The beach access app ... the nuclear engineer who built the fallout shelter ... where do you find respite? ... Frank Romero - founding father of Chicano art - now lives half-time in France ...
PHOTOS: The nuclear engineer who built last week's fallout shelter
Last week on Off-Ramp, we told you about a "pristine" 1960's backyard fallout shelter in Woodland Hills. Turns out, it wasn't quite as pristine as we advertised. Yes, it was full of many of the items its builder stocked it with, from tranquilizers to toilet paper to army blankets.
But last week, I got this email:
That house in Woodland Hills was my childhood home. I grew up in that house and my father built the bomb shelter. We used to have Bomb drills when I was a kid. I just sold my childhood home to the Otcasek's about six months ago. If you want the real story on that bomb shelter, I'm the one who's got it.
How could I resist?!
I met Debra Kaufman at the house Wednesday and interviewed her in the dining room. She brought a bag of stuff she understandably cleared out of the shelter, which I photographed. But more importantly, she brought the story of the man who built the shelter, her father Alvin B. Kaufman.
Kaufman (1917-2004), was a man of many parts. Debra describes her dad as an autodidact who held his own as a nuclear engineer with men with far more formal training. One of his areas of expertise as a nuclear engineer for Litton Industries was to determine the effect of a nuclear blast on equipment. Of course this means he well knew its effect on humans, so it's no wonder he built a shelter in the backyard of his home.
But in an interesting twist on what we had previously speculated about the shelter and its potential effect on the neighborhood in case of nuclear war, it turns out Alvin proposed to his neighbors in the cul-de-sac that they build a shelter big enough for the whole neighborhood. Deb says he was rejected, so he made one for the family.
PHOTOS: Pioneering Chicano artist Frank Romero now spends half the year in the South of France
Almost 40 years ago, with his compatriots in the art collective Los Four, Frank Romero became the first Chicano artist to show at LACMA. In fact, it was the first Chicano art show in any big American museum. With his broad brush strokes and bright colors, Romero has continued to document life in LA -- the cars, the freeways, the tragedies -- on murals and smaller canvases.
For years, Romero lived and worked in the working-class Frogtown neighborhood by the LA River, but for the past eight years now, he's been spending more and more time in France, inspired by Diego Rivera's autobiography, other painters' works, and his French-speaking wife Sharon.
For seven months of the year, they live in a narrow but spacious home in the hilltop village of Mirmande in Southeastern France - population 486 - with a breathtaking view of the Rhone and the Valley of the Ardeche.
Here, instead of low-riders, he paints Citroen cars. He paints the horses in the fields. The flowers and the fruit. The light, he says, is very much like Northern California, and, he says, once the sun starts coming out (it's been a gray spring), he feels a rebirth coming on.
"It's a new opportunity to express myself," he says. "And yeah, I've spent my life developing a Chicano sensibility, with Los Four, and developed a style you could call Chicano. I thought I'd take that to a different environment."
Has his painting changed, I ask?
"In subtle ways," he says, but can't give me an example. "No, because I just started painting again. I'm experiencing a lot of things I enjoyed doing in the past, but they're put together in a new way, and what happens this summer when the sun comes out ... I think you'll see a whole new aspect of my work."
By the way, Frank, now in his 70s and battling the diabetes that runs in his family, says the combination of the walking required in a hillside village, the good food and wine, and a new drug, is keeping the disease in check, and his blood sugar levels are almost normal.
In 'I Remember Me,' Carl Reiner looks back at life full of laughs
Television was in its infancy and Carl Reiner was just a kid himself when he began working both sides of the camera on the groundbreaking "Your Show of Shows" in 1954. Later, he created "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and played straight man to the 2,000-year-old Mel Brooks in a comedy classic.
At 91, Reiner is the master of comedy. He says he can't help himself — everything just seems to come out funny.
His new book "I Remember Me" offers up several hundred pages of his wit, and, in the ebook version, his home movies with his family, his beloved wife Estelle and his friend of more than 60 years, Mel Brooks.
Patt Morrison shared coffee, laughs and some memories with Carl Reiner in his breakfast room.
Update: Malibu Beach app meets Kickstarter goal to reveal access to hidden public beaches
UPDATE May 30: The Kickstarter to fund a Malibu Beach app helping visitors find hidden public beaches has met its goal. At press time, it's over $1,000 over its $30,000 goal, with five hours to go.
Previously: It's been an open secret for a while now — almost six years since we first talked with writer, historian and activist Jenny Price — the pristine 20+ miles of private-looking beaches along Malibu are actually very public. You're free to go there right now, if you want. But what's the best way to get there? And how do you find the often-intentionally hidden gates? Which "no parking" signs are you free to ignore?
Thankfully, there's an app for that. Or, better said: there will be one this summer. Our Malibu Beaches is the product of a collaboration between Price and Escape Apps. It promises to guide beachgoers safely and legally to miles of coveted Malibu coastline with the swipe of a finger.
Here's how it will work: "You can either pick from a list of beaches or just tap the map," said Price. The best part? "It'll tell you where the access way is, which is actually really hard to find," she said. Plus, there's a house-by-house rundown of where there is significant dry sand to play volleyball or just lay out.
RELATED: The beach app Malibu residents really don't want you to have
John Rabe talked with Jenny Price about not just the app, but also her many clashes with homeowners, security guards and government officials in her long battle to ease access to California's coast to the public.
Interview Highlights:
On her family's legacy of fighting for rights:
"I grew up in this '60s household that was very political. I'd say there's two things from my family that are probably the foundation of this app. One is that I'm the youngest of four children with three older brothers; anybody who's in that position in the family has a really strong sense of justice. Also my parents defended people on the black list during the McCarthy Era; my mom founded the fair housing movement in St. Louis to try to desegregate neighborhoods."
On her work to get governments to open beach access:
"There is a beach way out in western Malibu. It's a beautiful beach, and the county has owned it since 1974, and they still haven't opened it up. It's actually part of a great L.A. county tradition of holding on to and taking charge. They have miles of public beaches in Malibu that they have not opened up. It's very frustrating and this one is probably the jewel of all those. There's this little place that you can go to where you can look over the fence - we call it the disney overlook and drool over our beach.
I find it frustrating when private homeowners block public access, but when it's the public agencies who are creating the barriers to public access I have to be honest I find that even more frustrating."
On making a statement:
"I don't see the app as being a statement; it's not trying to cause conflict. It's really trying to say: we have these great public beaches—let's come and use them."
Best of the Wurst - Sausages with Eat-LA
In another installment of our partnership with Eat-LA, host John Rabe and Eat-LA's Linda Burum visit Continental Gourmet Sausage Company in Glendale, and talk about other resources for the the best sausages in LA ... from German to Polish to Creole.
(The secret ingredients. Credit: John Rabe)
Linda Burum’s Sausage Hot List
German - Continental Gourmet Sausages (6406 San Fernando Road., Glendale 91201, 818-502-1447)
Argentine - Alex Meat Market, Carniceria Argentina (11740 Victory Blvd., North Hollywood, 91606, 818-762-9977)
Salvadoran - La Chiquita Market (19239 Roscoe, Northridge/Reseda 91324, 818-701-5005)
Polish - J & T Gourmet (1128 Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica, 90401, 310-394-7227)
Armenian - Garo’s Basturma (1082-1088 N. Allen Ave., Pasadena, 91104, 818-794-0460)
Creole - Pete’s Louisiana Brand Beef Hot Links (307 W. Jefferson Blvd., L.A. 90016, 323-735-7470)
(Workers on the production floor of Continental Sausage. Credit: John Rabe)