Same brain type as Scott Mitchell, Niednagel said.
Niednagel remembers being in the Chargers’ war room, sitting at a table with top club officials.
The discussion was the prospect of having to pay Leaf $40 million.
“I said, ‘Listen, give me $5 million, and I’ll go out and find a backup better than Ryan and we can split the $35 million, or give it back to (owner Alex) Spanos,’ ” Niednagel recalls.
Bobby Beathard, then the Chargers’ general manager, was flummoxed. It was his idea to bring in Niednagel, yet he was stuck.
Indianapolis had no interest in dealing the No. 1 pick.
When the Colts took Manning, the Chargers were almost obligated to take Leaf with the second pick.
That, or explain the team passed on one of great prospects on advice from “The Brain Doctor.”
Then coach Kevin Gilbride asked Niednagel if there was a way to work with Leaf.
Niednagel said: “I don’t care if you’re Houdini, he’s going to bring you down.”
The final call on Leaf was Beathard’s.
He says now he racked his brain over the decision.
“I thought about it a lot,” Beathard said this week. “The one thing that bothered me was the Brain Doctor. Jon said, flat out, ‘Don’t draft him.’ ”
But Beathard said Leaf graded out OK on more traditional tests and the consensus was to take a chance.
Niednagel said he understood the pick was political.
“No way am I bad-mouthing Bobby and the organization,” Niednagel says now. “I conveyed what I needed to.”
You know the rest.
Manning has emerged as one of the NFL’s premier quarterbacks and is on a course to join other ESTPs in the Hall of Fame.
The Chargers recently cut Leaf after three miserable seasons.
Was Niednagel right?
“Yes,” Beathard said.
Leaf has since been signed by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Niednagel warns that situation will never work because Coach Tony Dungy has the exact opposite brain type as Leaf.
“You talk about Tony getting gray in a hurry,” Niednagel says.
Niednagel maintains Leaf is always going to struggle at the top level because ESTJ types get “myopic” under pressure.
“You watch Ryan, he’s like a deer in the head lights,” Niednagel said. “Can Ryan have good games? Absolutely. But if I’m trying to make the Super Bowl, the odds are much less with him than a lot of other guys.”
On the local front, Niednagel says Laker stars Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant are destined to be at odds because of conflicting brain types.
O’Neal is an ISTP, the best basketball brain type--same as Michael Jordan’s--while Kobe is an ISFP, the Scottie Pippen type.
Former Laker General Manager Jerry West (ISTP) was reportedly upset three years ago when Niednagel said Bryant could never be the next Jordan because his brain type wasn’t the same.
Niednagel says Shaq and Kobe can only co-exist if Bryant takes the subservient role.
“When ISTPs try to have equal or higher footing, forget it,” Niednagel says of Bryant. “The best way to win is to make Shaq the main man. Kobe can have great games, but it has to go through Shaq.”
Niednagel has also said there would never be another Jordan, an ISTP with rare physical and mental gifts.
Niednagel is close to amending that statement. He says one NBA player comes closest to emulating Jordan in brain and body type:
Orlando’s Tracy McGrady.
“He’s still far from being what he could be,” Niednagel says. “But he could end up being, by far, the dominant player in the league. This guy could be close to Michael.”
Go ahead. Write your letters. Second guess Niednagel all you want.
The Chargers did once.
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8c10be788e85af865b699e666cb2f6c7 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-mar-13-me-37009-story.html | Robert Ludlum; Suspense Novelist Read by Millions | Robert Ludlum; Suspense Novelist Read by Millions
Suspense and thriller novelist Robert Ludlum, whose bestsellers drew readers into battles against world takeovers by evil forces, died Monday at age 73.
The cause of death was believed to have been a heart attack, according to Matthew Shear, a spokesman for Ludlum’s publisher, St. Martin’s Press. Details were being withheld until today at the request of the family in Naples, Fla., where Ludlum died.
“It’s a horrible loss for all of his fans and for his publisher,” Shear said. “Fortunately, he had been working on several books, and to honor him we’re going to continue to publish him.”
Ludlum’s fans can expect at least three more novels, Shear said.
Authorship came as a second career for Ludlum, who was a schoolboy when he ran away to New York in 1941 and won a part in a traveling production of “Junior Miss.”
After a tour of duty with the Marines in the South Pacific, Ludlum enrolled at Wesleyan University, where he met actress Mary Ryducha. The two married the year he graduated, 1951, and embarked on acting careers. They had two sons and a daughter.
Ludlum played minor roles on Broadway and appeared in television dramas in the 1950s. Eventually, he switched to producing. His most notable production, Bill Manhoff’s “The Owl and the Pussycat,” featured then-unknown actor Alan Alda.
Weary of the pressures of theater work after a decade in the business, Ludlum yielded to his wife’s suggestion that he try writing.
At 42, Ludlum left the theater and wrote his first book, “The Scarlatti Inheritance,” which was about Western business executives who financed Hitler’s Third Reich.
That bestseller was followed by 20 more--nearly all of them bearing three-word titles that sound like coded messages--which sold a total of more than 110 million copies.
His fans pointed out that Ludlum drew on his theater skills to set exotic scenes, establish character and unfold complex, churning plots in books that pitted ordinary people against international assassins, communists, and multinational corporations with secret agendas.
One biographical essay put it this way: “Ludlum argues that the hope of a democracy is educated, competent individuals, whose personal loyalties take precedence over national loyalties and who, when pushed to the edge, find within themselves the determination and courage necessary to oppose the nameless faces of tyranny.”
Ludlum’s popular Bourne series was written around an amnesiac Vietnam veteran and spy named David Webb, alias Jason Bourne, who is hounded by a number of killers and murderous organizations.
“The Holcroft Covenant” (1978), which is set in World War II, grew out of Ludlum’s anger with an ultraconservatism he compared to fascism. In “The Matarese Circle” (1979), several multinational corporations rely on a terrorist group to undermine government restrictions. “The Aquitaine Progression” (1983) deals with an international group of military leaders out to usurp the governments of their nations.
But critics complained that Ludlum’s recurring themes and plot lines--average people doing the impossible and becoming pivotal in history--were implausible and formulaic, his prose leaden.
Dick Lochte, reviewing “The Bourne Supremacy” for The Times’ Book Review, wished for a protagonist to rescue Ludlum’s readers from their hero of the moment.
“Couldn’t Random House find an editor with a slight tendency toward schizophrenia who, with the proper manipulation, would develop a suicidal alter ego to do battle with a powerful best-selling author for the sake of readers the world over?”
Horror novelist Stephen King, in a tongue-in-cheek review of “The Parsifal Mosaic” for the Washington Post Book World, highlighted some of Ludlum’s “strange, wonderful, and almost Zen-like thoughts: ‘We’ve got . . . a confluence of beneficial prerogatives.’ ‘What I know is still very operative.’ ‘I’ll get you your cover. But not two men. I think a couple would be better.’ ”
Nonetheless, with sales of his books averaging 5.5 million copies each, Ludlum was among the most widely read and wealthiest authors in the world.
*
Associated Press contributed to this story.
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a20746e9f03dce72906bdc5514b83971 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-mar-14-fo-37239-story.html | My Soup and How It Grew | My Soup and How It Grew
It started one January, during that post-holiday period when you need to nourish the soul but at the same time whittle off the residue of holiday truffles still riding on your hips. I wandered into my kitchen, feeling even hungrier from knowing I should eat less.
But I had been to the farmers market, so my refrigerator was full of hope and leafy greens. I started working in my favorite way-no plan. I pulled things out-chard, big shiny leaves. Green onions. Cilantro. A head of curly kale. As I washed and chopped, I thought: garlic, onions.
I caramelized the onions in the tiniest amount of olive oil. I sauteed the garlic, filling the house with the most comforting of aromas. Who could feel downhearted with the smell of sizzling garlic around? I added a potato because I’m Polish and can’t help it and simmered it all together in some broth. At the end I added a pinch of pepper and a bit of lemon juice and pureed the soup in a blender.
It was so green! I ate a nice, hot bowlful and sat up straighter at once. Vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals, those mysterious things we don’t fully understand though we know they’re good for us: I could feel them racing through my system. Most important, it was delicious. That’s the beauty of a good soup; like a massage, it feels great while it does a body good. I counted up the calories and grinned.
Over the next few days I dipped into the soup often-a snack while working, a bowl for lunch with a bagel, another bowl for dinner with some white cheese crumbled into it. Yum. Everyone ate it. Even my son, Teddy, who would rather eat snakes than anything green, grudgingly admitted that it was OK.
The green soup had hit the seasonal spot. I hauled home another cartload of greens from the market-spinach, leeks, turnip greens-and made another version. Here was my plan: more green soup, less of everything else. It was the poor man’s spa cuisine.
One day, friends were coming to dinner. The green soup had become my private habit; why not take it out to a party? I had some mushrooms on hand; I sauteed them in a miserly amount of olive oil, with lots and lots of garlic, and when they were nice and brown I tossed them into the simmering greens. No potato this time. A dash of rice vinegar instead of lemon juice, and everything pureed again.
The green soup with mushrooms seemed more important somehow. It had mystery, the earthiness of the hidden mushrooms, the zing of acid. It was great. People started calling for the recipe.
Over the next weeks and months I made many green soups, and not one was the same as the one before. My desk was littered with scrawled green soup formulas. I lost my holiday pounds, but the green soup had become my steady.
If you cook often, you have had this experience: the dish that keeps reinventing itself. I made my soup with yams instead of potatoes. I made it with all spinach and nutmeg-it looked like paint. A friend brought me fresh watercress from her stream, and I put it together with Yukon gold potatoes-excellent.
Once I found I had no potatoes, and my eye fell upon a kabocha squash. Another time I’d been roasting beets and had all the fresh, shiny tops left, so by chance I came up with one of my favorites, beet green soup.
Usually I pureed the soup, blending the flavors into one pungent, savory essence of green, but sometimes I left the individual elements intact-pieces of squash gradually softening and thickening the broth, flecks of browned onion and always the strips of dark green. Sometimes I garnished the soup with cheese or croutons or even a spicy salsa, and sometimes I ate it in perfect simplicity.
It’s not so much a recipe now as a way of life. The method is always the same, and the basic formula is this:
First: lots of greens, the nicest greens you can find, dark green, glossy, firm. No tired old greens auditioning for the compost heap. Two or three big bunches of greens are not too much for a really green soup.
Next: something to give it a little body. This could be a potato, a yam, those delicious mushrooms or some winter squash.
And then: always some onions for sweetness, slowly caramelized in oil until they are an amber-colored marmalade, and some lemon juice or vinegar for acidity.
Finally: vegetable broth (or chicken broth). Season the soup with salt and pepper, maybe cayenne. Basta. That’s it. Except for all the things you change to make it different and your own, but you know about that already.
Blend It, Don’t End It When you puree the soups, it’s easiest to use a hand-held blender in the pot, rather than transfer the hot soup to a blender. If you do use a blender, puree the soup in small batches. *
* On the cover: bowl and plate from California Marketing Associates at the L.A. Mart, Los Angeles. Striped towel from Bristol Kitchens stores.
*
Thomas is author of “The Vegetarian Epicure” and “The New Vegetarian Epicure” as well as the movies “El Norte” and “Mi Familia.” She lives in Ojai.
Green Soup
Active Work Time: 30 minutes * Total Preparation Time: 1 hour 45 minutes * Vegetarian
I like to garnish this soup. Some kind of crumbled white cheese is a natural. My favorites are cotija, a dry Mexican white cheese, and feta. Parmesan cheese is also good. So are croutons, especially if they’re made from rye or pumpernickel bread. Garlic croutons are the bomb, as my kids say. And of course, there’s always sour cream, but because I like the low-fat quality of the soup, I use a spoonful of yogurt cheese instead.
1 large bunch Swiss chard
1 bunch kale
1 bunch green onions, sliced
1 cup cilantro, loosely packed
5 to 6 cups water
Salt
1 large baking potato
2 1/2 teaspoons olive oil, divided
2 onions, chopped
Marsala or Sherry, optional
2 to 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
3 cups vegetable or chicken broth
Freshly ground black pepper
Dash cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon lemon juice, more to taste
Wash the greens thoroughly, then cut the chard and kale off their stems and slice the leaves. Combine the chard, kale, green onions and cilantro in a soup pot with the water and 1 teaspoon of salt. Peel the potato, or just scrub it well if you prefer, cut it into big pieces and add it to the pot. Bring the water to a boil, reduce the heat and let it simmer for about half an hour.
Meanwhile, heat 11/2 teaspoons of oil in a nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add the chopped onions and a sprinkle of salt and cook them over low heat until they are golden brown and soft. This will take up to 45 minutes; don’t hurry, you only need to give them a stir once in a while, and it’s the slow cooking that develops the sweetness. If you like, you can deglaze the pan at the end with 2 tablespoons of Marsala or Sherry. Increase the heat to medium, remove the skillet from the stove, and add the Marsala. Return it to the stove and cook the onions, stirring, 1 minute. Add the onions to the soup.
Put another teaspoon of oil in the skillet and cook the garlic over low heat, stirring, until it sizzles and smells great, 1 to 2 minutes. Add the garlic to the soup pot and simmer everything for a few minutes more.
At this point there won’t be much liquid in the soup, so add enough broth-about 3 cups-to make the soup a soup. Coarsely puree the soup but don’t over-process it. Anything with potatoes in it can get slimy if you work it too much.
Return the soup to the pot, bring it back to a simmer and taste. Add salt as needed, grind in a little black pepper, add the cayenne and the lemon juice. Stir well and taste again. Now you’re on your own-correct the seasoning and serve big steaming bowls of green soup.
8 servings. Each serving: 109 calories; 742 mg sodium; 1 mg cholesterol; 3 grams fat; 1 gram saturated fat; 16 grams carbohydrates; 7 grams protein; 2.58 grams fiber.
Green Soup With Beet Greens and Spinach
Active Work Time: 30 minutes * Total Preparation Time: 2 hours 10 minutes * Vegetarian
This is one of my favorite variations. Beet greens give the soup a rich flavor with an edge of sweetness, which is balanced by the lemon juice and cayenne. I also find that when I use beet greens, the soup has a creamier texture. I prefer greens from golden beets, but any variety can be used. I prefer using red or Yukon Gold potatoes.
2 large onions, chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
Salt
2 boiling potatoes
5 cups water
2 large bunches beet greens, about 1 1/4 pounds
1 large bunch spinach
1 cup sliced green onions
1/2 bunch cilantro, chopped
2 cups vegetable broth, plus more if needed
Freshly ground pepper
Dash cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon lemon juice, more to taste
Crumbled queso fresco, feta cheese or garlic croutons, for garnish
Cook the onions in the olive oil in a nonstick skillet over medium-low heat, adding a sprinkle of salt and stirring occasionally, until they are soft and golden-brown, 30 to 45 minutes.
Scrub and trim the potatoes, dice them, put them in a soup pot with the water and 1 teaspoon of salt and bring the water to a simmer.
Meanwhile, wash the beet greens and spinach thoroughly, trim away the tough stems and coarsely chop the leaves. When the water in the pot is simmering, add the beet greens, spinach, green onions and cilantro. The greens will look like an enormous pile at first but will soon shrink down into the liquid. When the onions are caramelized, add them to the soup as well.
Simmer the soup until all the vegetables are very soft, at least half an hour. Add the broth and puree the soup. Process just until the texture is velvety smooth but no longer, as over-processing can make potatoes gummy.
Return the soup to the pot, bring it back to just under a simmer and season it with additional salt, pepper to taste, the cayenne and at least the lemon juice, adding more if you like. (Remember to add the seasonings a little at a time.) Stir well, wait a moment, then taste. If the soup is too thick, it can be diluted with some additional vegetable broth or a bit of water.
Garnish each serving with crumbled queso fresco, feta cheese or garlic croutons.
8 to 10 servings. Each of 10 servings: 79 calories; 333 mg sodium; 0 cholesterol; 2 grams fat; 0 saturated fat; 14 grams carbohydrates; 3 grams protein; 4.28 grams fiber.
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911c446e7ba2d5a6c4e465ea6999c23f | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-mar-14-mn-37583-story.html | Maryland Town Snuffs Out Its Beleaguered Open-Air Smoking Ban | Maryland Town Snuffs Out Its Beleaguered Open-Air Smoking Ban
The village of Friendship Heights, Md., has repealed a smoking ban considered the toughest in the nation, concluding that continuing the legal fight to enforce the ban after two adverse court decisions could harm the national movement to take the war on smoking outdoors.
The Village Council, which last year banned outdoor smoking in public places such as parks and sidewalks, voted unanimously Monday night to repeal the ban.
The vote came after a Montgomery County circuit judge temporarily blocked the village this month from enforcing the ban. Judge Durke Thompson said that as a special taxing district the village had no authority to exercise police powers the law reserves for true municipalities.
The judge’s narrow ruling did not address arguments by opponents that such bans are unconstitutional, and he praised Friendship Heights for attempting to “protect its citizens and others from a significant health risk.” It was the second legal blow to the ban; another judge blocked the village in January from enforcing it.
Tobacco companies and their opponents have closely followed the wrangling in Friendship Heights, a village of about 5,000 people bordering Washington.
The interest stems from a shift in strategy on the part of smoking foes. After years of fighting to restrict smoking in workplaces, restaurants and bars, anti-smoking forces are increasingly looking at the outdoors as a battlefront. Friendship Heights is not the first jurisdiction to take steps to restrict outdoor smoking. Others have banned smoking in stadiums and parks or at beaches. But the village’s ban was the most sweeping.
Of the plaintiffs who took the ban to court, some were associated with the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. Their attorney, Timothy Maloney, was pleased with the decision to drop the fight.
“Wisdom is always welcome,” he said.
Friendship Heights Mayor Alfred Muller said the village decided not to appeal the ruling because he and others did not want the case to set a bad precedent that would prevent true municipalities from following the village’s lead.
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2819d69967ac7dc2ea8100d2052b7696 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-mar-18-tr-39236-story.html | A Golden Point of View at Zabriskie | A Golden Point of View at Zabriskie
The panoramic view of Golden Canyon from Zabriskie Point is magnificent, but don’t miss getting into the canyon itself-and that’s possible only by hitting the trail. Sunrise and sunset, when the light is magical and hikers are few, are good times to walk the canyon.
Until the rainy winter of 1976, a road extended through Golden Canyon. A deluge washed it away, and it’s been a trail ever since.
The first mile of Golden Canyon Trail is self-guided. Pick up a copy of the National Park Service’s “Trail Guide to Golden Canyon,” available for a small fee at the visitor center or the trail head. Stops in the guide are keyed to numbers along the trail and may tell you more about Miocene volcanic activity, Jurassic granite intrusion and Precambrian erosion than you wanted to know. But even a casual student of Earth science will appreciate the complex geology and the millions of years required to sculpt and color Golden Canyon.
