Take a listen to some of these fine pieces that took you all over Southern California and then, please, help ensure the future of Off-Ramp with a contribution at kpcc.org. Thanks!
Goodbye, Columbus Day. Hello #ColumboDay!
It's Columbus Day, honoring, as anthropologist Jack Weatherford puts it, the man "who opened the Atlantic slave trade and launched one of the greatest waves of genocide known in history:"
Autumn would hardly be complete in any elementary school without construction-paper replicas of the three cute ships that Columbus sailed to America, or without drawings of Queen Isabella pawning her jewels to finance Columbus' trip.
This myth of the pawned jewels obscures the true and more sinister story of how Columbus financed his trip. The Spanish monarch invested in his excursion, but only on the condition that Columbus would repay this investment with profit by bringing back gold, spices, and other tribute from Asia. This pressing need to repay his debt underlies the frantic tone of Columbus' diaries as he raced from one Caribbean island to the next, stealing anything of value.
After he failed to contact the emperor of China, the traders of India or the merchants of Japan, Columbus decided to pay for his voyage in the one important commodity he had found in ample supply - human lives. He seized 1,200 Taino Indians from the island of Hispaniola, crammed as many onto his ships as would fit and sent them to Spain, where they were paraded naked through the streets of Seville and sold as slaves in 1495. Columbus tore children from their parents, husbands from wives. On board Columbus' slave ships, hundreds died; the sailors tossed the Indian bodies into the Atlantic.
-- Anthropologist Jack Weatherford, Macalaster College
So instead of Columbus, let's honor Columbo!
Here's my 2010 interview with William Link, co-creator of "Columbo," along with "Mannix" and "Murder, She Wrote." Link explains how he and his partner came up with the idea of Columbo, and why they didn't approach it as a "whodunit."
Sole survivor of 1971 Sylmar tunnel collapse tells his story
Angelenos — natives or transplants — learn about the big disasters as a matter of course: the Northridge Earthquake, the 1993 Malibu wildfire, the bursting of the St. Francis Dam. But the lore usually doesn't include one of the nation's worst industrial accidents: the 1971 tunnel collapse that killed 17 men. And it should.
The story starts near the corner of Fenton and Maclay in Sylmar. Here, there's a giant pit with a tall concrete wall at one end. That's the start of a Metropolitan Water District tunnel that was to bring water from Lake Castaic, and it's the emergency operation staging ground for the photos in our slideshow.
On June 23, 1971, miners hit a pocket of methane five miles into the tunnel. A few were injured by a small explosion, but work wasn't stopped. Instead, according to Ralph Brissette, they decided to try to dilute the methane by pumping in regular air.
"And I guess it didn't work," Brissette says.
He should know. The methane exploded when work resumed the next day, killing all of his coworkers: 15 miners, one electrician and an inspector. Brissette says he was apparently shielded from the blast by the radiator of the train used to transport men and materials to the job site.
"I was working as a 'brakey,' a person who rides the locomotive back and forth in case there's a derailment," Brissette recalls. "It was really cool then, and [for heat] I was standing on the front of the locomotive near the radiator, and all of a sudden there was an explosion. It was a hell of a blast. I guess I lost consciousness." He was stuck in the tunnel for seven hours.
Lockheed, the tunnel contractor, was found guilty in criminal and civil court and forced to pay almost $10 million.
READ THE CASE: People v. Lockheed Shipbuilding & Constr. Co.
The disaster, the worst tunnel disaster ever in California, also brought about the stiffest safety regulations in the country.
But it wasn't until 2013 that the MWD erected a memorial to the 17 victims. Peter Rosenwald, a librarian, community activist and friend of Brissette, says, "I first heard of [the disaster] in 2011. I was talking to Ralph. and he told me about the incident. I said, 'Was there ever a memorial?' And he said, 'No'. And I said, 'Let's try to work on it.'"
(Ralph Brissette at the dedication of the memorial to his fallen co-workers. Image: Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.)