At the end of the trail, the path branches. One fork heads for Red Cathedral, also called Red Cliffs, a natural amphitheater whose color is essentially iron oxide.
You can drive to Zabriskie Point, but you’ll appreciate the view more if you sweat up those switchbacks on foot. A trail climbs through badlands to the point named for Christian Brevoort Zabriskie, one of the early heads of borax mining operations.
The memorable panorama from Zabriskie Point includes a grand view of the valley, framed by the badlands just below, and the Panamint Mountains to the west. A return by way of Gower Gulch offers another perspective on this colorful desert land and enables hikers to make a loop.
Directions to the trail head: From the Furnace Creek Visitor Center, drive south on California Highway 190, forking right onto California Highway 178 (called Badwater Highway within the park). The signed Golden Canyon Trail is on your left, three miles from the visitor center. The walk through Golden Canyon shares a common trail head with the longer excursion to Zabriskie Point.
The hike: From the parking lot, hike up the alluvial fan into the canyon. Marvel at the tilted, faulted rock walls as they close in. Depending on the light, Golden Canyon can seem to glow gold, brass, yellow or orange.
Deeper and deeper into the badlands you ascend. Watch for white crystalline outcroppings of borax-the same stuff of Twenty Mule Team fame.
At the end of the nature trail, continue up the main canyon 1/4 mile to the old Golden Canyon parking lot. The trail narrows, and you have to squeeze past boulders to the base of Red Cathedral.
To Zabriskie Point: From Stop 10 on the Golden Canyon interpretive trail, take the signed fork toward Zabriskie Point. The path climbs into the badlands toward Manly Beacon, a pinnacle of gold sandstone. The trail crests at the shoulder of the beacon, then descends into the badlands and brings you to a junction. Go left (east) to Zabriskie Point. (The right fork is the return leg of your loop through Gower Gulch.)
Watch for park service signs to stay on the trail, which is a bit difficult to follow as it marches up and down the severely eroded silt-stone hills. After a mile, a final steep grade brings you to Zabriskie Point-or, more accurately, the parking lot. Step uphill to the point itself and savor the views of the eroded yellow hills below and mountains across the valley.
Retrace your steps to the trail fork. This time you’ll descend west into a wash. Wide, gray and gravelly Gower Gulch has definitely felt the hand of man. The open mouths of tunnels and white smears on the walls are reminders of the borax miners who dug up these hills.
More than a mile down the trail, the gulch narrows and you’ll suddenly encounter a 30-foot-high dry fall. Take the bypass footpath to the right. A final 11/4 miles of trail continue north along the base of the hills on a route paralleling the highway, and lead back to the trail head parking area at the mouth of Golden Canyon.
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87a76ec3a16f982c393810691d476d10 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-mar-21-mn-44369-story.html | EPA Revokes New Arsenic Standards for Drinking Water | EPA Revokes New Arsenic Standards for Drinking Water
EPA Administrator Christie Whitman on Tuesday rescinded a Clinton administration decision that would have significantly reduced the amount of arsenic allowed in the nation’s drinking water.
Outraged environmentalists said the move, combined with other recent actions, signals a new tendency by Bush administration officials to appease industry rather than safeguard public health and the environment.
Arsenic levels exceeding the standards that the Clinton administration sought to impose are found mainly in small water districts in arid, Western states, including 19 in California.
Whitman acknowledged that arsenic levels permitted under current federal regulations are too high. But she questioned the level that would have been allowed under the Clinton ruling and said further study is needed. Her decision also reflects the determination of appointees of President Bush to give more weight to economic considerations when making environmental decisions.
“When the federal government imposes costs on communities, especially small communities, we should be sure the facts support imposing the federal standard,” Whitman said. “I am moving quickly to review the arsenic standard so communities that need to reduce arsenic in drinking water can proceed with confidence once the permanent standard is confirmed.”
Whitman ordered more scientific and public reviews, and promised to come to a quick decision on a new standard.
The Clinton standard, which would have gone into effect at the end of the week, had been challenged in court by several Western states, a group of Western utilities and the mining industry. They took issue with the science behind the decision and complained about the cost of coming into compliance.
Current regulations allow arsenic at a level of 50 parts per billion in tap water. The Clinton administration ruling lowered that level significantly, to 10 parts per billion. Congress required the EPA to set a new standard for arsenic in tap water in 1996, but the Clinton administration issued its ruling in the last days of the administration, along with a flurry of other eleventh-hour rule changes.
Both the European Union and the World Health Organization have adopted a 10 parts per billion standard for arsenic in drinking water.
Arsenic occurs naturally in the drinking water of several regions of the country, with the highest concentrations in arid Western states. It can also be introduced into the environment by various other means, including mining activities and from certain chemicals used to treat wood. Unsafe levels of arsenic can cause cancer and other diseases.
The 19 California systems, each serving at least 10,000 people, have average arsenic levels higher than 10 parts per billion, according to a February 2000 study of EPA data by the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Only a small fraction of California’s water would have exceeded the Clinton administration standard--1% of its surface water and 6% of its ground water, according to the Assn. of California Water Agencies. The arsenic level in most communities in the region averages around five parts per billion. In Los Angeles, it averages 4.2.
Several hundred communities in California would have been affected by the rule, said Krista Clark, a spokeswoman for the association.
The EPA estimated that the cost per year would be $200 million. But the American Water Works Assn., which represents utilities across the country, estimated that meeting the Clinton administration’s ruling would have cost the nation’s utilities $600 million annually, after a capital investment of $1.4 billion. The association did not oppose the ruling.
“We were busy trying to ensure that we could implement [it],” said Doug Marsano, spokesman for the American Water Works Assn.
Tuesday’s announcement follows two decisions by the Bush administration last week that were roundly criticized by environmentalists. One reversed a Bush campaign promise to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, and the other stalled implementation of a Clinton administration ban on road building and commercial logging in 58 million acres of national forests.
“This is the third strike in a week,” said Philip Clapp, president of the National Environmental Trust. “This administration is compiling a worse record in 60 days than the [former House Speaker Newt] Gingrich Congress did in two years. Every time an industry shows up with a complaint, this administration folds like a house of cards.”
The rulings on carbon dioxide emission and arsenic in drinking water land squarely on the turf of Whitman, who was expected to be the most ecologically friendly member of the Bush environmental team. As EPA chief, she has great leeway to review and change regulations issued by previous administrations. However, she has to abide by certain agency procedures, including allowing additional time for public comment.
On Tuesday, Whitman defended her decision on the arsenic issue.
“I am committed to safe and affordable drinking water for all Americans,” Whitman said. “I want to be sure that the conclusions about arsenic in the rule are supported by the best available science.”
But environmentalists stressed that the science is persuasive about the health effects of arsenic in drinking water. A 1999 report by the National Academy of Sciences determined that it causes bladder, lung and skin cancer, and may cause kidney and liver cancer.
The report concluded that the current EPA cap on arsenic in drinking water “does not achieve EPA’s goal for public health protection and therefore requires downward revision as promptly as possible.”
The report concluded that the current EPA standard “could easily” result in a total cancer risk of 1 in 100--a risk about 10,000 times higher than the EPA would allow for carcinogens in food.
“This decision will force millions of Americans to continue to drink arsenic-laced water,” said Erik D. Olson, senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, which has advocated for arsenic levels as low as 3 parts per billion. “Many will die from arsenic-related cancers and other disease, but George Bush apparently doesn’t care. This outrageous act is just another example of how the polluters have taken over the government.”
Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), whose state includes many water systems with high levels of arsenic, complained that the Whitman decision will delay efforts by cash-strapped communities to find funding to clean up their water. He has introduced legislation to help small, rural communities upgrade their drinking water systems to meet arsenic standards.
“Instead of supporting legislation to provide funding for communities to meet the cost of a more protective arsenic standard, the Bush administration would rather sacrifice public health in order to score political points,” Reid said. “The agency’s move also discourages communities from moving forward with improvements in their own water systems.”
But Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.), whose state also has many water systems with higher levels of arsenic, was thrilled by the decision. “Communities faced with the daunting task of finding the money to adhere to the stricter standards can breathe a sigh of relief,” Domenici said.
Water suppliers throughout California also welcomed the ruling, saying more scientific review was necessary before setting a costly standard.
“It’s always a good idea to review the available science. You’ve got to make certain you are addressing health concerns as well as what the industry can and cannot do,” said Mic Stewart, water-quality section manager for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.
One of the groups that filed a petition in U.S. District Court to stop the new standard was the Western Coalition of Arid States, which represents about 125 water and waste-water utilities in seven Western states, including California.
“We think the whole thing was a rush to judgment,” said Doug Karafa, spokesman for the group. “And the numbers were set more on politics than on science.”
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
Arsenic Levels in Water
These California water systems are among utilities across the nation that serve at least 10,000 people and have the highest average arsenic levels. Current federal regulations allow up to 50 parts per billion of arsenic.
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Water system County Arsenic level (parts per billion) City of Hanford Kings 51 City of Chino Hills San Bernardino 30 Arvin Comm. Serv. Dist. (Kern County) Kern 30 California Men’s Colony San Luis Obispo 26 U.S. Army, Ft. Irwin San Bernardino 25 City of Corcoran Kings 23 City of Delano Kern 23 Indian Wells Valley W.D. Kern 23 City of Lemoore Kings 21 City of Lakewood Los Angeles 15 L.A. Co. Water Dist. 4 & 34 (Lancaster) Los Angeles 15 Hillcrest Water Co. 1,2,3 and 4 Sutter 13 SCWC-Artesia Los Angeles 13 Elk Grove Water Works Sacramento 13 East Niles CSD Kern 12 SCWMD Laguna/Vineyard Sacramento 12 Truckee-Donner PUD, Main Nevada 11 Bellflower-Somerset MWC Los Angeles 11 City of Galt Sacramento 11
*--*
Source: Natural Resources Defense Council
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Times staff writer Marla Cone contributed to this story.
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58d0f9c6553bc5e8a675db8a92fd0cc8 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-mar-25-ca-42268-story.html | Paint Them Ready for Anything | Paint Them Ready for Anything
When Ed Harris and Marcia Gay Harden were nominated for Oscars for their roles in “Pollock,” Harris’ labor of love, which he spent 10 years trying to make, one could almost hear a collective cheer going up in Hollywood.
With his chiseled features and piercing blue eyes, the 50-year-old Harris has been a respected and much-sought-after actor in the film industry for two decades, but has never climbed into the ranks of Hollywood’s leading men like a Harrison Ford or a Mel Gibson. Still, his performances have often electrified audiences, and he has twice received Oscar nominations for best supporting actor--once as the mysterious director in “The Truman Show” (1998) and earlier as a NASA mission control flight director in “Apollo 13" (1995).
The stage-trained Harden, 41, is the daughter of a U.S. Navy captain who made her feature debut as a gun-toting, poker-faced moll in “Miller’s Crossing.” She’s gone on to work on films like “Space Cowboys” and “Meet Joe Black.”
Now these two working actors, who first met while performing on the New York stage in 1994 in Sam Shepard’s “Simpatico,” find themselves front and center at Hollywood’s biggest dance. Harris has been nominated for best actor, while Harden is nominated for best supporting actress.
In “Pollock,” Harris’ first directorial effort, he plays the self-destructive Abstract Expressionist painter Jackson Pollock. Harden plays his wife, Lee Krasner, whose efforts to promote her husband’s career often stymied her own growth as an artist.
On a recent blustery day in Santa Monica, the two sat down to chat about the Oscar spotlight. As in the film, they seem a good team.
Question: Ed, do you have any advice to give to Marcia Gay, since this is her first Oscar nomination?
Harris: Practice sitting down and pick a name, not your own, of the five people in your category and practice hearing that name read as the recipient of the awards.
Harden: What does that do?
Harris: You are used to not hearing your own name, so you are not incredibly disappointed if they don’t call you.
Harden: [laughing] It’s true!
Harris: [to Marcia Gay] Do you know what you are wearing [to the Oscars] yet?
Harden: No, I have no idea. I’ve had commands from the captain, my father. He’s suggested that I wear something champagne-colored and strapless, and [said,] “By God [you’ve] got what it takes to hold it up!” I said to him, “Dad, I didn’t realize you and the boys were so passionate about haute couture on the 7th Fleet.” I mean, give me a break! He drew me a sketch of the dress, and it was like a designer sketch because his hand shakes [from Parkinson’s] a little bit. It was this really great sketch.
Q: [to Harris] How different is this Academy Awards for you from the previous two?
Harris: It’s different because it’s my film. Our film. But it’s this film that I worked really hard on and feel responsible for. It’s almost like being surrounded by, I don’t know, something comfortable, something good. I feel so good about the movie that I feel very free, no matter what happens at this thing. I really do. It’s filled me up.
Q: Do we put too much weight on winning an Oscar?
Harris: I think totally. It’s a very conflicting thing because, yeah, of course you want one. I can’t say I wouldn’t want to win, you know what I mean? Yet, on the other hand, I know that in terms of my life and my work, it’s just a [expletive] statue. It’s like the golden calf or something. I don’t worship the thing. I think some people do.
Harden: Someone said, “Oh, Marcia, you get to be princess for a day.” I said, “Honey, I don’t want to be a princess. I want to be a queen"--and [joking] God knows I have enough friends who are queens who are telling me what to do. In that way, it is heady and you enjoy the ride and the recognition. You get to be queen for the day.
Harris: I wouldn’t mind going through my whole life not getting [an Oscar] and people going, “Well, he should have.” I’ve always felt like an underdog in this business anyway. I don’t know what to think about it. I know if my name were called, I would be very excited. The only problem is I don’t have enough time to thank all the people I’d want to thank.
Harden: I had an idea that one should have a dress made and it should have embroidered on it every single name of every person who ever did anything for you that you would want to thank, and there at the very end on the train would be “Mom and Dad.”
Q: Ed, you’ve walked up that red carpet before. What’s it like?
Harris: It’s great because [the press] will be talking to you and then Nicole Kidman will come walking up behind you and then it’s like, “See you.” It’s one of those type of deals.
Harden: It’s a big party, and why go if you’re going to be sitting there being snooty about the idea of the Oscar? Maybe it’s fashionable to put the whole thing down, but I think you can go in the right spirit and understand it.
Q: Do you view yourselves as underdogs in this year’s Academy Awards race?
Harris: Well, I guess I felt that way because prior to the nominations coming out and all the other awards, the film had been pretty much shut out at all the film critics’ awards. I wasn’t really counting on it. My bottom line is I’m so proud about the movie and I feel really good about the film that it’s really nice to be recognized, but I don’t feel any different about the film. It hasn’t made me feel better, or that it’s a better film. I really have a strong feeling about the work as it exists. Any recognition that comes along is like “thank you.”
Harden: It was deserving before and it’s deserving now, but it’s just kind of a nice thing that the academy members took the time to open up the videotapes, sit down, turn on the TV and look at it.
Q: What’s it like to be nominated for something this high-profile?
Harris: It’s a big night and it’s obviously a big business night for films. The competition aspect of it is something I despise because acting is not about that. Running a race is competition or playing a baseball game. Acting is not about that. With acting, you only really compete with yourself in terms of your work, [not] that artificial set-up of pitting the five guys and women against each other . . . and there is a winner.
Harden: Like it or not.
Harris: And four non-winners.
Q: What would winning an Oscar mean to you both?
Harden: I chose to be an actor. I chose to do film, and this is an honor that my industry is bestowing upon a particular performance. So, I think it has to be a personal victory. . . . There are some people who it has changed their entire career, and there are some people that have gone on and you forget that they ever won it. You try to remember who was even nominated last year. You forget.
Harris: Well, I think the best thing, if one was to receive an Oscar, is that you would have received one. You wouldn’t be waiting for the one when you are 85 for your body of work.
Q: Jackson Pollock was a tormented, self-destructive artist. That had to be an appealing character to mine.
Harris: He was tormented and stuff, but the film to me is more about the effort he is making rather than destroying himself. This is a guy who fought through all these things, you know, and had the help of Lee [Krasner], with whom he wouldn’t have made it otherwise. But this guy didn’t give up. He tried. He got up every day and painted, or tried to, and did that from the time he was 19 until the time he died in ’56 when he was 44.
Q: Marcia Gay, did you have to study Lee Krasner intensely for your role?
Harden: I studied her as much as I could. We were fortunate. There was a tape of her. She was in her 70s, I think, around there. In old age, she had become larger in every way than when she was younger. [She wore a] muumuu, kaftan, or something. She was very grand and she had become very important in the art world, and I think she wore that importance on her body and in her sound, so I had to find a way to come back to something simpler and maybe a little more vulnerable, which is what she was when she was with Pollock and she wasn’t so secure and wasn’t so important.
Q: Are there similarities between artists and actors?
Harris: I think it has to do with the mystery of it all. Where inspiration comes from and, you know, seeking some unconscious place where you are trusting yourself and the powers that be to reveal some truth. I mean, the artist and a blank canvas and an actor creating a role, I mean, you can take it anywhere.
Q: Ed, why did you cast Marcia Gay as Lee Krasner?
Harris: I just knew that she was really good, you know? And that there was not a wall there. It was about dealing with Marcia Gay. There was openness. And Marcia Gay is dark. She has a wonderful body. Lee had a great bod, you know. Marcia Gay is a lot prettier than Lee was, but she is also not afraid to take things down to where they need to be.
Plus, I knew it was going to be a tough shoot, and the last thing in the world I needed was some diva to work with, someone with an attitude or somebody who is going to give me [expletive] about whatever. I needed somebody who’s going to get down in the trenches and really work, because we were working long hours, always under the pressure of time.
Q: Was making the movie a grueling experience?
Harris: Yeah, it was a struggle. My senses and everything were very alive. It was very demanding but very exhilarating as well.
Harden: Ed, what was day one? Do you remember?
Harris: The gutter [scene]. There’s a little girl in the window.
Harden: That was day one!? Gee, why don’t you start with something light, Ed!?
Harris: The second day, [the scene called for us] to be walking on the street downtown. I mean, that was the day I just sat down on the curb about midday and said, “This is totally [expletive],” and said, “There is no way in the world we can make this movie.”
Harden: And it started raining and we didn’t expect the rain.
Harris: We had like a fraction of the work done that we were supposed to by midafternoon. I just realized that this whole dream was pretty much a joke. It was impossible. So [I said to myself,] “You can sit there and close down shop or try and finish the day,” so I did.
Q: Marcia Gay, did you sense turmoil going on with Ed?
Harden: I remember him sitting on the curb thinking we’re [expletive] and what are we going to do? I remember him getting up and taking a breath, and then we went on with the day. Every single day was a struggle.
Harris: Oh, yeah, nonstop!
Harden: Because there is not enough time to make a movie and not enough money. But I remember never feeling like this is the first time Ed is wearing this hat.
Harris: You’re just trying to make it work, you know? Scene by scene.
Q: You each work in both studio and independent films. What strikes you as the major differences between them?
Harris: It’s really about time and money. I had never directed before, but I learned an awful lot. If I ever do another film independently, I’d just make sure that the budget is a realistic one and not one that is created solely so that the film can begin shooting.
Q: How long did the shoot last?
Harris: Fifty days. I’d always said I needed 50 days. We started out with a 45-day schedule and ended up being 50 days anyway. In the meantime, you never get the new day. In the first eight weeks, we never, not once, did we do the scenes that were listed for that day. So living with that is a drag. It’s a drag for the actors, it’s a drag for me, it’s a drag for all the crew. We never got our day. That’s not a way to work.
Q: Marcia Gay, you’ve been quoted as saying, “Until people get to know me, they see a dark, hard, sensuous bitch.” What did you mean by that?
Harden: When did I say that? It was probably in a quiet conversation.
Harris: [laughing] You probably said it with a big smile on your face.
Harden: Well, it was a crazy thing for me to say anyway, because I’m not sure what people see me as when they see me, but I do know people come up and say, “Oh, we thought you were much harder, or much tougher.” Or, “Gee, you couldn’t do comedy” or something like that.
Q: Ed, you were quoted once as saying your career has been based on playing characters, that you don’t really have a persona. What did you mean?
Harris: I was just referring to the fact that I don’t play myself like a Harrison Ford. I play characters, whether it’s a lead role or supporting role, whatever it might be. I don’t feel like I’m doing me.
Q: Is that something you feel comfortable doing?
Harris: I think it’s more frightening to say you’re not going to play a character, you’re going to be this guy. I like characters.
Harden: It’s a transformation. It’s not diminishing or hiding behind [something] when you are a character actor. You transform what is already you into them. You don’t lose yourself or hide yourself. If people say, “Oh, my God, I didn’t see you at all” [in that character], I don’t know if that is a compliment or not a compliment.
Harris: The whole term “character acting” to me is one I really hate. What else are you [expletive] doing? You are playing a character. That’s what acting is! If you are not playing a character, you are playing a movie star in a movie.
Q: Ed, your wife [actress Amy Madigan] plays Peggy Guggenheim in “Pollock.” What was that like?
Harris: When she came on the set, she would be arriving and seeing her husband in this kind of place where she had never seen me before--I just mean in terms of trying to make this film happen. I think it was a bit startling to her at first. Not real pleasant at times. But when she was working, we got along fine.
Q: If you win, is there that one person you would thank?
Harden: It would have to be Ed. [But also] my parents, my family, [and] these crazy waiters who used to cover for me back in New York when you would run down on the subway for an audition. All those people come to mind.
Harris: Well, my wife. And Marcia Gay. And my folks. [Executive producers] Peter Brant and Joseph Allen, who put up a lot of money to make the movie. They really trusted me to make the film. All the designers. It’s weird, [my nomination is] for an acting thing, but I would feel totally obligated to thank the people who helped me make this movie.
Harden: Any endeavor in this business, you never do on your own. [You think back on all those who said,] “You go on, Ed Harris,” or “You go on, Marcia Gay.” Every single step is part of that journey.
Harris: Or, even more so, the people who said, “What are you doing? You’re not going to make it. You don’t have any hair. What do you think is going to happen? You’ll play bad guys all the time.”
Q: Did you have to go through that?
Harris: Enough. Just enough to make you go like this [clenches his fist and slams it into his palm]. The best motivator is . . .
Harden: Revenge!
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d26c1d4325ee4b6a4bb3b4bdab5aa3a8 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-mar-27-ca-43109-story.html | Awards Show’s Ratings Slip, Early Figures Show | Awards Show’s Ratings Slip, Early Figures Show
A higher-than-usual suspense quotient and the best picture coronation of box-office champion “Gladiator” failed to boost ratings for Sunday’s Oscar telecast, as an estimated 42.9 million people watched the ceremony at any given minute--the smallest Academy Awards audience since “The English Patient” was crowned in 1997.
The thumbs-downs vote reflects a 7% drop from a year ago, according to preliminary data from Nielsen Media Research. Those results could be revised slightly today, when final prime-time tallies for the week are issued.
In terms of the percentage of U.S. households tuning in, Sunday’s broadcast--viewed in 26.2% of homes--is the lowest-rated Academy Awards on record, dipping below the 1986 telecast. The overall audience is higher, however, because the population has steadily grown over theyears.
ABC estimates that more than 72 million people watched at least a portion of Sunday’s broadcast, maintaining the Oscars’ status as one of the year’s most-watched events. The average audience--which, as with preliminary results distributed by ABC in 2000, measures viewing only through the last round of commercials--trails the Super Bowl and CBS’ two-hour “Survivor” finale in August among programs broadcast during the last year.
Total viewing of the Academy Awards surged to an all-time high of 55.3 million in 1998, when “Titanic” sailed off with best picture. The Oscar telecast shifted to Sundays in 1999, allowing the show to begin a half-hour earlier, in part so the East Coast audience wouldn’t have to wait until well past midnight to see the final award presented.
Locally, viewing of the Oscars on KABC-TV dropped 15% versus a year ago, with 36.7% of homes in the area--or just under 2 million households--tuning in the awards.
Ratings dropped sharply as well for the Oscar pre-shows, perhaps attributable to pleasant weather, with roughly 360,000 homes taking in KABC’s local pre-show festivities, compared with not quite 200,000 viewing KTLA-TV and a competitive 180,000 watching Joan Rivers greet red carpet arrivals on E! Entertainment Television.
KABC’s post-Oscar coverage, by contrast, actually improved over last year, with nearly 650,000 homes--or about 12% of those in the station’s viewing area--staying tuned after Barbara Walters’ interview special.
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dd2293cabcc7fd1bcb04f6bfbc50184a | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-may-01-ca-57727-story.html | Picking Up a Piece of L.A. Art History | Picking Up a Piece of L.A. Art History
“The Broadway Mural,” John Valadez’s landmark, 60-foot-long painting of downtown Los Angeles street life, has been rescued from the auction block. Peter Norton, a Los Angeles-based computer guru and a major collector of contemporary art, has purchased the epic artwork, along with a group of 28 portraits by Valadez.
The mural--a realistic depiction of the shoppers, merchants and colorful characters who populate the bustling commercial district--was painted in 1981 for owners of the historic Victor Clothing Co. building and has been a prominent interior fixture there for the past two decades. But the building has changed hands, and its contents--including remaining artworks by Valadez and others--will be auctioned today.
Norton purchased the mural and portraits--which depict former Victor Clothing employees and were also commissioned by the building’s former owners--last Tuesday, said Susan Cahan, senior curator of the collections of Peter and Eileen Norton. Neither Norton’s representatives nor the mural’s owner would divulge the purchase price, but a source close to the transaction said it was $100,000.
“It’s really great,” Valadez said of Norton’s acquisition. “Who knows where the mural would have gone if he hadn’t bought it.” Valadez also said he was immensely grateful to artists and various art-world professionals who rallied to the cause. Artist Alfredo de Batuc and art historian Shifra Goldman spearheaded the effort. But many others got involved, De Batuc said.
Cahan said that some local institutions might have been interested in purchasing the mural and the suite of portraits, but--unlike Norton--they usually cannot raise funds and make acquisitions quickly. As an effort to save the artworks mounted, Allan Sekula, a photographer who teaches at CalArts, urged Norton to consider the purchase, she said. However, a discussion with Steven Lavine, president of CalArts, “really clinched it for Peter,” she said.
Lavine, in turn, credited Sekula for championing the artworks and Norton for “his wonderful imagination and sense of possibilities.” While expressing delight that CalArts could play a beneficial role in preserving a component of local art history, he praised Norton’s ability to “grasp the essence of the situation” and take action.
Lavine said he actually contacted Norton about the portraits--which were painted with the help of photographic images--because Sekula views them as an important part of the history of painting and photography, and believes they should be kept together as a unit.
“The mural is an important painting, but it is so huge, I felt that it would eventually end up at a museum,” Lavine said. “But if the portraits were sold individually at auction, we would lose an important piece of Los Angeles art-making, Los Angeles history and Los Angeles’ Latino presence.”
The acquisition was a natural for Norton because “he is always aware of the social context in which art is created,” Cahan said. “This is representative of his approach to collecting.”
The portraits have been moved to Norton’s storage facility in Santa Monica, and the mural--painted on 10 panels measuring 8 feet high by 6 feet wide--is scheduled to be moved Friday. Cahan said that she and Norton hope the works will be shown by a local museum, where the public can see them.
Among other artworks from the Victor Clothing Co. collection to be auctioned today are Eloy Torrez’s 1985 “Mural of Muralists,” a 10-foot-by-14-foot homage to a group of Los Angeles artists, and Valadez’s “The Top Hat Bridal Shop Mural,” an 8-foot-by-20-foot, five-panel painting of wedding scenes, also painted in 1985.
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46e9b7bf451d3af871efdeacbae5bb8b | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-may-05-ca-59543-story.html | Showing What the Buzz Is All About | Showing What the Buzz Is All About
The only name on the Roxy marquee Thursday was Alicia Keys, but most of the industry crowd that packed the West Hollywood club was also drawn by the evening’s host: Clive Davis.
The former head of Columbia and then Arista Records and now chairman of J Records, Davis is one of the most celebrated executives ever in the record business--someone known as much for his ability to spot budding stars as for his management skills.
Among the major artists whose careers he launched or shaped: Whitney Houston, Janis Joplin and Patti Smith. He also helped resurrect Carlos Santana’s recording career by co-producing the guitarist’s massively successful “Supernatural” album.
So industry insiders are likely to pay attention when Davis applies such superlatives as “spellbinding” and “riveting” to a new discovery.
Those are dangerous words in an industry that is overloaded with hype, but Davis has seen Keys, a 20-year-old New Yorker, wow audiences for months.
Though her debut album’s release is still a month away, Davis and his team at J have held showcases for her in recent months everywhere from his own living room to New York’s Bottom Line club. He even had enough confidence in Keys to have her follow Gladys Knight on stage at his recent pre-Grammy party in Beverly Hills.
Keys’ performance that star-studded night ignited a buzz in the industry, and the anticipation level was high at Thursday’s invitation-only event as she took the stage with a four-piece band and three backing vocalists.
And she lived up to expectations with a varied, 40-minute set that included a marvelous version of a Prince tune as well as intense, assured treatments of her own songs. You might even be tempted to borrow one of Davis’ superlatives, but “stunning” will suffice.
Things didn’t get off to a good start, however.
Keys opened with “Rock Wit U,” which is different from Michael Jackson’s “Rock With You,” but is still a generic R&B; energizer that failed to establish its own identity.
But she then turned to more substantial material from the album, “Songs in A Minor,” and she shined, exhibiting the vitality of contemporary hip-hop with an overriding sense of soul music tradition.
Keys offered a version of Prince’s “How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore” that was filled with enough attitude and sparkle to surely make him marvel. She then delivered her own “Fallen,” a tale of turmoil and tension in relationships that’s her first single. The tune is already a hot item on R&B; radio.
Keys showed that she is blessed with a commanding voice and, crucially, the style and vision to convey the character and detail of the songs. At one point in “How Come,” she repeated a line several times, giving each reference a customized treatment in the best, testifying style of soul music.
She moved from the intensity of these numbers to the more playful, youthful vigor of “Girlfriend” and a gripping solo encore of Donny Hathaway’s socially conscious “Someday We’ll All Be Together” that demonstrated the range and taste of her musical instincts.
Davis was still at Arista two years ago when Peter Edge, an A&R; executive who has also worked with Angie Stone and Dido, introduced him to Keys. She was under contract at the time to Columbia but was looking for a new deal because of differences with the label over her musical direction.
Davis was so impressed by the young singer’s talent and poise that he signed her, providing the freedom to pursue her own instincts in the studio. When Davis left BMG-owned Arista last year and started J Records, a $150-million joint venture with BMG, he brought Keys with him.
“The thing you are always looking for is a combination of musical talent and star quotient, and I felt Alicia had it all,” Davis said in an interview at a Beverly Hills hotel Thursday. “But this is a very tough business. You can’t count on anything. The thing I told her was that you can’t take anything for granted. You only get what you earn in this business. There’s no free ticket for anybody.”
Keys seems to have listened well to Davis’ counsel. Before an afternoon sound check at the Roxy, she seemed unusually grounded for someone so young who is suddenly being thrust into the pop spotlight.
“I don’t feel there is a lot of pressure on me,” she said. “I love making music, so this is all just like a dream come true.”
The remarkable thing about Keys is that she is young and charismatic enough to fit into pop’s current teen-pop brigade, but possesses the maturity and ambition of the neo-soul contingent that includes Macy Gray, Jill Scott and Erykah Badu.
As a songwriter, she is still very much walking in the footsteps of her heroes, who range from Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder to Nina Simone and Aretha Franklin. She is just beginning to explore the individuality and original viewpoint that Gray and Scott demonstrate.
But many of the songs were written when she was still in her teens. You wish you could fast-forward her career three or four years to see just where she takes her music, but the lesson Thursday was that she is a terrific new arrival with the promise of a long, valuable career.
“I just love what is happening in music today,” she said. “I’m proud to be mentioned with people like Jill Scott and Erykah Badu because I feel they are part of a breakthrough. . . . For years women relied on men for songs, but now women are expressing the truth of a new generation. That’s my goal, too.”
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e2bcc5de024ab88a6930f504164ca51f | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-may-06-me-60127-story.html | One Step and You’ve Left Mill Ends Park | One Step and You’ve Left Mill Ends Park
Take a step to the right in Mill Ends Park and step into heavy traffic. Step left and you’re on the street again.
One foot in the middle and you’d stamp it out of existence.
Just two feet wide, circular Mill Ends Park--the smallest park in the world--sits quietly in the median on busy Front Avenue near the Willamette River. Pretty pansies and a miniature cypress tree sprout from the green ground. Occasionally, odd contributions of tiny advertising signs and a swimming pool for butterflies appear.
“It looks so sad,” said Naima Kleeb, a 17-year-old Swiss exchange student strolling past the park. “Noise is bad for plants. How can anything grow here?”
And yet the park flourishes.
Years ago, journalist Dick Fagan gazed down from the old Oregon Journal building at an unusual hole in a median. The clearing was meant for a light pole.
When weeds, instead of a light pole, materialized, he planted some flowers.
“I decided it would be much better if there were flowers instead of weeds, and thus Mill Ends Park was born,” he wrote in a September 1961 column in the Journal, once the Oregonian’s main competitor.
The park was dedicated in 1948, and on St. Patrick’s Day in 1976 it became an official Portland park. Incidentally, the city also boasts the largest urban forest in the country--Forest Park, with 6,000 acres.
“We have all the benefits of a large town,” says Mayor Vera Katz. “And yet we have that cozy, familiar feel of a small town, with friendly people, community partnerships and ‘pocket parks.’ ”
In 1971, Mill Ends was officially listed as the world’s smallest park by the Guinness Book of World Records.
Over the years, Fagan, a proud Irishman, used his column to describe the goings-on in the park, presided over by head leprechaun Patrick O’Toole. Fagan was the only one ever to see O’Toole. As the story goes, Fagan assigned the little leprechaun to guard the garden.
“Sometimes he can be a very difficult man indeed,” Fagan wrote of his companion. “He simply refuses to state at this date exactly what is to be done, but has made it fairly clear that he doesn’t want to move.”
Until his death in 1969, Fagan wrote about the park--including strange donations of a diving board for butterflies to go with a tiny swimming pool, various statues and a miniature Ferris wheel.
The park was often festooned with miniature signboards advertising such things as flower shows and political campaigns, Fagan wrote. Other odds and ends kept showing up--even a tombstone worth $150, which was reclaimed, and a pair of false teeth.
The park has served as a backdrop for weddings and other celebrations, including an annual snail race.
On St. Patrick’s Day this year, the 452-square-inch plot was decorated with a tiny toy leprechaun leaning against his pot of gold and children’s drawings of four-leaf clovers and leprechauns.
Phil Young, a gardener for the city’s Parks and Recreation Department, has worked on Mill Ends Park for 2 1/2 years. He plants summer beds in the spring and pansies in the fall. During the hot summer months, he stops by with a sprinkling can at least once a day.
Young has been told it is his duty to keep the place pleasant so the leprechauns won’t forsake Portland for greener Ireland.
“I don’t know what to make of the leprechauns,” Young said. “I only know what I’ve read. . . . I’m Scandinavian myself.”
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7d3dadefd0fc7df84aa2cf2dc6925840 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-may-06-mn-60019-story.html | Bush Tries His Hand at Spanish in Radio Talk | Bush Tries His Hand at Spanish in Radio Talk
In the White House, as of Saturday, se habla espanol.
George W. Bush made history on Cinco de Mayo by becoming the first president to deliver a version of his weekly radio address from the Oval Office entirely in Spanish.
The president paid tribute to Mexican Americans, emphasizing policies aimed at improving relations with Mexico. Bush, who speaks Spanish, recorded his address in a slow and well-pronounced manner, impressing Spanish-speaking listeners.
“In Texas, [Hispanic culture] is in the air you breathe; Hispanic life, Hispanic culture and Hispanic values are inseparable from the life of our state, and have been for many generations,” Bush said. “The history of Mexican American relations has had its troubled moments, but today our peoples enrich each other in trade and culture and family ties.”
Democrats also courted Latinos on Saturday with a dueling address--also in Spanish--in which House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri and Rep. Silvestre Reyes of Texas criticized Bush for talking the talk but not walking the walk. Bush celebrated Cinco de Mayo on Friday with a fiesta on the South Lawn.
“He surrounded himself with Hispanic families and played Latin music at his political rallies, but so far his deeds have not matched his words,” Gephardt said.
Otto Santa Ana, a UCLA Chicano studies professor with a doctorate in linguistics, credited Bush with delivering a well-spoken speech.
“He’s no orator either in English or Spanish,” Santa Ana said. “It’s sort of like, pobrecito [‘poor thing’], he’s making a good effort. In some words, he lost some syllables, but otherwise he did fine. I think it’s very effective to reach out to Latinos that way.”
“I think that all of the Latinos in this country should congratulate the president for recognizing all of us as a strong and compact force in this nation,” said Rene Cruz, director of Casa Cuba, a Los Angeles organization assisting former Cuban political prisoners. “I think he’s made a big sacrifice, considering this is not his language.”
Speaking Spanish may be admirable, but the content of the speech has to “translate to something more substantial for our community,” said Alex Nogales, president of the National Hispanic Media Coalition.
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c6ab418e09fbf5f1fe2e5259c714a6b3 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-may-07-me-60429-story.html | Boozoo Chavis; Leader in Zydeco Music Scene | Boozoo Chavis; Leader in Zydeco Music Scene
Boozoo Chavis, one of the leading performers in zydeco--the musical mixture of Cajun, Celtic and rhythm and blues--has died. He was 70.