Brissette doesn't know what to make of the fact that he survived when his friends didn't — men like miner Danny Blaylock, with whom he'd go hunting for deer and rabbit. "Out here in the Valley. We were close. Very close ... family," he says.
New Los Angeles poet laureate Luis J. Rodriguez: ‘My refuge was the public library'
Writer Luis J. Rodriguez has done time in jail. He's been homeless and a member of a gang. But Rodriguez has also published 15 books and run for California governor.
Now he's Los Angeles's second poet laureate.
RELATED: Frank O'Hara's lunch poems turn 50
For Mayor Eric Garcetti, Rodriguez was the clear choice for the job. "Luis Rodriguez is the embodiment of Los Angeles. Our struggles, our challenges. Our successes and our triumphs," Garcetti said.
During his acceptance speech, Rodriguez shared his difficult past and some of his first experiences with the library:
"At 15, I dropped out of school, got kicked out of the house, and briefly ended up homeless, mostly in downtown L.A. I slept in abandoned cars, alongside the L.A. river, church pews, behind dumpsters, in shuttered warehouse buildings. My refuge was the central public library, where I'd go during the day and spend hours reading books. I loved books."
Now, with five grandchildren, a great-grandson and a successful career both as a writer and activist, Rodriguez finds himself back at the place that inspired him all those years ago.
"Full circle, here I am. At that same Central Library, standing before you as the city's poet laureate," Rodriguez said. "I'm apparently going to have an office here as well."
Rodriguez calls poetry his "deep soul-talk," a "transformative energy" he hopes to foster in L.A. How does he feel about his new job?
"It's destiny. I don't know how else to explain it," Rodriguez said.
The "Extra Audio" on this page is Rodriguez reading from his "Love Letter to Los Angeles" at the announcement.
Sorry, but a magic unicorn won't make your pledge for you
One of the big problems we have in public radio is that our normally logical listeners throw all logic aside when it comes to our pledge drives. They pay their taxes, they pay their cable bills, they pay for groceries and make their mortgage. But when it comes to paying for public radio, they think a magic unicorn will take care of everything.
Luckily, we have a magic unicorn. It's a new desktop toy called Ask the Unicorn. You ask a question and push the button, and it answers. Listen to find out what happened when Take Two producer/director Stephen Hoffman played the role of a hapless listener trying to use magical thinking during the Fall Fundraiser.
And then give now please to keep KPCC wild and free, just like a beautiful unicorn.
Who is killing the peacocks of Rolling Hills Estates?
Someone is killing the peafowl of Rolling Hills Estates.
To so many people, Rolling Hills Estates is paradise. Its borders roll along the hills of the Palos Verdes Peninsula in a part of the South Bay dotted with golf courses, gourmet markets and pristine ocean views.
"It's known as an equestrian community. We have about 26 miles of horse trails in the city," said Judith Mitchell, the city's mayor. "It's a great place for families and a great place to raise children. We have a very good school system on the peninsula. Lots of open space."
Families show off their last names over their mailboxes in big, carved wood letters. There's a real-life general store. At city hall, you'll find not one, but two places to tie up your horse on the way to a city council meeting.
But among the 8,000 residents, the backyard chickens and the horse stables are hundreds of Indian peafowl — also known as peacocks and peahens. They roost in the trees, roam the canyons and fields, rest in backyards.
The peafowl arrived here in the early 20th century, brought to the estate of Mr. Frank Vanderlip — a banker and former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and one of the peninsula's first developers. His original 16 birds grew into the flocks that dot the Palos Verdes Peninsula.
So who is killing these birds?
A multicolored murder mystery
In the last two years, at least 50 birds have been found dead. Some were hit by cars. Others were poisoned. Still more were shot by pellet guns or arrows.
Leading up an investigation into the killings is Lt. Cesar Perea, a humane officer with the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals L.A., or spcaLA. I met him at the end of Buckskin Lane, where many of the dead birds have been found. Perea said that to him, the ones killed by arrow and pellet stand out most.