Chavis died Saturday at a hospital in Austin, Texas, of complications from a heart attack and stroke. He was admitted to Brackenridge Hospital on April 29 after suffering a minor heart attack following a performance. His condition declined steadily after he suffered a stroke in the hospital.
An accordionist, singer and bandleader, Chavis was one of the elders of the popular zydeco music scene in his native Louisiana. Known for his gritty singing style, Chavis produced a simple, propulsive, idiosyncratic sound with his hard-driving button-style accordion.
His band, the Magic Sounds, was in constant demand on the Gulf Coast and, as the popularity of regional music spread in the 1990s, Chavis became known nationwide.
Wilson Anthony Chavis was the son of a tenant farmer who played the accordion. He learned harmonica and accordion by watching his father and began playing in dance halls in the 1940s. He was later signed to a record contract.
Chavis’ first hit, “Paper in My Shoes,” was recorded in 1954. In that song, which he sang in French and English, Chavis told the tale of his impoverished youth, when he would stuff paper in his shoes because he’d worn out his socks. The song sold 100,000 copies.
Chavis remained popular in the late 1950s, but quit the record business in the early 1960s, saying that firms cheated him out of income from record sales.
For the next 20 years, Chavis returned to those professions that gave him a living before he turned to music--training racehorses and farming.
But in 1984, Chavis decided to return to music after he found that someone was impersonating him at concerts and drawing good crowds. He simply felt that audiences should hear the real thing.
At 56, his career took off again after he recorded “Dog Hill” and “Zydeco Hee Haw.” The left-handed Chavis wasn’t even slowed when the tips of two fingers were amputated after an accident.
In concert, Chavis always wore a white cowboy hat and an apron to keep the sweat off his accordion.
Known for his bawdy crowd-pleasing style, Chavis had little concern over formal musical presentation, telling one of his bandmates who complained his irregular style was hard to follow: “You follow me. If I’m wrong, you’re wrong, too.”
Chavis is survived by his wife, Leona, three sons, three daughters, 21 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
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3fc0b22d76476fb20863bbb744a366d6 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-may-09-sp-61203-story.html | Liar, Liar: It Turns Out, Shaq’s Pants Not on Fire | Liar, Liar: It Turns Out, Shaq’s Pants Not on Fire
I heard Shaquille O’Neal and Cindy Crawford were on the cover of Star Magazine, but I didn’t think anything of it, figuring it was some yarn about celebrities hitting Lakers up for playoff tickets.
Frankly, I was more interested in “Boozing George Clooney Rips Into Jennifer Lopez,” with the subhead: “Kissing Her Was Gross.”
The tough part, of course, is always getting the magazine. It seems like I have to wrestle it away from Sports Editor Bill Dwyre all the time. But Dwyre’s on vacation again, and for an added bonus he won’t be back for two weeks, so I wasn’t in a rush to read it until I heard Venus Williams was involved with Shaq and Cindy and there were reports of sex.
Speaking of “Entertainment Tonight"--I heard the TV show had also expressed an interest in the threesome, while also including “Matrix 2" star, Aaliyah, in the affair. TV usually doesn’t do a story unless it can go to the videotape.
I expected to see Dwyre walking through the door at any moment with the announcement he had canceled his vacation while grabbing the magazine.
THE STAR, featuring a “Shaq: My Affair with Cindy Crawford” story on its cover, of course, does not deal on a regular basis with Shaq, so the magazine elected to go with whatever the Big Fibber had to say. Big Mistake.
Last week the Big Fibber told a whopper, telling an LA Power 106-FM audience he had slept with Crawford, Williams and Aaliyah. Because it wasn’t the truth, I’m surprised he didn’t suggest it was the same night.
A listener said the radio station’s disc jockey expressed disbelief at the mention of Crawford’s name--I’m sure he would have gotten around to expressing disbelief at Williams’ and Aaliyah’s names too--but Shaq made a point of talking about Crawford, insisting it was the truth.
I received an e-mail from a listener shortly after Shaq’s interview on the radio. To answer your first question--it didn’t come from San Diego baseball fan, Jim Esterbrooks.
I ignored the whole thing, of course, figuring Shaq was still some 19,900-plus shy of Wilt Chamberlain.
SOMEONE IN Williams’ entourage, however, apparently had rabbit ears, which prompted Williams to deliver an in-your-face slam to Shaq on Tuesday in the form of a stinging statement.
“I categorically and unequivocally deny that I have ever had a sexual relationship with Shaquille O’Neal. I don’t even know him. I’ve only met Shaquille once a few years ago when attending an L.A. Lakers game. If Shaquille made the statement as a joke, it was in very bad taste, and I’m definitely offended. I think that he should use better judgment in the future, particularly where one’s reputation is concerned.”
I believe it’s also safe to assume Shaq has played no role in advising the Williams sisters when to withdraw from tennis tournaments. However, this will probably not stop the Star from suggesting it in the next issue.
The Big Fibber, of course, had some explaining to do--beginning with his own mother, who told him, he said, “That wasn’t nice, that was a bad joke, and I agreed. If Momma says it was a bad joke, it was. She’s right.”
The Big Fibber also told the local media Tuesday, “It was a bad joke--I apologize, ladies. Not everyone has a great sense of humor like me.”
The Big Fibber is not easily embarrassed, as you can see.
Both Crawford and Aaliyah reportedly did not crack a smile while denying Shaq’s claims, which prompted “Entertainment Tonight” to put the question directly to Shaq on national TV. How embarrassing.
“Cindy knows I’m a comedian,” he told ET’s Julie Moran. “Everybody knows I’m a comedian, and each female I said I was with--I lied.”
Instead of sending Shaq to his room without supper, the Lakers ran him onto the court to abuse the Sacramento Kings. Afterward, a crowd of reporters surrounded him and wrote down everything he had to say as if he was telling them the truth.
A SEAT in the first row for a Laker game costs $1,350 during the regular season, $1,450 for the playoffs, and according to Tim Harris, the Lakers’ vice president of sales and marketing, about $3,500 from someone on the street such as a broker.
If I start saving my Diet Coke cans . . .
There are more requests to spend $1,450 for a ticket than seats in the front row. “I wish I had a million more seats,” said Jeanie Buss, the Lakers’ executive vice president of business operations.
John McEnroe was looking for a ticket to Tuesday’s sold-out game, and Buss delivered--placing McEnroe between herself and Kurt Rambis--a half a dozen seats down from “NYPD Blue” stars James McDaniels (Lt. Fancy) and Henry Simmons (Baldwin Jones). Like every other celebrity, McEnroe is required to e-mail his credit card number to the Lakers, and purchase his ticket.
THE LAKERS try to save tickets for last-minute celebrity requests, but last year they were so tight for one playoff game they were unable to accommodate Tiger Woods.
FACES IN the crowd Tuesday night: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jimmy Smits, Andy Garcia, Dustin Hoffman, Gary Shandling, Tyra Banks, the guy who is going to play the role of Spider-Man, Penny Marshall, Dyan Cannon, Vince Neil of Motley Crue, who sang the national anthem earning two free tickets to the game and dinner, San Diego Charger Coach Norv Turner and Charger GM John Butler.
Jack Nicholson was missing, which could be because the Cannes Film Festival, featuring his film, “The Pledge,” opens this week.
Kevin Malone was also in attendance, and I would like to remind him it’s not polite to glare.
IF I’M running the Kings, I provide courtside seats for the game in Sacramento on Friday night for Crawford, Williams and Aaliyah. I have to believe they would be a lot more effective in getting Shaq’s attention than Scot Pollard and Vlade Divac.
TODAY’S LAST word comes in an e-mail from Bob:
“I have never written a fan letter before in my life and I’m not writing one now.”
Thanks for taking the time out of your day to clarify that.
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T.J. Simers can be reached at his e-mail address: t.j.simers@latimes.com
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fa00c7964bf2b7a131538d27eafc6dd3 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-may-10-sp-61570-story.html | Vick’s $62-Million Deal Richest for NFL Rookie | Vick’s $62-Million Deal Richest for NFL Rookie
Quarterback Michael Vick, the top pick in the NFL draft, signed a six-year, $62-million contract with the Atlanta Falcons on Wednesday, the richest deal for a rookie in league history.
Vick is guaranteed $15.3 million through the first three years, including a $3-million signing bonus.
Chris Chandler, who remains the Falcons’ No. 1 quarterback, agreed to restructure his contract to fit Vick’s deal under the salary cap. General Manager Harold Richardson said the Falcons would probably have about $400,000 left to spend after signing their remaining rookies.
The negotiations with Vick were a formality after the Falcons traded with the San Diego Chargers for the top pick a day before the draft. Vick’s agents had already discussed their terms with the Chargers, who weren’t willing to meet the price. The Falcons were.
The Washington Redskins renounced their rights to Skip Hicks by withdrawing their contract offer and making the former UCLA running back an unrestricted free agent. Hicks’ release came as the Redskins confirmed the signing of free-agent fullback Donnell Bennett, who agreed to a one-year, $477,000 contract Friday. . . . The New Orleans Saints want a new stadium by the 2006 season and would commit to staying in New Orleans for at least the next 25 years if they get it, the team said in a statement. . . . The Oakland Raiders re-signed free-agent linebacker William Thomas. . . . Kicker Jose Cortez and running back Saladin McCullough, members of the XFL champion Los Angeles Xtreme, were signed by the San Francisco 49ers.
Jurisprudence
Heavyweight David Tua filed papers in U.S. District Court in New Jersey in an attempt to prevent the International Boxing Federation from sanctioning an immediate rematch between Hasim Rahman and Lennox Lewis.
Rahman won the IBF and World Boxing Council heavyweight crowns by knocking out Lewis in the fifth round of their April 28 title match in South Africa.
Tua is asking the court to enforce an IBF rule he says prohibits rematch clauses in contracts for championship fights.
Tua’s legal action is similar to one filed last week against the WBC by representatives of Mike Tyson, who claim WBC rules prohibit agreements for immediate rematches.
Rahman is leaning toward a rematch with Lewis, but Tyson’s handlers keep upping the ante in their bid for a title shot. The Tyson offer is up to about $18 million.
Former boxing champion Dave Hilton Jr. was sentenced to seven years in prison for sexually assaulting two teenage sisters. Hilton, who was stripped last week of the super-middleweight title he won in December, was convicted in Montreal of all nine counts of sex-related offenses. . . . A police investigation into Dale Earnhardt’s death might be hindered by a court order preventing access to autopsy photos of the racing legend. Police in Daytona Beach, Fla., may have to go to court to get the photos, which were taken by the Volusia County’s Medical Examiner’s Office. . . . Jeremiah Pharms, a former University of Washington linebacker and Cleveland Brown draft pick, pleaded not guilty in Seattle to a first-degree robbery charge in the pistol-whipping and shooting of an accused drug dealer. . . . Philadelphia Eagle running back Thomas Hamner failed to appear in court in Voorhees, N.J., on animal cruelty charges and is being sought by law enforcement authorities, the New Jersey Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said. Hamner, of Voorhees, allegedly beat his pit bull March 28 and April 4, eyewitnesses told the SPCA.
Miscellany
Jennifer Capriati struggled to defeat Jelena Dokic, 7-5, 3-6, 6-4, and Venus Williams rolled to a 6-3, 6-3 victory over Karina Habsudova in the German Open tennis tournament at Berlin. . . . Defending champion Monica Seles pulled out of the women’s Italian Open because of a foot injury. . . . Swiss teenager Roger Federer upset Marat Safin of Russia, 4-6, 6-4, 7-6 (6), to advance to the third round of the Italian Open at Rome.
Hernan Gomez, Ecuador’s national soccer coach, was reported in stable condition after being shot in the leg in a hotel restaurant in the coastal city of Guayaquil on Tuesday night. The attack allegedly was to even the score for excluding ex-President Abdala Bucaram’s son from Ecuador’s under-20 team.
The sports industry’s economic impact on Southern California has increased by 34.5% in the last half-decade, according to a study released by the UCLA Anderson School of Management. . . . Donna Caponi, who had 24 tour victories from 1969-81, was elected to the LPGA Tour Hall of Fame as the second golfer nominated in the veteran’s category.
The Sparks cut two players and added another, putting their roster at 16 as they prepare for their exhibition opener.
Beth Record, a fourth-round draft pick from Syracuse, and free agent Melissa Sanford were cut. The Sparks, who play the New York Liberty on Saturday night at Long Beach State, added free-agent wing Abby Garcheck.
Trenton Hassell of Austin Peay, the Ohio Valley Conference player of the year, said he will submit his name for the NBA draft. . . . Utah basketball Coach Rick Majerus, who missed most of last season because of health problems and his mother having cancer, rejoined the Utes as they practiced for an overseas trip.
Passings
Henry “Smokey” Yunick, one of the key innovators from stock car racing’s early days, died of leukemia in Daytona Beach, Fla. He was 77. (See story, B10.)
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6ee2172ab6aba49dc2b10f46b00ce4b6 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-may-14-he-63195-story.html | Picking a Doctor: the Gender Factor | Picking a Doctor: the Gender Factor
I recently switched health plans and had to choose a new primary-care doctor. My new HMO only does business with a few physicians in my area, so my choices were limited. I could have picked a doctor whose practice is just down the street from my house, but instead opted for another whose office is 10 miles away. Why? Because the latter guy is a guy, while the doctor in my neighborhood is a Deborah.
For all I know, Dr. Deborah is a talented and caring healer, but I simply prefer having a male doc perform my physical exams. Always have, always will. But I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll always have that option. In 1970, about 7% of the doctors in the United States were women, according to the American Medical Assn. That figure has risen to more than 23% today and it’s climbing fast. Statistics from the Assn. of American Medical Colleges show that about half of all students entering medical school in the United States are women.
I’m all for the advancement of women in medicine, but is the time coming when men who prefer male general practitioners could have trouble finding one? It may already be here. My friend Steve says his HMO gave him a list of doctors to pick from, but none of the male physicians was accepting new patients. What if he didn’t want to be touched by a woman he barely knew?
I know what female readers are thinking: How does it feel, boys? We’ve been getting examined by male strangers for years. In fact, so many women in the United States today insist on seeing female obstetricians and gynecologists that male medical students are beginning to avoid those specialties. Studies have shown that many women are more comfortable in the care of other women.
It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that some men might rather discuss certain personal health matters, well, man to man. “I’ve seen instances where younger women physicians don’t relate well to men,” says Dr. David Gremillion, an associate professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina.
The communication problem can be particularly serious when a man suffers from impotence or some other sexual-health problem, says Gremillion, who is also a board member of the Men’s Health Network, a Washington, D.C.-based group that promotes awareness of male health issues. In those cases, doctors need to ask some sensitive questions. How often do you have sex? Can you describe your erections? Do you wake up aroused?
Some female physicians, Gremillion suspects, “may have a hesitancy or discomfort when speaking of those issues. And that’s immediately sensed by the patient.” It’s tough enough getting some men to see a doctor regularly; Gremillion worries that an awkward encounter with a physician might drive a man away for good.
A study published last year found that many male adolescents preferred women doctors. But most of them were boys raised by single moms, which may have explained why they felt more comfortable with a woman, says Gremillion. He believes that most adult males prefer to be examined by other men, though there aren’t any recent statistics on the issue. So I asked a dozen guys I know whether they see male or female doctors, and why. Though scientifically meaningless, my mini-survey did yield some interesting responses.
One friend, for instance, said he feared having a spontaneous erection in front of a female physician--an occurrence that Gremillion says does happen from time to time. To my surprise, two of my friends insist on seeing female physicians.
Gremillion says that the latter two fellows are exceptions, but psychologist Michael Addis, who studies masculinity issues at Clark University, in Worcester, Mass., says there’s nothing unusual about a man preferring a female doctor.
Men, Addis explains, are sort of touchy about being touched. That is, we’re more likely than women to interpret physical contact as having underlying sexual meaning. “If another guy touches us, it either means we’re gay or he’s trying to get in our pants. That’s what you’re taught as a kid,” says Addis. Status is another influence on our doctor preferences, he says. Highly competitive men may be reluctant to discuss what they perceive as their own physical inadequacies with other men.
Regardless of your own preference, just be sure of this: Try to find a doctor who makes you feel comfortable and see him or her on a regular basis. Last year, a survey by a private foundation called the Commonwealth Fund found that one out of three men didn’t have a regular doctor to turn to when they were sick or needed medical advice. Gremillion says that healthy men under age 60 should have a complete physical at least every other year; older men should follow their doctor’s guidelines.
And if your HMO requires you to see a doctor whose gender makes you uneasy, be honest with him or her about your concerns. One of my friends was nervous the first time his male physician prepared to perform a digital rectal exam on him, and said so. But the doc eased the tension by responding, “If it makes you feel any better, this won’t be the highlight of my morning, either.”
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Timothy Gower can be reached by e-mail at tgower@mediaone.net. The Healthy Man appears the second Monday of the month.
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f97ab92993fd92fef944b4c6c60c9c4e | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-may-19-hm-29-story.html | Silencing the Buzz, Hum of Fluorescent Light Fixtures | Silencing the Buzz, Hum of Fluorescent Light Fixtures
Fluorescent light fixtures are more efficient and cheaper to run than incandescent. But some fluorescent fixtures buzz or hum, and they take a long time to start when temperatures fall much below balmy.
If your fixtures have these problems, a failing ballast--the component that gives the lamps the power boost they need to start--might be the cause. If the light flickers or won’t work at all, the ballast is probably shot.
Replacing a faulty ballast isn’t difficult, but it’s essential to match the ballast to the lamps in your existing fixture.
That 4-foot, two-lamp fixture in your garage or basement, for example, likely uses T12 lamps and a matching electromagnetic ballast, says Jeff Goldstein of Lamar Lighting in East Farmingdale, N.Y.
(The industry measures the diameter of lamps in one-eighth-inch increments, so a T12 is 1 1/2 inches in diameter.) If you don’t know which ballast to buy, take your old one to an electrical supply house.
Magnetic ballasts are readily available and cost about $16. If you want to eliminate loud buzzing noises, upgrade to an electronic ballast (about $28), which is quieter and more efficient. Electronic ballasts are standard on newer T8 fixtures, according to Goldstein, but it might be more difficult to find them for older T12 lights.
Also consider the location of the fixture. Standard ballasts work best in temperatures above 50 degrees. If lamps are in colder areas, buy cold-weather ballasts, which can fire up the lamps in temperatures as low as zero.
To remove the ballast, cut power to the circuit at the circuit breaker panel. It’s safer to turn the circuit breaker off at the main panel than it is to rely on a wall switch that might be wired improperly.
Most corded garage or shop fixtures are hung from the ceiling by lightweight chain, so it’s simple to take a fixture down for repairs. Take out the lamps, then remove the access panel on the fixture and disconnect the black and white wires from the power supply.
Next, clip the three pairs of wires emerging from the ballast; there should be two reds, two blues and two yellows. Reconnect leads on the new ballast with wire nuts; the light should work fine once again.
One tip: Reconnect each pair of colored wires individually. The ballast won’t work properly if you gang together all four red wires, for example, and connect them with a single wire nut.
New federal energy standards will eliminate T12 lamps and ballasts in 2005, according to Harold Thompson of Advance Transformer Co., a major ballast maker. If you decide to switch out a T12 ballast for a more efficient T8 before then, don’t forget to change the lamps too.
If you’re tired of the harsh, gray light given off by standard fluorescent lights, look for a lamp with a higher Color Rendering Index or CRI.
The CRI is a relative scale that rates light sources on a scale from 0 to 100 (sunlight is rated at 100). Lamps with a higher CRI make people and objects look more realistic. Manufacturers adjust the CRI by tinkering with the mix of phosphors that coat the inside of the lamp. A standard 34W “cool white” lamp has a CRI of 62, but lighting stores and home centers also stock lamps rated up to 90.
The only downside is that you will pay two or three times as much per lamp for that great-looking light.
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af41a535e5982d8bff553362309a2136 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-may-20-me-317-story.html | By Now, Energy Crisis Is All Too Familiar | By Now, Energy Crisis Is All Too Familiar
On Feb. 24, 1948, a Tuesday, this newspaper carried a front page photograph of a young family enduring a power blackout in their East Los Angeles apartment. The father heated a baby bottle with the flame of a candle, while the mother changed their infant’s diaper in the dim, flickering light. “Like Pioneer Days,” suggested the photo caption.
Related articles reported public protests in Los Angeles over electricity outages, a rush to complete a new generating plant in Redondo Beach, and a decision by state officials to impose what the newspaper called “dimouts” across Northern and Central California.
Dimouts, of course, are now referred to as rolling blackouts, and doesn’t the earlier coinage more deftly capture the daffiness inherent in the inability of the State Where the Future Begins to keep its power grid up and running? Semantical issues aside, though, a larger point remains: There is nothing altogether novel about California’s present predicament.
A similar power shortage played out in 1948--with “dimouts,” conservation campaigns, suggestions of power company hanky-panky, the works. The 1948 crisis, seen as an echo of a 1924 shortage, would become the subject of an academic study written in 1973--at the onset of another energy crisis, this one nationwide.
Stuart A. Ross--now an administrator at Cal State Fullerton--wrote the 52-page monograph, “An Energy Crisis from the Past,” for the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley. Looking back across a quarter century, Ross concluded that the response of California in 1948 had been “eerily familiar” to what was unfolding in 1973:
“The magazine articles, the political stratagems, and the [meeting] minutes all seem indistinguishable in structure and depth from their modern counterparts.”
Jump forward another quarter century, to yet another energy crisis, and the familiarity quotient fairly leaps off the charts. Yes, there were differences--no half-baked deregulation schemes, no Texans. Still, consider the parallels: Despite rapid population growth, power plant construction in California had become sidetracked in the 1940s by the war effort; in the 1990s, it was industry uncertainty about coming deregulation that slowed plant construction.
Converging trend lines were missed. In 1948, as now, a lack of rainfall undercut hydroelectric supplies crucial to Northern and Central California. Until it was too late, PG&E; kept insisting it had plenty of supply--assurances that skeptics believed were part of a utility campaign to keep less expensive federal power from invading its domain.
When the crisis hit, it seemed to many Californians an almost overnight collapse. Then, as now, there were doubters. Ross found in PUC files a handwritten note from “An Average Orchard Farmer.” The anonymous agrarian was irked that San Joaquin Valley farmers were under orders to reduce pumping for irrigation, and he thundered:
“If the power shortage is so acute as to make it necessary to ruin many of the farmers in this valley, then why, may I ask, are lodges, clubs, athletic events, yes, and even the power club of the PG&E;, which held their smoker last week from 5 p.m. till after midnight in a very large and well-lit hall, allowed to take place?”
The official response followed what by now are predictable lines. Residents were cajoled to cut usage voluntarily by 10% or more, a call that apparently was answered. Utilities were authorized to cut off electricity to heavy users. Initially, this was done with rolling blackouts.
“A later modification,” Ross noted, foreshadowing an idea that has begun to gain some traction now in Sacramento, “was to schedule rotations of cutoffs. . . . so that a plant might be scheduled to be shut down, say, every Friday.”
In what Ross described as mostly symbolism, “show windows in stores were ordered blacked out; ballparks, theaters, new-car lots, and public monuments were put under tight restrictions.” The state was placed on daylight savings time. Power was purchased from the L.A. Department of Water and Power; then, as now, it had juice to spare. Transmission line inadequacies, however, hindered California’s attempts to move electricity from south to north--shades of the now-infamous Path 15.
In the end, after a few tough months, the state caught a break. Late, heavy spring rains unexpectedly replenished hydroelectric supplies. Still, for the next year or so, the shortage fostered lingering skittishness and sober reflection on California’s reliance on electricity. Ross concluded that, in a quarter century, the situation had not improved much. Yes, in 1973, the numbers were greater--more people, more electronic devices, more supply--but a fundamental dynamic remained.
“Unfortunately,” he observed, “having more electricity to use has not made us feel we have more electricity to spare. . . . Convenience has become necessity; our expectations and our commitments have gone up. The problem is that simple, and that difficult.”
Ross gave the final word in his report to one Robert O’Brien, who served as state “power czar” in the 1948 crisis. Looking back on it all, O’Brien left the researcher with this thought: “Progress is the art of making the same mistake only once every generation.”
Now, as then, that seems to nail it.
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eac8be499341792cbf661fb6caea255e | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-may-23-me-1518-story.html | Excerpts From the Debate Between Mayoral Hopefuls | Excerpts From the Debate Between Mayoral Hopefuls
Excerpts from Wednesday’s debate between mayoral candidates Antonio Villaraigosa and James K. Hahn. The panel for the debate was made up of Bill Boyarsky, author and former city editor of The Times; Patt Morrison, columnist for The Times; and Larry Mantle of KPCC Radio, who also served as moderator.
MORRISON: Mr. Villaraigosa, although the mayor has no direct control over public education, much of the last few years have been spent by the mayor and others talking about saving the public education in Los Angeles. Your wife is a public school teacher in Montebello, and your children are in private school. If you were elected, would you put your children into the Los Angeles public schools?
VILLARAIGOSA: My wife is a teacher. She’s been a teacher for 18 years. I’ve said to her that I promised that I’m going to make fixing up our schools my No. 1 priority; that I’m going to audit this school district; that I’m going to spearhead an effort to work with the school district to build the 100 new schools we need.
In answer to your question, I’m doing like every parent does. I’m going to put my kids in the best school I can. My kids were in a neighborhood public school until just this year. We’ve decided to put them in a Catholic school. We’ve done that because we want our kids to have the best education they can. If I can get that education in a public school, I’ll do it, but I won’t sacrifice my children any more than I could ask you to do the same.
HAHN: We need to build those schools because if the present trend continues, every single high school is going to be on a year-round schedule; 80,000 students will have to be bused if we don’t do something to build these schools right away. This is not a situation that you can sit back in.
I’m committed because both my children began and are still in L.A. public schools, schools right in our neighborhood. I believe public education is the best way not only to learn reading, writing and arithmetic, but also to learn how to get along with people who are different than you, and I think that’s a big part of learning how to live life.
BOYARSKY: Mr. Villaraigosa, what is the relationship between race, racism and poverty in Los Angeles?
VILLARAIGOSA: Anybody who lives in this city who has grown and was born and raised in this city like me obviously can see that there’s been a very direct relationship, and yet much has changed from the days when my mother couldn’t go to the city pool because you could only go once a week. I think the next mayor of this city has got to focus on the need to address some of those poverty issues. We have to be a city that’s growing together and not growing apart.
HAHN: You know, I grew up in South-Central Los Angeles. I lived in integrated communities all my life, but there’s a lot of communities of Los Angeles that have been very segregated over those years. Race became a divider and not uniter in this city. Many people have taken to teaching their children hate. That’s why I was a strong prosecutor of hate crimes, formed a hate crimes unit in my office.
MORRISON: Hollywood is in danger of becoming a concept rather than a place. How do you keep production from leaving the town with whose name it is synonymous?
VILLARAIGOSA: I represented Hollywood for six years. I led the effort to have a state partnership in the fight against runaway production by sponsoring a tax credit for about $650 million. Ultimately, that tax credit didn’t get through the Senate. We put together a very modest package of $45 million. We’ve got to do a lot more.
As mayor I’m going to be very aggressive at going to Sacramento and Washington and saying we’ve got to do the same things that Ontario and Canada, British Columbia do. We’ve got to provide the kind of incentives to keep that production here.
HAHN: We’ve done a lot in Los Angeles. We’ve coordinated our film permit office with the city and county to try to expedite location filming and other things. It’s still not working. We’re still seeing people leave Los Angeles and Southern California to make films in Canada and other places that give them a real tax break.
Mr. Villaraigosa, you were the speaker, and you said you tried, and you did represent Hollywood, but you didn’t succeed. Your modest proposal here hasn’t stopped the flood. What we need, I think, is some leadership that’s going to get this done in Sacramento and Washington and not make excuses.
MANTLE: Mayor Riordan recently was very critical of how poor communities are being served in the city, and he used the term “poverty pimps,” those who make their living essentially off the backs of the poor. What about poverty pimps? Is this a significant problem in the city of Los Angeles? Would you concur with the mayor’s assessment?
VILLARAIGOSA: The mayor and I agree on some things; we disagree on others. We disagreed and agreed before I got his endorsement and will continue to do that. I don’t agree with that assessment. I do believe, though, he was trying to make a point, and the point that he was trying to make is that this city has got to do more for people who have been left behind.
I accepted his challenge at the State of the City (Riordan’s annual assessment of Los Angeles, delivered earlier this month) to repair a new park every two weeks. I did that not only because he asked me to do it, I did it because I authored Proposition 12 that focused on urban parks in providing some of our neighborhoods with the kind of parks they need.
I come from a neighborhood that was left behind, that didn’t have the infrastructure support that we need to make people successful, and as mayor I’m going to lift up those communities and make them my absolute priority.
HAHN: Well, I grew up in the same kind of community you did, Antonio, in South-Central Los Angeles at 89th and Figueroa Street. I do think more needs to be done for those areas. That’s why I’m committed to doing that. I’m not going to forget my roots growing up in South-Central Los Angeles. And there’s a lot of fine people who were involved in community-based organizations, nonprofits, who are working to make life better, you know. And when we say--try to label everybody--I think it does a disservice to people who are doing great things in their community.
I think we need more support for the nonprofits and less criticism.
MANTLE: Mr. Hahn, you’ve been criticized for your tenure as city attorney for some of the proposed settlements that were then ratified by the City Council in cases involving allegations of police misconduct, cases that have cost the city a tremendous amount of money. Share with us, if you will, why you think these large settlements are justified, particularly when they put a tremendous financial burden on the city.
HAHN: Our office litigates and tries more cases than any other public law offices in California. We win 80% of the cases we go to trial, but if the liability is clear, and the damages could be very large awarded by a jury, I think the prudent thing to do is settle that case.
Nobody likes to pay out those dollars. But I think my job is to make sure that overall we keep the tax dollars paid out by taxpayers as low as possible. Just by perspective we paid out $82 million last year. That sounds like a lot of money. That included landslide cases, that included a $16-million tax refund case, it included all the police cases, all the traffic accident cases where somebody said there was something wrong with the road or city vehicles were involved. By comparison, New York City spent $58 million last year on slip-and-fall cases alone and over $250 million. I think looking at it in relationship to the rest of the country, we’ve been doing an excellent job.
VILLARAIGOSA: I think you just have to look to the study by the controller to know that, in fact, we’re approaching liability somewhere in the neighborhood of $750 [million] to [$1 billion] liability for workers’ comp cases that are out of control, liability for Rampart. There’s been no successful risk management program in this city to address those liability issues.
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6e1842de3bc7cbb1441525558480aff5 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-may-29-me-3826-story.html | The Life of a Cowboy Is Knowing the Ropes | The Life of a Cowboy Is Knowing the Ropes
For champion trick roper Gene McLaughlin, the world is a target.
His 3-year-old grandson speeds past. McLaughlin draws a bead and lets fly. In seconds, the boy is roped like a calf. A visitor taking notes finds his hands roped. McLaughlin’s son, Cliff, is lassoed around the neck.
“Now you see what growing up was like,” Cliff sighs.
The 71-year-old Simi Valley cowboy, stuntman and roper to the stars smiles. “I love targets,” says McLaughlin, who once roped a man during a job interview. “The key to roping is not to hurt nobody.”
Rope has been the one constant in McLaughlin’s colorful life. At age 3, he began spinning loops on the boardwalk in Atlantic City, N.J., later appearing in numerous movies and television shows.
McLaughlin says he’s taught roping and riding to actors Jon Voight, John Travolta and Patrick Swayze, to name a few. His show business career has included stunt work on television shows “Bonanza,” “Wild Wild West” and “Gunsmoke,” and movies “Urban Cowboy,” “Running Scared” and “Ghost.”
He is also a sort of cowboy guru for those searching for masculine simplicity in a sedentary and complex world.
“Gene is my philosopher king,” said actor Peter Strauss, who learned how to rope calves from McLaughlin while working on a television movie. “He didn’t just teach me how to rope, but taught me what being a cowboy is all about. He had to turn an actor into a calf roper, he had to turn a New York Jew into a calf roper, and that just doesn’t happen.”
Strauss, 54, fell in love with calf roping and the whole cowboy ethos. He plans on taking more lessons from McLaughlin.
“He turned me on to the best thing I ever did,” Strauss said. “And Gene is so at peace with himself that anyone who meets him succumbs to him instantly.”
Despite his Hollywood career, McLaughlin seems to be a man out of time, spending the twilight hours of each day roping calves on his son’s Moorpark ranch.
Small and compact with hands as strong as nutcrackers, McLaughlin rides tall in the saddle. This evening he is on Digger, a sleek, responsive horse who can turn on a dime.
As the sunlight wanes over the distant hills, a dozen calves wait in a pen. One is placed in a holding area. McLaughlin gives the signal and the calf bolts. Galloping behind, he ropes the 175-pound animal, jumps off his horse, tackles it and ties it up. The whole thing takes about 10 seconds.
“Not bad for a 71-year-old,” his son says proudly.
Born in suburban Philadelphia, McLaughlin’s knack for roping was spotted early by his father. He sent 3-year-old Gene and his 5-year-old brother, Don, to Atlantic City to perform rope tricks for money. The cash helped the family through the Depression and led to a 12-year engagement for the boys at Madison Square Garden.
“Now that was the cat’s meow, that was the big time,” McLaughlin recalls. “I was only 5 and didn’t have any hips. My pants would fall down when I roped.”
By then, the family had moved to Fort Worth, and McLaughlin was performing at rodeos all over the country.
“Life was normal to a point,” he says. “My father would come by the school and say, ‘It’s time to go to the rodeo,’ and we went.”
Trick roping took him to all 50 states, Canada and Japan. He even roped on ice skates and performed in “The Midget Circus” in San Antonio. McLaughlin came to California in 1961 and did shows at Knott’s Berry Farm before getting into stunt work.
In 1981, he won the trick roping world championship in Oklahoma against tough competition from Mexico. He is still the reigning world champion.
McLaughlin prefers cotton rope, which he has spun into 86-foot-wide loops. He can slow a spinning rope down, make it climb over his shoulders and then make it fly over his head like a corkscrew.
“When I first met him, I thought this was some sort of hobby he had,” says his wife, Betty, 62, who makes all his outfits. “It’s a wonderful life and a great way to keep kids out of trouble.”
Their son, Cliff, 41, is also a top-flight roper and stuntman. Daughter Valerie, 42, sings in a country music band.
McLaughlin, who has been married for 44 years, doesn’t embody every cowboy stereotype.
“I never had a drink of beer or smoked a cigarette,” he says. “Some of my heroes went down to drinking.”
A cowboy, he says, is all about independence and integrity, and not about hats and boots.
“Ask a cowboy to do anything and he will,” he says. “But tell him to and he’ll never do it.”
And he hints at a certain cowboy karma. “Amazing how things go around in life,” he says. “Just like this rope.”
On many evenings, actors and locals interested in roping come to the hilltop ranch. “It’s such a rush, such an addiction,” enthuses Terry Pfankuchen, 30, of Simi Valley, who is learning to rope calves. “This is a workout. I can wring my shirt out at the end of the day. These guys make it look easy.”
As for slowing down, McLaughlin just shrugs.
“Long as I can handle a rope and get on and off a horse without help,” he said, “then I’m going to keep roping.”
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1248480a738486a44e32a8d3471bc85f | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-may-30-me-4232-story.html | Charley Pell; Coach Left Clouded Legacy at Florida | Charley Pell; Coach Left Clouded Legacy at Florida
Charley Pell, who brought success and scandal to the University of Florida football program before he disappeared from coaching after resigning amid controversy in 1984, died Tuesday near his home in Southside, Ala. He was 60.
Pell, a longtime heavy smoker who had been suffering from cancer in his pancreas and other organs since last fall, died at a Gadsden hospital, said John Marshall, a spokesman at the company where Pell worked.
Though he resigned in shame, Pell helped lay the foundation that later turned Florida into a national power.
A former two-way lineman at Alabama, where he was part of legendary coach Bear Bryant’s first national championship team in 1961, Pell coached Florida to a 33-26-3 record and four bowl appearances from 1979 to 1984.
But three games into the 1984 season, after the NCAA had levied 59 sanctions against the program, Pell confessed to the violations that sparked the sanctions and resigned.
“I took the blame for everything to exonerate every other coach on the staff,” Pell told the Orlando Sentinel last month. “I always believed I did too good a job of that. All it did was cause a lot of grief.”
Pell was back in the headlines in 1993, when he attempted suicide in Jacksonville but was rescued by a state trooper who found his suicide note.
Two years later, Pell returned briefly to coaching, compiling a 1-9 record at Lake Region High School near Lakeland, Fla.
Pell, who had coached at Jacksonville State in Alabama and Clemson before landing at Florida, was a finalist for jobs at Alabama Birmingham and Louisville but never got a second chance.
He moved last year to Southside, about 20 miles from his hometown of Albertville in northern Alabama, to be close to his children and grandchildren. He took a job as a vice president at National Auction Group.
He leaves a clouded legacy. “The mistakes Charley made overshadowed the good,” Florida Athletic Director Jeremy Foley told the Orlando Sentinel last month. “Unfortunately, that’s the way of the world.”