"It really shows a high level of violence in the person that's doing it," he said. "Just based on the arrows that were found — the trajectory and the type of weapon that was used — these people are walking right to the animal and shooting it at point blank range."
Why are so many dying? And who's doing it? We don’t know. The poisonings and car collisions could be accidental. The arrows and pellets aren't, but investigators haven't found a suspect. If they're caught, the killer could face up to three years in prison.
The deaths have brought into sharp focus what many residents call the single most divisive issue in parts of Rolling Hills Estates: The peafowl question.
Eric Vander Ploeg, the vice president of the Dapplegray Lane Property Owners Association, said its an issue that comes up at every DLPOA meeting.
"It's not really an issue of if people like them or don't — 'cause most of them like them," he said. "It's how many there are."
Vander Ploeg said the DLPOA performed a survey recently to find out what to do about the peafowl in the area — the survey came back evenly divided.
Some residents say the peafowl are noisy. They eat plants. If they see their reflection in a shiny BMW, they'll mistake it for an another bird and attack, damaging the car.
Cheryl Rajewski has lived here for 15 years. When she first moved in, she said, the peafowl were an adjustment.
"They squawk. They poo. They stand on your car. They run on [the] roof where it sounds like it's a human being," she said. "But they are here, and still — 10 years later — I'm living here, and I'll drive home and I'll see this beautiful bird just sitting in your garden, with its gorgeous feathers. It's like, 'Wow, this is really special.'"
A love/hate relationship
To Mayor Judith Mitchell, the peafowl are a galvanizing force in the communities where they live: Residents either love them or hate them. "As long as I've been in city government, it seems like we've been dealing with this issue," she said.
For years, the people in peafowl territory have been in a stalemate. The city has passed ordinances protecting the birds from being removed and relocated. There are some measures the city and community could take — like training the birds to stay off roofs, or relocating some of the population. But nothing of the sort's happened so far.
In 2005, the city of Rolling Hills Estates hired researcher Francine Bradley and an assistant to take a census of the peafowl. They counted 218 at the time, a number Bradley said has certainly gone up.
Bradley also warned residents that if nothing was done about the population, killings like this would be inevitable.
"Just as ... on golf courses, where waterfowl populations are allowed to increase, you get the situation of the golfer who misses the putt because the ball hits a pile of goose droppings," she said. "And then the golfer rips a driver out of the bag and goes after the goose. It's certainly not justified, but I can understand people's frustration."
Without a culprit caught, without the population put in check or their behavior curbed, life will go on. The peafowl will roost in trees. They will scratch cars. They will walk on roofs. And, on some morning, maybe on Buckskin Lane again, the sun will rise on another dead bird.
World's most traveled gather for the Travelers' Century Club
Most people only talk or dream of visiting other countries. But members of the Travelers' Century Club (TCC) have visited hundreds of countries.
Bert Hemphill founded this exclusive social club sixty years ago in the L.A. offices of his travel service. Known as the "Dean of Travel," he wanted to give explorers a place to swap stories and knowledge. The only qualification? Members must have visited one hundred or more countries.
Event planner Elisa Kotin gave a presentation at a recent meeting for the L.A. chapter. She's traveled for over twenty-five years and visited eighty-two countries, making her a provisional member.
"I remember thinking when I heard about Travelers' Century Club, 'How fascinating would it be to go to a luncheon and sit at a table with nine other people who had been to over one hundred countries each?'" Kotin says. "Where else are you going to get that kind of global knowledge with people that are so involved in knowing more about the world?"
Filmmaker and member Craig Forrest says he learned the importance of humility throughout his travels. "I got sick in the country of Senegal, and we had to travel to Casablanca, Morocco that day," says Forrest. "I was so sick that when we stood in front of the check-in desk at the Hyatt Regency in Casablanca, Morocco, I completely soiled myself."