Pell is survived by Ward, his wife of 32 years, three children and two grandchildren.
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1d1f36886b41c5dbb631f76cab7569de | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-nov-01-fi-64041-story.html | Sony Dogs Aibo Enthusiast’s Site | Sony Dogs Aibo Enthusiast’s Site
Sony Corp. is using a controversial U.S. law aimed at protecting intellectual property to pull the plug on a Web site that helps owners of Aibo, Sony’s popular and pricey robotic pet, teach their electronic dogs new tricks.
Aibo owners are outraged, and hundreds have vowed to stop buying Sony products altogether until the company backs off. Sony has sold more than 100,000 Aibos worldwide since 1999, at prices ranging from $800 to $3,000. The dogs have spawned a community of enthusiasts who fuss over the mechanical marvels as if they were real canines.
Last week, Sony executives sent a letter to the operator of a Web site, https://www.aibohack.com, alleging that much of the site’s contents-programs and software tools that can modify the Aibo’s behavior--was created and distributed in ways that violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The 1998 law was designed to combat the duplication of digitized materials, which can be easily distributed instantaneously worldwide on the Internet. Violators can face monetary damages and even prison time, depending on the nature of the violation.
In a prepared statement, Sony officials said they asked only for removal of material it considered illegal and encouraged the distribution of Aibo-related materials that they did not believe infringed the company’s rights.
Sony sells a number of software kits, usually for about $150, that allow Aibo users to modify the dog’s behavior. The software tools removed from the Web site are easier to use and more powerful, according to users--and are available for free.
“We do not support the development of software that is created by manipulating existing Sony Aibo-ware code, copying it and/or distributing it via the Internet,” the company said. “This is a clear case of copyright infringement, something that most Aibo owners can appreciate and respectfully understand.”
Critics of the DMCA say the law upsets the delicate balance between the rights of copyright holders to protect their intellectual property and the rights of everyone else to use such items to develop their own works. That has sparked increasing concern in Congress as scientists, librarians, researchers and consumer groups have voiced opposition to the law.
“On the surface, Sony appears to be using portions of the DMCA in an attempt to keep people from putting the company’s product to new and interesting uses,” said Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil rights group. “This is exactly the sort of thing we’ve been concerned about.”
Cohn said that if Congress does not act, the courts will eventually have to repair the situation. “Sooner or later, this is going to come to a head,” she said. “This is a critical societal problem. If we can no longer stand on the shoulders of giants, take a cool thing somebody has made and make it a little bit cooler, progress is stunted, perhaps irreparably.”
Bob Harting, a Santa Monica potter, has programmed his three Aibos--Sparky, Agent Aibo and Aibojangles--to perform a syncopated dance routine to Madonna’s “Vogue.”
“It’s just impossible to do this sort of thing with the Sony tools,” he said, as the dogs danced to the music in his living room. “I have bought every accessory made for the Aibo, and nearly every bit of equipment in my apartment--television, VCRs, computers--is from Sony,” Harting said. “But I’m not comfortable giving them more money until this is resolved.”
The man behind Aibohack.com, who goes by the screen name Aibopet and asked to not be identified, removed the contested material from the site, leaving it largely empty except for links to other sites that have organized protests against Sony. He said he incorporates Sony’s code into his programs but that no one is harmed. His programs give Aibo owners the ability to manipulate their robot dogs, but only if the user has a legitimate copy of Sony’s software. He said that Sony benefits from his work because it generates consumer enthusiasm for Aibo. Although he’s upset about being forced to take his tools off the Internet, he said he has no plans to litigate the matter.
Before Aibohack.com went down, it saw 400 to 600 visitors a day, many of whom downloaded Aibopet’s tools. One of the programs, AiboScope, wirelessly transmits images from the robot’s camera to a computer. Another, Disco Aibo, programs Aibo to dance when it hears a specific song. The most recent program is Brainbo, which combines voice-recognition software with a library of answers to various questions. Users can ask the robot a question, and it will pull from the database to lip sync an answer.
Aibopet said he has posted more than 1,500 comments, tips and answers to Aibosite.com in the last two years.
“I guess you could call it a hobby, but it has gotten a little out of control at times. I just enjoy programming,” Aibopet said. “Looking at the last two years, I probably spent more time doing unpaid technical support for Sony than I have playing with my dog. But it’s been rewarding. I’ve met people throughout the world.”
Experts say Sony risks angering Aibo enthusiasts to the point that they might hurt sales of Aibo and related merchandise but could boost sales of its own software tools. It’s a big risk said David A. Aaker, vice chairman of Prophet, a brand strategy consulting firm.
Other companies that have faced similar situations have made the opposite choice.
Lego Co., a Danish company that makes the classic plastic interlocking children’s toy, introduced a computer-controlled set in 1998.
MindStorms, as the kit is called, offers users the ability to add motors and an onboard computer to control the creation’s behavior. Almost as soon as the toy was introduced, enthusiasts rewrote the software to allow for more complex operation. After much consideration, Lego decided to endorse such hacking, provided that nobody turns their software into a commercial product and that Lego trademarks aren’t used.
“The decision wasn’t easy to make,” said Lego spokesman Michael McNally. “We were obviously concerned that if this got out of hand, we could lose control of what we hold as our own. But we decided that if we made this easier for them, they’d be less inclined to change it and dilute it. In a way, we’re protecting our own interests.”
McNally said the decision has helped build the Lego community, but he concedes that Lego’s decision was largely made to boost sales.
“We’re like any other company,” he said. “This was about taking the brand forward, creating a larger fan base; and what company wouldn’t want to do that? It contributes to the bottom line.”
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e90af2fab6e440714326adf3cc25e8eb | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-nov-02-me-64489-story.html | Firm Knows the Color of Money | Firm Knows the Color of Money
For decades, moviegoers have seen the words “In Technicolor” flash on the screen--signaling the color process that made the brick road to Oz yellow and Scarlett O’Hara’s lips red.
While much of its storied history remains tied to cinema, in recent decades the world’s largest processor of motion-picture film has diversified and now slightly more than half its money is generated from video duplication and CD and DVD replication.
Camarillo-based Technicolor has contracts with leading entertainment companies, including Disney, DreamWorks and Warner Bros., to produce videotapes of many of their hit movies.
Technicolor’s operations are housed at various sites throughout the world, including a film laboratory in Hollywood. Nearly 1,500 of its 10,000 employees work at three warehouses north of the Ventura Freeway on Mission Oaks Boulevard--making it the biggest company in the city and the fourth-largest private employer in Ventura County.
“Clearly they are a positive part of our community because of the employment base and payroll, " said Camarillo City Manager Jerry Bankston. “When you have that many employees--and a significant number live in Camarillo--you have those payroll dollars being spent at our retail stores.”
Inside Technicolor’s warehouses, 20,000 videocassette recorders tape reprints of new releases and popular classics when retailers run out and request more.
750,000 Videos Shipped Daily
Under tight security, hundreds of machines made copies of “The Wizard of Oz,” “Casablanca” and Robert Redford’s “The Horse Whisperer” one recent day. Several hundred thousand copies of “Shrek” were recorded earlier that week in preparation for its nationwide release on video today.
Duke Potts, the company’s head of manufacturing and distribution in North America, said about 750,000 videocassettes are made and shipped daily. As many as 20 titles are recorded simultaneously around the clock.
The company also makes compact discs, and in 1998 added DVD production for Hollywood studios and software and game manufacturers, reshaping its business strategy. Today, the Camarillo site also produces 150,000 DVDs each day. Technicolor, which moved to Newbury Park 20 years ago, relocated to Camarillo in 1993.
“We have found that as businesses come into the area to look at Camarillo, the [Technicolor] building sets a good tone,” Bankston said. “Certainly it doesn’t hurt when a company is looking at coming here to know that a company with a reputation like Technicolor has chosen to make this its corporate” home.
The company, which has annual revenue of $1.6 billion, was purchased in March by Thompson Multimedia of France from London-based Carlton Communications.
Technicolor expanded operations last year to add digital cinema in a joint venture with Qualcomm Inc. Technicolor Digital Cinema has installed digital projectors in more than 30 cinemas worldwide, including locations in Los Angeles, Burbank and Irvine.
“They are like any company in a business that is changing. They are trying to reinvent themselves so that they can continue to be profitable in the current landscape,” said Jim Korris, executive director of USC’s Entertainment Technology Center.
Cinema owners are waiting for proof that digital technology will not be obsolete before they convert theaters.
“The equipment is quite expensive, so it is hard for cinemas to justify it,” said Korris, who runs a digital cinema lab working to develop such standards. “There is no guarantee [against] obsolescence . . . and add the fact that the current system works.”
Technicolor’s Chief Executive Lanny Raimondo said the digital systems are in place for the future. “It’s film theater now,” he said. “But in the next 10 years there will not only be film delivered to the theater but material delivered in digital form.”
A Long and Storied History
But it’s Technicolor’s film services--from development of the original negative and released prints to post-production--that have cemented the company’s place in history. Construction began this year on a 125,000-square-foot film print laboratory in Mirabel, Quebec, near Montreal.
“It was the first company to bring color to the screen on a commercial basis,” said Fred Basten, a Santa Monica-based film historian who wrote the book “Glorious Technicolor.”
In 1915, Herbert Kalmus, an engineer from MIT, set out to bring lifelike color to the big screen. Adapting the name of his college yearbook, “Technique,” Kalmus formed the Technicolor Motion Picture Corp. and created the first Technicolor film, “The Gulf Between,” in 1917, starring Grace Darmond.
It wasn’t until Kalmus teamed up with then-independent filmmaker Walt Disney in the 1930s that the painstaking dye transfer process began to gain momentum.
The first full-length animated feature in color, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” was produced in 1937. Walt Disney, Basten said, “basically signed a lifetime contract with Technicolor. Every Disney movie since the 1930s has been done by Technicolor.” With ongoing relationships with major studios, Technicolor dominated the industry in the ‘30s and ‘40s.
“It was the only decent color process around,” said Rudy Behlmer, a film historian and author for more than 35 years. “Technicolor pretty much had the field to themselves. When you wanted to do a film in Technicolor, you had to contract them not only to shoot it, but they brought their camera over to the studio along with a Technicolor cameraman and coordinator. It also included development of the film, the processing and the prints. It was a package.”
The invention of a single color negative by Eastman Kodak in 1950 opened up color industrywide, and Technicolor’s hold on the market loosened. Boasting superior quality, Technicolor continued to make film prints but used Eastman’s color negative for shooting the film.
But cinematographers still consider the company’s dye transfer process a better way to preserve film because it does not fade.
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c044329ccca284d66aca86004035fd6b | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-nov-05-ca-498-story.html | The Winners inCreative Arts Fields | The Winners inCreative Arts Fields
Here are the winners of the 53rd annual nighttime Emmy Awards in the creative arts categories, announced Sept. 8 by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.
Programs
Animated program (one hour or more): “Allosaurus: A Walking with Dinosaurs Special,” Discovery. Animated program (less than one hour): “The Simpsons,” Fox. Children’s program: “The Teen Files: Surviving High School,” UPN. Classical music-dance program: “La Traviata From Paris (Great Performances),” PBS. Commercial: “Photo Booth,” PBS, Fallon Minneapolis.
Acting
Guest actor, comedy series: Derek Jacobi, “Frasier,” NBC.Guest actress, comedy series: Jean Smart, “Frasier,” NBC.Guest actor, drama series: Michael Emerson, “The Practice,” ABC.Guest actress, drama series: Sally Field, “ER,” NBC.Voice-over Performance: Hank Azaria, “The Simpsons,” Fox; Ja’net Dubois, “The PJs,” WB.
Casting
Comedy series: Nikki Valko, Ken Miller, “Ally McBeal,” Fox.Drama series: Kevin Scott, John Frank Levey, Barbara Miller, “The West Wing,” NBC.Miniseries, movie or special: Mali Finn, “61*,” HBO.
Cinematography
Multi-camera series: Tony Askins, “Will & Grace,” NBC.Single-camera series: Thomas A. Del Ruth, “The West Wing,” NBC.Miniseries or movie: Vittorio Storaro, “Frank Herbert’s Dune,” Sci Fi.
Nonfiction Programming
Nonfiction program (reality): “American High,” Fox.Nonfiction program (special class): “Survivor,” CBS.Nonfiction special: “Scottsboro: An American Tragedy (American Experience),” PBS.Nonfiction series: “American Masters: Finding Lucy,” PBS.Cinematography: John Davey, Nol Smart, Didier Portal, Bogdan Verzhbitsky, “Land of the Mammoth,” Discovery.Sound editing: Joel Reidy, Victor Chainey, Michael Danks, Dave Lezynski, Andrew Sherriff, Simon Gotel, “Allosaurus: A Walking With Dinosaurs Special,” Discovery. Picture editing: Charlton McMillan, “Living Dolls: The Making of a Child Beauty Queen,” HBO. Sound mixing: Terry Dwyer, Mark Jasper, “Survivor,” CBS.
Costuming
Costuming, series: Jean-Pierre Dorleac, Gilberto Mello, “The Lot,” AMC.Costuming, miniseries, movie or special: Dona Granata, Ann Peiponen, Brian Russman, “Life With Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows,” ABC.Costume design, variety or music program: Francois Barbeau, “Cirque du Soleil’s Dralion,” Bravo.
Makeup
Series: Kymbra Callaghan, Stephen M. Kelley, “The Sopranos,” HBO; Cheri Montesanto-Medcalf, Matthew Mungle, Laverne Munroe, Clinton Wayne, Robin Luce, “The X-Files,” Fox.Miniseries, movie or special: Pamela Roth, Debi Drennan, “Life With Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows,” ABC.
Hairstyling
Series: Matthew Kasten, Mishell Chandler, Desmond Miller, Rod Ortega, Mimi Jafari, Fabrizio Sanges, “Mad TV,” Fox.Miniseries, movie or special: Marie-Ange Ripka, Andrea Traunmueller, “Life With Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows,” ABC.
Sound Editing
Series: Walter Newman, Darren Wright, Rick Hromadka, David Werntz, Connie Kazmer, Louis Kleinman, Darleen Stoker-Kageyama, Thomas A. Harris, Sharon Tylk, Casey Crabtree, Mike Crabtree, “ER,” NBC.Miniseries, movie or special: Robert Grieve, Scott Silvey, Meg Taylor, Wayne Griffin, Kimberly Harris, Stephanie Ng, Richard Partlow, “61*,” HBO.
Sound Mixing
Single-camera sound mixing, series: Mark Weingarten, Gary D. Rogers, Dan Hiland, “The West Wing,” NBC.Single-camera sound mixing, miniseries, movie or special: Lou Solakofski, Orest Shusko, Ian Kankin, “Nuremberg,” TNT.Multi-camera sound mixing, series or special: Brentley Walton, Doug Gray, Anthony Costantini, Rick Himot, “Everybody Loves Raymond,” CBS.Sound mixing, variety or music series or special: Edward J. Greene, Tom Vicari, Bob Douglass, “73rd Annual Academy Awards,” ABC; David Reitzas, “Barbra Streisand: Timeless,” Fox.
Picture Editing
Single-camera picture editing, series: Bill Johnson, “The West Wing,” NBC. Single-camera picture editing, miniseries, movie or special: John Bloom, “Wit,” HBO.Multi-camera picture editing, series: Ron Volk, “Frasier,” NBC. Multi-camera picture editing, miniseries, movie or special: Thom Zimny, “Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band,” HBO.
Art Direction
Multi-camera series: Glenda Rovello, Melinda Ritz, “Will & Grace,” NBC.Single-camera series: Paul Eads, Mindy Roffman, Jan Pascale, “Boston Public,” Fox.Miniseries, movie or special: Ondrej Nekzasil, Jan Vlasak, Marie Raskova, “Anne Frank,” ABC.Variety or music program: John Iacovelli, Aaron King, “Peter Pan Starring Cathy Rigby,” A&E.;
Technical Direction
Technical direction/camerawork/video, series: Timothy Kennedy, George Rothweiller, Al Cialino, David Dorsett, Karin-Lucie Grzella, Jack Young, John Hannel, John Curtin, Joel Solofsky, Bill White, “Late Show With David Letterman,” CBS.Technical direction/camerawork/video, miniseries, movie or special: John Pritchett, Larry Heider, Sam Drummy, Ken Dahlquist, Greg Harms, Ted Ashton, Brad Zerbst, Ron Sheldon, Scoop Geren, David Eastwood, Bill Chaikowsky, Tom Tcimpidis, John Palacio Sr., “Barbra Streisand: Timeless,” Fox.
Music
Music direction: Marvin Hamlisch, “Barbra Streisand: Timeless,” Fox.Music and lyrics: Patrick Williams, “Yesterday’s Children,” CBS.Music composition, series (dramatic underscore): Jay Chattaway, “Star Trek: Voyager,” UPN.Music composition, miniseries, movie or special: Arturo Sandoval, “For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story,” HBO.Main title theme music: James Newton, “Gideon’s Crossing,” ABC.
Other
Choreography: Jim Moore, George Pinney, Jon Vanderkolff, “Blast,” PBS.Main title design: Karin Fong, Dana Yee, Peggy Oei, Grant Lau, “Exxon Mobil Masterpiece Theatre’s American Collection,” PBS.Individual achievement in animation: Rodney Clouden, “Futurama,” Fox; Curt Enderle, “Gary & Mike,” UPN; Brad Schiff, “Gary & Mike,” UPN; Kyle Menke, “Invader Zim,” Nickelodeon.
Lighting direction (electronic, multi-camera): Jeff Ravitz, Gregg Maltby, “Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band,” HBO.
Special visual effects, series: Dan Curry, Mitch Suskin, Ron Moore, Art Codron, Steve Fong, Eric Chauvin, Robert Bonchune, John Teska, Greg Rainoff, “Star Trek: Voyager,” UPN.
Special visual effects, miniseries, movie or special: Ernest Farino, Tim McHugh, Laurel Klick, Frank H. Isaacs, Elaine Essex Thompson, James Healy, Gregory Nicotero, Anthony Alderson, Chris Zapara, “Frank Herbert’s Dune,” Sci Fi.
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b2953bbc5a6fed91552b58d58d878172 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-nov-06-me-855-story.html | Odessa B. Cox, 79; Helped Found Southwest College | Odessa B. Cox, 79; Helped Found Southwest College
She had a dream. Several, actually, but one that was paramount: quality education for African Americans and a community college where they could get it.
Seventeen years after she organized a citizens committee to get the job done, she welcomed the first 13 temporary bungalows where teaching could begin. The first permanent structure took another six years’ work.
Odessa Brown Cox, the principal founder of Los Angeles Southwest College at Imperial Highway and Western Avenue, has died, college officials announced. She was 79.
Cox, who died Oct. 27 at her home in South-Central Los Angeles, had been confined to a wheelchair since she had a stroke 11 years ago.