(Scans of one of the first TCC country lists. Image: Travelers' Century Club)
Kotin researches her destinations before traveling but she still likes to keep things open-ended. "Part of travel is leaving it to chance," says Kotin. "Just the days when you meet someone who's so fascinating that you stop and stay in their village for hours on end. And by then the sun's going down so you don't even go back to the hotel you paid for. You stay in the village of the hut of the matriarch who invites you into her home."
Past TCC president Pamela Barrus makes a point of visiting historic sites she read about as a kid. "One of the last big trips I did was going down the length of Africa for two and a half months," Barrus says. "I was fascinated with the old British explorers and explorations and I wanted to stand on the spots, like Ujiji, where Stanley and Livingstone met."
Inspired by the travels of primatologist Dian Fossey, Kotin took a month-long journey through Uganda and Rwanda. She got more than she bargained for when she met a blackback gorilla.
"While I was on the Uganda gorilla trek, I was hit by a seven-year-old male blackback," says Kotin. "Like you would tap someone on the shoulder, he flicked his fingers across my shoulder and I flew in the air and he almost dislocated my shoulder."
Kotin plans to take a break from gorillas and spend her birthday in Antarctica. "My dream is to celebrate my fiftieth birthday in Antarctica, sleeping on an iceberg."
To learn more about the TCC, including where to find your local chapter, visit their website.
Kenturah Davis weaves words into art in Leimert Park
Off-Ramp host John Rabe talks with LA artist Kenturah Davis about her exhibit of drawings, "Narratives and Meditations," at Papillion Art in Leimert Park in South LA.
A lot of artists incorporate words into their art. Only a few succeed. A painter like Wayne White can plaster cartoony block letters across a thrift store landscape and somehow make it feel right. Kenturah Davis, who has a new show at Papillion Art in Leimert Park, takes the opposite approach, subtly integrating repeated phrases into her huge pencil portraits of African-Americans.
She starts by writing the phrase over and over to form the background of a given drawing, then adds layers of the phrase — perhaps dozens for dark places on the paper, perhaps only one of two more layers for lighter areas. Here's a time-lapse video that shows her process:
Watch her work: Kenturah Davis Draws Troy Davis: "Terminated with Extreme Prejudice"
Davis, 33, told me that she was born and raised in Altadena, "a quiet little neighborhood that's still accessible to the rest of L.A., and a good place to come from." She's the daughter of two accomplished artists: Her father is a portraitist and was an artist for the studios ("Tron" is among his credits) and her mother is a quilter, among other things. Kenturah studied painting at Occidental. ("Go Tigers!")
But Davis came to realize painting was wrong for her, and after quitting all art for a couple years, she began to write and draw in her sketchbooks. One day, she had an epiphany. "Language is so integral to who we are, and experimenting with language and words led me to making drawings a different way." Hence the drawings that seamlessly interweave image and language.
RELATED: Another artist making her own way against type: actor/comedian Charlyne Yi
Her subjects gaze straight at the camera with neutral expressions that let you imagine what they're thinking. They're a mix of men and women, and almost all are African-Americans.
"I start with what I know, and I feel that part of my responsibility as a black artist is to put forth better images of black people, at a time when media doesn't always portray black people in a good light," she said.
What she winds up with are honest, compelling, intriguing portraits of... people.
There will be Texas beer and BBQ: LA River hero Lewis MacAdams is turning 70
Lewis MacAdams takes Off-Ramp's John Rabe on a tour of the L.A. River as MacAdams nears his 70th birthday and a huge celebration of his accomplishments as founder of FoLAR, Friends of the Los Angeles River. MacAdams "wanted to crawl under a rock," but instead agreed to a huge fundraiser party on October 12 -- the FoLAR Fandango -- IF they agreed to bring in Texas BBQ and Shiner Bock from his West Texas homeland.
In the 1970s, when Lewis MacAdams came to Los Angeles, the L.A. River was a flood control channel and a punchline. But he founded “Friends of the Los Angeles River,” which helped the river make a Hollywood-worthy comeback. Now, as MacAdams turns 70, we tour the river and see how far we’ve come.
The poet and journalist remembers his first encounter with the river over thirty years ago, and the immediate connection he felt to it.
“I was walking to the bus stop and I saw the L.A. River for the first time, and for some reason that I’ve never really known, I had this realization that I was going to be involved with the L.A. River for the rest of my life,” says MacAdams. “I see trains going by, I see the 5 freeway, I see slimy – no water almost – but just slimy, street runoff slobber. The insight I think I had was that it was the darkest period and it was bound to change, and I started to ride that change.”
Soon after, MacAdams and a friend "asked the river if [they] could speak for it in the human realm and it didn't say no." That was enough of an answer for MacAdams. He founded FoLAR and began what he calls a “40 year art work” to bring the river back to life.
MacAdams’ first meeting with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works – scheduled shortly after he stood in the path of a bulldozer clearing trees in the river – quickly turned into a yelling match.
RELATED: Did you know Lewis MacAdams wrote the book, "The Birth of the Cool"?
“This guy from Public Works would refer to the river as a 'flood control channel’ and every time I would interrupt him and say ‘river.’ And it didn’t take long until the two of us were screaming at each other,” says MacAdams. “I knew that it was a seminal argument.”
Since then, FoLAR has spent nearly three decades tirelessly cleaning the river and advocating for its restoration.
(MacAdams and KPCC's Brian Watt clean up the river. John Rabe)
But MacAdams says that it never felt like work to him.
“I’ve always thought of it as being fun, and also as being a certain kind of joke on ourselves that we have to build ourselves a better river, but we do,” says MacAdams. “This is a post-modern river… where humans have to work with nature, not against nature. And L.A. River is kind of the poster child globally for screwed up rivers. I would also say it’s the poster child for restoring rivers too.”
One of the biggest challenges MacAdams and FoLAR have faced is getting Angelenos to think about the L.A. River as an actual river and not just a slab of concrete. With the U.S. Army Corps' recent endorsement of a $1 billion river restoration project, it seems like Los Angeles is finally listening.
“I think that if we’ve accomplished anything these past 30 years, one of them is that we’ve created this new mind that sees the river as a river and not as flood control,” says MacAdams. “Now as you can see, people moving with strollers, people walking their dogs, the river has reentered people’s consciousness and they didn’t even realize it.”
Actress/musician/comedian Charlyne Yi takes risks, goes her own way
Off-Ramp contributor Chris Greenspon profiles comedian and actor Charlyne Yi. Some of the language in this piece is a little strong.
Maybe you’ve seen ex-stand-up-comedienne Charlyne Yi as the dorky Dr. Park on "House," or as one of Seth Rogen's stoned roommates in "Knocked Up."
These small roles might be her best known work, but Yi became a performer to take risks, not to get famous.
Charlyne Yi's humor has always made people uneasy. Besides being recognized as "the awkward character" from "House," Yi has always tested her audience: by getting her head shaved onstage at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre while singing a Sinead O' Connor song, announcing her boyfriend dumped her on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" or making audience members play the dating game in a comedy club. However uncomfortable or emotional one of her appearances is, she doesn't do things half-heartedly.
Charlyne Yi shaves her head onstage
Yi's stand-up career began at 18, when she sneaked into UC Riverside classes that she couldn't afford. She decided then that she would move to Los Angeles and pursue comedy. It was a rough start at first. Audiences were often hostile to her during performances, which sometimes consisted of her lip-syncing to her own voice. However, she was determined to be her own kind of performer, or nothing else.
"One of my best friends from childhood was like, 'Isn't that a little irrational, you're gonna go do comedy? What's your back up plan?'" recalls Yi, "And I was like, 'I don't know about that! Isn't it more irrational to fight for something that you hate, than that you love?'"