Born and reared in Whatley, Ala., Cox was the daughter of a union organizer and learned from childhood the importance of working to improve human rights. Education became the core of her commitment.
She moved to Los Angeles in 1943, two years after marrying Raymond Cox, and together the couple took community college classes on everything from animal husbandry to dry-cleaning. They opened Utopia Cleaners in Watts in 1945 and remained in business for 48 years. Her husband died in 1994.
The couple worked on projects such as organizing the Southeast Interracial Council and organizing the Independent Progressive Party campaign to increase hiring of African Americans and Mexican Americans at banks and grocery stores in Watts.
But mostly, Odessa Cox worked for education. As the mother of three daughters, she wanted the best possible schooling for her children and for her community.
She worked to improve the depiction of African Americans in textbooks approved by the state Board of Education. And she helped organize community support for construction of Henry Clay Middle School. Then she helped start the school’s Parent-Teacher Assn.
In 1950, Cox launched a lengthy crusade that would become her crowning achievement: the South-Central Junior College Committee to establish an institution of higher learning for inner-city residents.
Seventeen years later, the Los Angeles Board of Education opened the first classes at Los Angeles Southwest College.
Cox ran for the board of the new Los Angeles City Junior College District when it separated from the Board of Education in 1969, but placed eighth in the election for the seven-member board.
Undaunted, she kept working for her neophyte junior college campus and, in 1973, saw its first building dedicated. The building was later named for Odessa Cox.
Southwest College was not an unqualified success, with continued and unblemished development. Enrollment grew to 8,000 students in 1981 amid high hopes fostered by Cox and her committee. But failure to complete construction of the campus, poor administration and economic factors combined to send enrollment plummeting to 3,000 by 1985. Two government watchdog agencies even recommended closing the college.
But after a board-ordered change of leadership, the school revived and, in 1990, Cox spoke at another groundbreaking ceremony--for a $7-million technical education center.
“It feels so good to see the things we have fought for for so many years finally coming to pass,” she said to a standing ovation.
Cox also used her lobbying skills to influence the location of what is now Cal State Dominguez Hills so it could benefit the inner-city community, defeating an alternate plan to build the university on the Palos Verdes Peninsula.
Active in Democratic grass-roots politics, Cox organized the New Spirit Democratic Club, participated in the California Democratic Council and, at the time of her death, was a member of the Martin Luther King Democratic Club.
She is the subject of a University of California oral history project in a segment titled “Odessa Cox, Challenging the Status Quo: The Campaign for Southwest Junior College.”
In the last few months, Cox has been honored as the Los Angeles Sentinel’s Mother of the Year, the “education honoree” of the local chapter of the National Coalition of 100 Black Women Inc. and by the Los Angeles Southwest Community 21st Century Higher Education Alliance.
She is survived by three daughters, Brenda C. Cox, Reba L. Cox-Long and Sandra E. Cox; and a brother, Theodore Brown.
A memorial service is planned for 2 p.m. Sunday in the Physical Education Center at Southwest College.
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14eeb5510d1d9f0ab060e6bd7bae2b06 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-nov-11-bk-2699-story.html | On Being Blue | On Being Blue
As a color in our culture, blue was slow to assert itself. Perhaps, as Michel Pastoureau conjectures, although it was certainly present in the natural world, early people had difficulty making use of it, while red, white and black offered themselves more agreeably. However, color itself--indeed all sensory qualities--received short shrift from the thinkers we know about, who apparently prized whatever you could put a number to and consequently looked for weight, shape and size to constitute the serious form of things, rather than such evanescent predicates. Reality, for the pre-Socratic philosophers and many later ones, was colorless, and the atomists said that what fell through space when their alleged particles did were as purely figural as the cube, sphere and pyramid.
The fact that fabrics offer the best clues to the function and status of color in a society, as Pastoureau argues, is, in a sense, a perfect reflection of the philosophers’ attitude, for fabrics drape and clothe, swaddle and cover things, just as dyes hide the natural condition of cotton or wool and tanning produces leather. Paint, too, is but a cosmetic, whether it gilds a girl or a statue of Pallas Athena. Colors (and other qualities) befool and delight the masses, another ground for mistrust. Churchmen, such as Bishop Claude of Turin (9th century) or St. Bernard (of the 12th), took the cosmetic metaphor literally, considering color to be as material as rouge and therefore vile. Although blue was difficult to process and expensive to use and consequently was neglected by Greek and Roman societies, it has covered a lot of ground and overcome many obstacles to reach its present preeminence. Pastoureau’s book is a clearly written and beautifully documented history of that ascension.
It is not uncommon for color words to slide a little along the spectrum, so that when a word such as glaukos , often found in Homer, is applied to something gray in one context while in another designates a yellow or a blue, it may be because it is actually referring to something weakly changeable such as “water, eyes, leaves, or honey.” Consequently, colors called blue sometimesweren’t. Guilt or honor by association was apparently the linguistic rule, and blue kept bad company. Pliny said that Breton women painted their bodies dark blue (if you say so) when they were about to engage in orgiastic rites (no kidding), therefore blue was a color of shame and to be shunned by the decent (good to know).
If color was an aspect of light (contrary to the Claude-Bernard camp), it had to be--like light--visible (a part of the world) and immaterial (an emissary from heaven). Improvements in stained glass seemed to solidify this union, as greens and yellows and reds streamed onto cathedral floors and rose up the sides of their columns. In the early 1100s, Abbot Sugar installed “painting, stained glass, enamel, fabric, gems, metalwork, and gilding” in his reconstructed abbey at Saint-Denis, uniting blue with gold “to evoke the splendor of creation” and encouraging envious imitation. Nothing was too good for the houses of God. Moreover, in many corners of Catholicism, money was coming in.
To rise in the church was to rise in the world. Blue’s increasingly important sacred status affected its secular one. Blue was no longer confined to commoners’ clothing. The blue perfected by the craftsmen at Saint-Denis showed up at Chartres and Sainte-Chapelle. The Virgin Mary began favoring it--even before the Lord’s light gave her divinity. By the time the 12th century had grown a beard, the Virgin’s blue robes had become an iconic requirement. During the Baroque period, gold became her fashion statement. After Pius IX promulgated the doctrine of Immaculate Conception in 1854, however, she was dressed in white again, as she often had been in the beginning. Nonetheless, Mary’s wardrobe had taken blue from its place in shadowy backgrounds and let it play among items not only instrumental to the Lord but designed for ordinary daily use.
Royalty, over time, and as a sign of its increasing importance, began to assume blue as its own--the French royal line leading the way with fleurs-de-lis in an azure field. Coats of arms increasingly included blue in their designs, dress codes were re-encrypted and the red or black knight that might confront a traveler on the other side of a bridge starts to yield--in stories--to a blue one. At first indeterminate, such armor eventually signified a resolute fidelity, but the faith beneath the metal was feudal, not religious.
As dyes improved, more and more monarchies succumbed to the charms of the new color, although the Germans and Italians were initially resistant. “By the end of the Middle Ages, even in Germany and Italy, blue had become the color of kings, princes, nobles, and patricians, while red remained the emblematic and symbolic color of Imperial power and the papacy.”
Appropriately the merchants of madder, the chief source of red dye, were soon in violent conflict with dealers in woad, a plant of the mustard family which was the main supplier of blue before indigo arrived from the Americas. In madder-making centers like Magdeburg, “hell was painted blue in frescoes in order to associate the rival color with death and pain.” Despite such underhanded tricks, by the end of the Middle Ages, woad had triumphed. Even so, no one then could possibly have imagined that IBM (Big Blue) would signify the final crowning of the color.
The manufacture of blue dyes from woad was complex and tedious. Among other steps, it required the use of clear clean water, and that put the dyers at odds with the tanners, whose need for purity was similar but whose tendency to contaminate was the dyers’ equal. The authorities eventually kicked them both out of town and made them pollute downriver.
Despite our problematic acquaintance with the Creator, we still knew his will. Among other things, we were not to mix what nature kept separate--not meaning fire and ice but blue and yellow, for example. Those whose work tended to mess with matter--painters, apothecaries, alchemists, blacksmiths, dyers--were warily eyed, as if their skills, however desirable, made them akin to the satanic. Pastoureau’s text moves us through one fascinating area of activity after another. In these homely practices, far from the so-called historic center of things, we can often comprehend, far more deeply than in grander precincts, a people’s cast of mind. The dyer’s craft was believed to require the union of “dead” minerals with “living” plants; so the dyer’s care for his tools and utensils, his methods of manufacture and conditions of work were driven as much by a concern over unnatural results as by profit and pride.
The subtle interaction of the chemistry of color with its social and political significance was sufficiently dynamic by the late Middle Ages to drive red from the throne and supplant its chromatic triad of white-red-black with black-white, blue-red, green-yellow. When black became the taste in formal clothes, it encouraged navy. Blue couldn’t lose. Similar changes were taking place in music and the other arts. Latin was losing ground. Moralizing was on the rise. The printing press was being inked.
Colors were used to mark marginal figures whose bright clothes gave fair warning that a usurer or a minstrel was approaching, a leper or a Jew; however, shades of blue were never so employed, rather red, green or yellow, alone or together, were used in such service. “Blue” is full of delicious lists: the striped clothing assigned to prostitutes in London, the yellow scarf worn by them in Venice (1487), green in Bologna (1456), their black cloaks in Milan (1498), their billowy green and yellow sleeves in Seville.
The Reformation was sour-eyed. The fact that we had to wear clothes at all was a sign of Adam’s fall, so if we called attention to our dress with any sort of embellishment or flamboyance, we were mocking the first sin itself. Black would do well to demonstrate its wearer’s humility. Life itself was a penance. Writing went in the same direction, adapting itself quite successfully to the new scientific spirit while dropping adornment and indulgences. A pale and prosy John Locke replaced the pithy rhetorical roll of Thomas Hobbes.
Policy devices designed to protect madder from woad (ranging from price supports to the pain of death) were attempted again in the 17th century to save woad from its competition with indigo, and the pathetic failures of such schemes offer us a lesson for our own times. In turn, indigo’s rule was over when chemists began creating colors like Prussian blue in tubes.
Goethe’s “Theory of Colors” placed blue at the active pole of his chromatic system, with yellow at the weak and colder end, but he had already wildly increased the social demand for blue by giving Werther, the romantic hero of his popular novel, a blue dress coat and a yellow vest that were widely copied. Unfortunately, in the grip of Werthermania, suicides among the lovelorn (who had “the blues”) also multiplied. The blue in flags and uniforms (which allowed the color to fight in literal wars), in jeans (a democratic garb which downplayed its own significance), as the Gauloise hue, even of the Earth from far away in a black sky: these examples bring Pastoureau’s history to an almost hurried close, since the focus of this book is on blue’s storied past and not on an anecdotal present.
The jacket, cover and end-papers of this luscious book are appropriately blue; its double-columned text breathes easily in the space of its pages; it is so well sewn it opens flat at any place; and fascinating, aptly chosen color plates, not confined to the title color, will please even those eyes denied the good luck of being blue. *
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825a21a9100991be129ba7d4b872dc7b | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-nov-15-me-4387-story.html | LeGrand Lewis Jordan, 100; CHP Officer, Motorcycle Designer | LeGrand Lewis Jordan, 100; CHP Officer, Motorcycle Designer
He acquired his first motorcycle in 1917. It didn’t have a motor, so he built one.
He joined the 70-man Los Angeles County Motor Patrol in 1930, ticketing anybody who drove faster than 45 mph--a speed few vehicles could even reach.
Two years later, when Los Angeles became the last county to dissolve its own force and accept the California Highway Patrol, he joined.
LeGrand Lewis Jordan, who patrolled the pre-freeway San Gabriel Valley for 26 years, cycled across the country numerous times just for fun and even created his own prototype motorcycle, has died. He was 100.
Jordan died Friday of heart failure after finishing dinner in his Malibu home, said his grandson, Randy Azarian.
Born in LaGrande, Ore., when William McKinley was president, Jordan moved 15 times in 15 years with his railroading father before the family settled in Los Angeles. Intrigued since early childhood by mechanics and how things worked, the boy developed his engineering talents during his student days at Polytechnic High School.
From that initially motorless motorcycle he got at 16, Jordan rode his way through the classics--a Monarch, a Cleveland, an Indian Scout--on the way to his favorite: a BMW.
Ultimately, he built his own: the Jordan, a shaft-driven, electric-starting, square-four-cylinder design that was 300 pounds lighter than the Harley-Davidsons he was riding for the CHP.
Jordan and his younger brother, Eugene, with whom he owned a car repair garage on South Figueroa Street, presented the prototype to the Army in 1937. Great idea, officials agreed, but they left it to Jordan to find his own funding to build more. In the Depression era, he was unable to do that.
So the Jordan Twin Crank Four prototype sits in pristine and unique glory, one of 20 classics in the Otis Chandler Motorcycle Gallery of the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles.
If its inventor never got rich, he did enjoy a long and interesting life as a pioneering motorcycle officer.
And in the hundreds of thousands of miles he rode for work and play, he had only one accident. It cost him two stitches in his scalp.
“I was chasing a speeder at 45 miles an hour through a business zone when a woman drove through a boulevard stop in front of me,” he told The Times when the mishap occurred in 1947. “But when you chase speeders, you have to do things--because it’s your job to do them--that you wouldn’t do as a sensible civilian driver.”
A stickler for safety, Jordan had a simple formula for safe motorcycle riding: “All you have to do is to keep in mind every single second while you are driving that you can’t trust anybody else’s driving.”
His service to the CHP ended when surgery for a slipped disc forced him to take early retirement in 1956.
“Those Harley-Davidson motorbikes we rode were the meanest monopoly on the face of the Earth; they had no springs, no shock absorbers,” he later told his grandson. “They were rigid mount until 1949, and they just beat your kidneys and back to death.”
To know Jordan was to ride behind him on the bike. He took his mother for a spin on her 75th birthday. He took older daughter Bette or younger daughter Gloria along on numerous cross-country jaunts, including one to the New York World’s Fair in 1939.
That fair-bound journey rated a story in the New York Times, which asked why he didn’t add a sidecar for his teenager’s greater comfort. “I wouldn’t have a sidecar on a motorcycle,” he was quoted. “When you have a sidecar you don’t have a motorcycle. You just have a contraption.”
During Jordan’s long retirement, his grandson said, he traveled extensively and continued repairing and rebuilding “every imaginable mechanical apparatus.” Among the perfectly restored treasures he left behind are a 1931 Ford Model A and a 1958 Volkswagen Beetle.
Jordan also helped promote the CHP magazine and helped found the Asphalt Arabs, an association of retired CHP officers.
Jordan’s wife of 67 years, Margaret, and their daughter, Bette, predeceased him. He is survived by a daughter, Gloria Azarian; brother, Eugene; sister, Jovita; and five grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
Graveside services will be private.
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a9bea0973bedad024a2ee53843f24414 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-nov-18-op-5541-story.html | The Unbearable Triteness of Oscar | The Unbearable Triteness of Oscar
Last Sunday, a collection of studio chiefs and other industry heavies met with representatives of the White House to deliberate a weighty question: How can the film community assist the nation in its time of crisis? Hollywood, by all accounts, was eager to help. But the closest they came to actual action was promising to rush first-run movies to the men and women at the front.
Here’s a more ambitious suggestion. Cancel the Oscars. Just this once. And replace it with something much better.
At first blush, almost no one will feel comfortable with the idea of retreating from our national March ritual. The Oscars have been thrice postponed--by floods in 1938, the Martin Luther King Jr. assassination in 1968 and the 1981 attempt on Ronald Reagan’s life--but never actually abandoned in their 74-year history. Moviedom’s natural reaction is to go on with the show, currently scheduled for March 24 at the newly built Kodak Theatre in Hollywood.
In a guest column for Variety, Frank Pierson, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, recently promised to do exactly that. “The world will see an American tradition continue,” wrote Pierson. “If we give in to fear ... the terrorists have won the war.”
If the issue were simply one of security, Pierson would be right--though none but a fool would underestimate the hideous difficulty of protecting an event that concentrates so much potential energy in one place. In “normal” circumstances, Oscar security is a nightmare. This time around, the task will be compounded by both the threat of terrorism and by a new setting, a 3,300-seat auditorium smack on the corner of Hollywood and Highland, in the middle of a brand-new shopping mall and a restless tourist district, and right on top of a Metro station.
But the argument for canceling has nothing to do with fear or homeland defense. On the contrary, to scratch the 74th Academy Awards ceremony could actually become a remarkable act of courage--if it were replaced, just once, by a celebration not of the year’s winners, but of the very best things film has shown us in its 100 years of existence.
The movie industry can’t help us through a national crisis with modern-day propaganda licks. Nor can it accomplish much by sending actors and actresses to the podium to deliver, as did the Emmy crowd, self-effacing declarations about the unimportance of their craft. We expect something more from this vast cultural engine. If the West and its culture are under attack, the Academy should tax its resources for some way (I won’t presume to do the staging for these master showmen) to deliver a grand reminder of the power and often-forgotten greatness within that culture. Make us feel how good we can be. Since we have no common spiritual heritage to bind us, let’s use film to light a path out of this morass.
Since Sept. 11, of course, the film industry has been something of a helpless giant, unable to connect with the surge of mixed emotions that have suddenly, and perhaps permanently, reoriented its audience. Stuck with a roster of costly pictures that have been two years or more in the making, the studios can do little but delay their riskier fare--when, exactly, will we be ready to laugh at Chris Rock chasing nuclear-armed Arab terrorists through Manhattan in Disney’s “Bad Company”?
It isn’t that movies haven’t played well since the World Trade Center fell. By and large, the box office has held up nicely, and at least one new film, Disney’s “Monsters, Inc.,” has proved to be a genuine blockbuster while “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” out this weekend, will undoubtedly hit big. But more than a few in Hollywood are bothered by a feeling that their craft--which ostensibly drives our popular culture--is weirdly divorced from the flow of events, both because of the long lead times required by the filmmaking process, and the industry’s strong tendency to shy away from relevance in favor of empty fantasies and sensations. Studio films have become nothing but sporting events. With occasional exceptions--say, the upcoming “Black Hawk Down,” about the U.S. Army’s catastrophic 1993 misadventure in Mogadishu--they have about as much bearing on real life as a Laker game.
For the Academy, a fraternity of Hollywood’s most accomplished artists, however, our unsought encounter with history offers a rare opportunity to provide that rarest of all commodities in the film business--genuine leadership.
To cancel out of respect for the dead would capture, for one powerful moment, the attention of a distracted world. Pierson might tell the inquiring media that he’s asked the Academy’s branches--actors, directors, writers, cinematographers and the rest--to think deeply about the implications of Sept. 11. Should there be changes, large or small, in their work going forward? Have they been too quick, in the past, to settle for the trivial or trade on cheap sensation? Having seen real heroism in action, can they do it justice in film? Could their choices be better? Their stories more human, more complex or more emotionally relevant? Having been attacked, as we are told, for our culture, can we do more to create a culture worth dying for?
On March 24, the show would point the way to that kind of filmmaking. Instead of an empty recitation of “bests,” the evening’s producers should reach deep into the archives for reminders of what film has been, and can still be--a humanizing, civilizing, binding force in a world suddenly threatening to atomize itself. For myself, I would like to see again the moment in “Lawrence of Arabia” that pits Eastern fatalism--"It is written,” says the Arab warrior--against Western openness: “Nothing is written,” counters Lawrence. Or, given the current mood in New York, how about a slice of Woody Allen’s grand tribute to the city, “Manhattan”? (I personally favor his bittersweet litany of reasons for living in spite of it all.) Let’s glimpse again the courage of Oskar Schindler, risking his life to save people not of his own faith, and the sheer, dogged persistence of those shell-shocked young Americans rising from their foxholes at the end of “Platoon.” The very best movies have lifted us far above the ordinary; let’s use March 24 to draw strength, solace and purpose from that work once again.
Some, of course, will find this a silly proposition. But the alternative is to proceed with an awards season that feels worse than silly at a time when a bright red line has been drawn through the middle of our national life. So, let’s give it up, in a big way, in order to make it better the next time around.
Granted, to scratch might cost the Academy dearly in the short term: It would be a gamble to see whether sponsors would be willing to pony up at the same level for a very different show, and roughly 95% of the Academy’s annual budget comes from the approximately $46 million it takes in from the Oscars. And this year’s contenders would go home without their shot at the gold.
But a proper cancellation might be worth the price, if it gets us past the flag-waving, and puts us back in touch with the awesome depths of our own national culture.
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0f3276f72fd8cc29343e4066a4c56351 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-nov-19-mn-5806-story.html | Dying a Way of Life for Civilians in Afghanistan | Dying a Way of Life for Civilians in Afghanistan
That civilians must die as the price of war is a given here. Except for those directly affected, people just shrug about the casualties.
Kodir and his neighbor, Abdul Khalik, placed their hands about two feet above the ground to show the height of some of the children who died Saturday night when U.S. bombs fell on their village, Chorikori.
Among those who were buried that night were two entire families, one of 16 members and the other of 14, who lived, and perished, together in the same house.
“There are no fighters there, only peaceful civilians,” said Kodir, 35, one of scores of refugees fleeing the fighting near the northern city of Kunduz, one of the Taliban’s last holdouts. “We’re fed up with this bombing. Let them bomb fighters but not innocent people.”
Farther down the road, Abdul Malik, 42, took the opposite view.
“I was always against the Taliban. They destroyed our country. They destroyed our schools. They destroyed everything,” he said.
The bombing, he concluded, is a good thing. No matter that some civilians died, the main thing was that many more Taliban must have been killed.
“The Americans were bombing very heavily last night. It’s a good thing that they’re killing the Taliban. Naturally, some peaceful people were killed. I think about 100 peaceful people died last night,” he said, without emotion.
Anti-Taliban forces have declared victory across much of Afghanistan, but the war that persists in this northern pocket continues to claim civilian lives. Refugees along the road from the front-line town of Khanabad east to Taloqan gave consistent reports Sunday of dozens of civilian casualties in several villages.
“A lot of people died. Only peaceful people died,” said Shiringil, a 50-year-old refugee woman with 10 children, who joined the trek.
For much of the war, U.S. bombs had fallen on Taliban-controlled territory that was not readily accessible to journalists who could observe and report on casualties. The Pentagon says it is not targeting civilians but has acknowledged bombing mistakes that damaged a Red Cross compound and residential areas in recent weeks.
Kunduz and the surrounding province, a strongly pro-Taliban area, is one of the last areas where the Taliban had refused to give in despite heavy U.S. bombing. On Sunday, there were reports that the fighters were trying to strike a deal to surrender, but they attached conditions that were unacceptable to the Northern Alliance.
Kodir said there were many Taliban troops in the area. “They didn’t touch anyone,” he said, as he walked toward safety with his 1-year-old daughter, Zuhal, on his back. “They offended no one.” Having just crossed from Taliban territory to Northern Alliance country, he did not want to say which side he supported, if either.
The town of Taloqan fell to the Northern Alliance about a week ago without a fight. Two days later Northern Alliance fighters advanced toward Kunduz, expecting a similar surrender, and walked into a wall of gunfire, which cost them dozens of lives.
Gen. Kadamshoh, 36, perched atop a hill surveying the front line, claimed that 60,000 Northern Alliance troops surrounded the estimated 20,000 Taliban fighters in the area--figures that could not be verified.
Among those trapped, he said, were two Taliban commanders from distant Kandahar, in southern Afghanistan, who had traveled north to fight and had then been swept toward Kunduz in the recent Northern Alliance advances.
There is a tense standoff on the ground now, while U.S. assaults from the air grow more intense.
The bomb strikes that began Saturday sent people fleeing Khanabad, said refugee Mohammad Rasul, 18.
“We ourselves buried 11 people. We pulled them out of the ruins, and we buried them,” he said Sunday, explaining that they were neighbors whose house was hit by bombs. “About 100 people were killed yesterday and today.” In Afghanistan, estimates of numbers and people’s ages are often off target.
Faziljan, 28, leading a unit of alliance fighters near the front, shrugged at the claims of civilian casualties.
“It’s usual for 20 or 30 or 40 people to die in battle. It happens,” he said.
One group of people from a Taliban-occupied village in the area had to sleep in the hills Saturday night after bombing prevented them from returning to their homes. Sakhi, 12, and Piruz, 10, were both at school when the bombing started. One of the men, Mohammed Murod, 36, feared for the safety of his family.
To hide from the U.S. bombs, the Taliban fighters take over houses and mosques, driving out their inhabitants, according to refugees from the Taliban-held area near Kunduz. They also smear their armored vehicles, trucks and vans with mud to provide camouflage in the dun-colored landscape.
“They come into houses and terrorize people. When they see planes preparing to deliver bomb strikes, they hide in people’s houses,” Murod said. “They chase people out and shelter there, and then they go back to the front line.”
In radio contact with the Northern Alliance, the Taliban remained defiant, said Faziljan, the alliance commander.
“They say the American airstrikes didn’t affect them at all,” he said. “They say, ‘You’re infidels, you’re not real Muslims. You bring the Americans to kill other Muslims.’ ”
Alliance fighters who joined refugees along the road from Khanabad to Taloqan triumphantly bore a trophy of war. It was a human being, Ali Rizo, 22, from Lahore, Pakistan, who came to Afghanistan two months ago to fight.
He told them he was duped: He thought he was going to Kashmir, the disputed territory along his country’s border with India.
He knows he is in a terrible spot. He has no translator, but it’s written in his face. He knows his captors could shoot him at any time.
“He is very dangerous. He’s a good fighter,” said Hamid, 20, one of the men leading Rizo along the road.
Five other Pakistanis were killed in a battle in the village of Gulbulogh, in the Kunduz area, five days ago, the fighters said.
Rizo was taken prisoner, with the aim of displaying him to passing journalists.
One of the fighters leading him was Mullah Fazil, 28.
Fazil demanded money for the interview and was crestfallen at a refusal.
If there was no profit in taking prisoners, then what was the point?
“The next time we won’t bother. We’ll just shoot them on the spot,” he said.
In the background, Rizo leaned against a car, waiting for the conversation to end, his head buried in his hands.
Glancing up, his eyes were filled with fear.
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488b9cebc000f187fffec28d48b09c3b | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-nov-23-mn-7475-story.html | Female Citadel Graduate Recounts Tough Times | Female Citadel Graduate Recounts Tough Times
Two years after becoming the first woman to graduate from the Citadel, Nancy Mace is still an object of scorn from those who believe the military college should never have opened its gates to women.
“I usually don’t get the hissing, but sometimes I get the looks, stares, glares and comments and the occasional holler,” said Mace, whose book, “In the Company of Men,” was published this month.
The volume, subtitled “A Woman at the Citadel,” recounts Mace’s life at the college, emphasizing her first year as a cadet. Mace was one of the first four women to enroll at the state college after it dropped its all-male admissions policy in 1996.
Pat Conroy--whose novel, “The Lords of Discipline,” is a thinly veiled account of his experiences at the Citadel in the 1960s--calls Mace’s book “a wonderful, timeless memoir of the great test to become the first female graduate.”
He also calls it “a love letter to her college and the best book about the Citadel ever written.”
Mace, who wrote the book with writer Mary Jane Ross, draws on the journals she kept as a cadet.
She describes Hell Night in which freshmen, called knobs because of their short haircuts, assemble in the dark and get their first taste of the college’s Fourth Class System--upperclassmen screaming rapid-fire commands in the dark that are all but impossible to carry out.
She tells of the animosity of some alumni, including one who, always reeking of alcohol, would single her out at football games. Mace says he wiped his muddy soles on her spit-shined leather shoes, whispered obscenities and said she was “ruining his school.”
“I would sit at attention while he whispered, my cheeks burning, my eyes smarting with tears as nausea rose and nearly overpowered me,” Mace wrote.
Much of the animosity came from women, some of whom walked next to Mace’s unit as it marched to the campus stadium calling her obscene names and accusing her of wrecking the college.
Mace’s book also touches on the two female cadets who dropped out after their first semester amid allegations of abuse.
“It’s not the primary theme,” Mace says. “I was in a completely separate company from the other women and my goal was to blend in with my classmates.”
Mace says the book, being marketed by Simon & Schuster’s young adult division, is for both young people and adults.
“It’s written in the voice of an 18-year-old, therefore teenagers will be able to relate to it pretty well,” she says.
Through the book, Mace’s words reflect a love-hate relationship with the college. One minute she writes how she despises some of the cadets and the environment, the next how much she loves the place.
A love affair describes the book perfectly, says Mace, who says writing put into perspective why she enrolled.
“I always said before I wanted to go to the Citadel because of the discipline, the challenge and the structure,” she says. “But when I went back to my journals, I saw it. I realized I went there to make my father proud--to make both my parents proud.”
Mace’s father, Emory Mace, a retired brigadier general who was brought in as commandant of cadets during her second semester, is the college’s most-decorated living graduate.
She writes that when her father, whom she had never seen cry, handed her diploma to her at graduation, there were tears in his eyes.
Mace, who is now married to another Citadel graduate, recently resigned a position as a management consultant.
She’s now doing promotion and book signings and working as a substitute teacher in the Ft. Benning, Ga., school system.
As for the future, she’s thinking about graduate school, although she’s not sure what she will study.
“I enjoy speaking and public relations and writing,” she says. “I could see teaching at a college. There are so many opportunities.”
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c7027fafd2d33f3539725a6f77e7bc75 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-oct-02-ca-52218-story.html | Cultural Evolution in ‘Freestyle’ | Cultural Evolution in ‘Freestyle’
Ayear ago, the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, launched a nationally touring exhibition titled “Ultrabaroque: Aspects of Post-Latin American Art.” (Currently it’s on view at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.) The thesis of this savvy and absorbing show is that established multicultural ideas about Latin American identity as represented in art no longer hold. Today, a “post-Latin American art” is being forged in Mexico, Colombia, Brazil and elsewhere, including regions of the United States where concentrations of artists born in Latin America live and work.
Now comes an exhibition called “Freestyle,” which suggests a not dissimilar evolution evident in the recent work of many African American artists. Organized by the Studio Museum in Harlem, where it had its debut in April, the show opened Friday at the Santa Monica Museum of Art. Like its forebear, “Freestyle” also offers an engaging, provocative array of painting, sculpture, video and other work from the last two years, which is proposed as embodying a conception of “post-black art.”
Eric Wesley’s sculpture “Mall” is emblematic. It shows a pile of studio detritus atop a rickety table. Paint cans, videocassettes, fast-food wrappers, art theory books, brushes, beer cans, a phone directory, reams of drawing paper--everything in the pile has been made by the artist from painted cardboard. Look closely at the mountain of stuff and soon you’ll discover tiny little figures of men and women clustered here and there. They clamber over the giant heap of studio leftovers, gawking and pointing like tourists at Mt. Rushmore or archeologists at an exceptionally rich dig.
Wesley’s painted cardboard props cleverly expand on the 1960s Pop sculpture of Claes Oldenburg, made a decade before Wesley was born, while the little white figures recall those that populate the psychologically destabilizing installations of Ilya Kabakov, the Russian artist whose celebrated work of the 1980s and 1990s chronicles Cold War repression and flights of imaginative escape.
“Mall” conveys the peculiar sense of an artist’s situation in mass culture now, as his work and life are picked over by the swelling horde of curious observers, both amateur and professional. The title links the suburban world of pop consumption with the experience of being bruised and mangled--of being mauled.
“Mall” is not post-black art because it excludes issues of racial identity. On the contrary, it can’t be coincidence that in the pile of Wesley’s stuff the brand of beer is Carta Blanca, a can of white paint is prominent, the swarm of little gawking figures is all white and so on. Instead, the sophisticated sculpture addresses the situation of artists in the world today, as well as the situation of black artists in an art world that is largely white. Complex issues of artistic identity and racial identity commingle yet remain separate.
The show includes 64 works by 28 artists, most from New York and California. The artists are young--average age 32--and thus they matured after the civil rights movement. Like most worthwhile younger artists, the best of them evince an ambiguous love-hate relationship with the artistic generations that preceded them.
In a way, post-black art (like post-Latin American art) is fulfilling a promise that multiculturalism sought but didn’t deliver. In the 1980s and early 1990s, multiculturalism worked hard at unraveling the essentialist myths of earlier generations, which claimed that certain artistic forms were inherent within different ethnic and gender communities. In the process, though, multiculturalism often seemed to get stuck on surprisingly conservative ideas of identity.
Cultural signifiers characteristic of different groups were cataloged and deconstructed, but they were also often guarded and deployed as a means of maintaining separatist social differences. By contrast, the artists in “Freestyle” typically take a richer, more ambiguous, even sometimes a playful view.
Kojo Griffin’s assured drawings and John Bankston’s graphic paintings both employ jaunty techniques of children’s book illustration to create disturbing adult narratives. Susan Smith-Pinelo’s self-portrait video, “Sometimes,” focuses not on her face but on her ample cleavage, which bounces along to a Michael Jackson song in a manner that identifies the objectification of women in hip-hop culture while also insisting that, sometimes, being a sex object is fun.
Like a movie of Fred Astaire exploding into dance in a public place, Dave McKenzie’s video shows the artist launching into a dance at the entrance to an all-night convenience store. The time and place gives his exuberant movements an edge of combative danger, while they yield the look of a surveillance tape to the video.
Hair, in addition to music and dance, is another familiar African American cultural signifier that’s frequently encountered in the show. Nadine Robinson’s wall covered with flowing black hair extensions is part Pop art masquerade and part meditative monochrome in the tradition of Rauschenberg and Reinhardt.
Mark Bradford’s acrylic washes over canvases covered with permanent wave end-papers and Kori Newkirk’s use of artificial hair, pony beads and perfumed pomade both put the communal, black-is-beautiful language of the beauty parlor and the barber shop to unexpected ends.
Photography in the exhibition is generally weak or conventional, but video is generally strong. In addition to McKenzie’s dance, the short, abstract, erotic narratives by Clifford Owens and Rico Gaston’s transformative recycling of racist scenes from the movie “King Kong,” which he filters through a kaleidoscopic lens, stand out. And while the show might have been even more satisfying with more examples by half as many individuals, which would allow for these mostly unfamiliar young artists to be considered in some depth, the wide range of work on view is impressive.
None of the pieces is more impressive than the two subtle and complex sculptures by Wesley, who also left an unusually strong imprint last June in “Snapshot,” the UCLA Hammer Museum’s survey of younger L.A. artists. (Wesley, 28, graduated from UCLA in 1997.) His second work in “Freestyle” is quirky and mesmerizing.
Three holes appear to have been punched or kicked all the way through a white freestanding gallery wall, below waist level and seemingly at random. So far the sculpture repeats a rather conventional metaphor, familiar from such precedents as the work of Chris Burden and Liz Larner: The damage exposes the hidden structure that supports the art museum.
A few moments pass, however, before you notice something exceedingly odd: The torn and jagged shapes of all three holes are virtually identical--right down to the last detail. The contours of the holes on one side of the wall loosely suggest a map of Africa; on the other side, where they appear to have been punched through, they seem nonrepresentational.
Wesley’s holes were in fact not randomly produced at all. Instead, they’re the what’s left in the center by sculptural casts he made of tattered drywall, which he then patched into the surrounding gallery wall. The cast, repeated three times, creates an insistent pattern.
It’s a positive form whose function here is to articulate a negative space. What’s missing from the established gallery structure suddenly becomes palpable--an uncanny volume of emptiness you can feel. Indeed, you take that tattered fragment of emptiness with you when you leave the museum, and it’s a sense of loss not easily forgotten.
*
“Freestyle,” Santa Monica Museum of Art, Bergamot Station, 2525 Michigan Ave., (310) 586-6488, through Nov. 18. Closed Monday.
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5eab6a2903801bcb9b5ecae4486bbc1f | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-oct-02-me-52197-story.html | Be Careful What Gets Stifled | Be Careful What Gets Stifled
After last month’s terrorism, Dan Guthrie, a columnist for the Grants Pass (Ore.) Daily Courier, accused President Bush of “hiding in a Nebraska hole” instead of immediately returning to Washington. Guthrie’s publisher fired him.
In a column for the Texas City (Texas) Sun, Tom Gutting wrote that Bush “was flying around the country like a scared child seeking refuge in his mother’s bed after having a nightmare.” Gutting too was canned.
Talk show host Bill Maher got into hot water by saying that the hijackers were not cowardly but that the United States was, for launching cruise missiles at far-off targets. Some sponsors of Maher’s show abruptly peeled away.
Ari Fleischer, the White House press secretary, denounced Maher, ominously warning that in times like these, “people have to watch what they say and watch what they do.” Earlier, it was Fleischer who, in reaction to criticism of how long it took Bush to get back to Washington on Sept. 11, announced that Air Force One had been threatened by terrorists--apparently a lie.
If this nation is indeed at war, this time we’re not fighting to defend oil supplies or human rights abroad. This time, we’re fighting to defend our democracy and the principles embodied in our Constitution. Foremost among those is the extraordinary freedom that Americans have to say what they think. That liberty set this nation apart 200 years ago and has allowed it to endure. Without it, as Idaho’s William Borah told his Senate colleagues in 1917, “it makes no difference under what form of government you live, you are a subject, not a citizen.”
Advertisers and publishers have a right to express themselves via their checkbooks. But now is not the time to limit debate. This nation is in for a long struggle against deadly foes. The freedom to speak one’s mind about how the government is waging that battle must not become a casualty.
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