In 2007, she briefly appeared in the Judd Apatow film "Knocked Up." She co-wrote and starred in the mockumentary "Paper Hearts" in 2009, and was cast as Chi Park in 2011 for the final season of the medical drama "House."
Her art took a definitive curve after the season finale of "House" in 2012. Yi volunteered at an orphanage in Sri Lanka, and while there she collaborated with a group of orphans on a short album called "Mr. Sunset."
Charlyne Yi's Sri Lanka highlight video
Since then, passion and introspection have been a mainstay of Yi's work. She's moved away from television and stand-up and has focused more on producing short films, is on her way to becoming a published poet (with a book on the way through Harper Collins) and has curated memorable concerts like the series "Let's Get Emotional" at the Steve Allen Theatre.
Now, after years of trying her hand in different mediums, Yi has found her place in L.A.'s art and music scene. She still acts in comedy shorts from time to time with other aspiring performers, as well as headliners like Fred Armisen and Channing Tatum.
Currently, her primary outlet is songwriting. She just recorded an album titled "Reincarnation," and she's due to tour the Midwest in late September.
Listen to Chris' piece for much more, including Yi's story of an exchange with her sister that taught her the true power of words, and for her impressions of working with Hugh Laurie as an actor and director.
The friendship behind 'Madam Satan,' Cecil B. DeMille's musical disaster
Dance writer Debra Levine, who runs the artsmeme blog, tells the untold story of "Madam Satan," director Cecil B. DeMille's only musical, and one of his only flops. She'll be introducing the film at 2 p.m. on March 15 at the Egyptian Theatre.
When you think Hollywood musicals, the name Cecil B. DeMille doesn’t leap to mind. But he made one at MGM, a fascinating disaster called “Madam Satan.” And the movie helps tell the unknown story of a 40-year friendship between this famous Hollywood director and a Russian ballet dancer.
Cecil B. DeMille made 70 feature films over a 56-year career, only a few of which lost money.
(DeMille while filming "Madam Satan," with screenwriter Elsie Janis and the movie's star, Kay Johnson. Image: MGM)
But in 1929, like many Americans, he was in a tough spot. Five years earlier, he’d been fired by Paramount, the studio he helped found in 1913. His next venture, Cecil B. DeMille Pictures, Inc., was a debacle.
By 1929, DeMille was scrambling to deliver on the second of a three-picture deal struck with Louis B. Mayer at MGM. DeMille’s daunting assignment from L.B. was a movie musical. DeMille — a minister’s son, though not lacking a sense of humor — was markedly unhip. His brand was domestic dramas. He would never admit it, but assembling a creative team to make a musical was out of his comfort zone.
DeMille feverishly worked his network, firing off telegrams to A-listers such as Robert Benchley, Cole Porter and Dorothy Parker. He wrangled for access to former leading lady Gloria Swanson, but was blocked by her gatekeeper Joseph P. Kennedy — JFK’s father. No one of this caliber signed on. Could the problem have been the title, “Madam Satan?”
Enter Theodore Kosloff.
(Theodore Kosloff, circa 1927. Image: Wikipedia Commons)
The Moscow-born son of a musical family, Kosloff started his career with the Bolshoi and Kirov Ballets, in the pre-Soviet era called the Imperial Russian Ballet. In 1909 he joined The Ballets Russes, Diaghilev’s infamous troupe. There he shared the stage with Ballets Russes superstars Nijinsky, Pavlova and Karsavina. A foil to the poetic Nijinsky, Kosloff was a technical dynamo whose claim to fame was milking 18 revolutions from a single pirouette. But he could also turn a buck.
An early arts entrepreneur, Kosloff first ventured to America around 1911. Vaudeville touring brought him to L.A. by 1916, where, practically on first sight, DeMille cast the mop-haired, muscular dancer in his upcoming photoplay “The Woman God Forgot.” Biceps bursting, he clutched a formidable spear in his movie debut.
Kosloff was equally dazzled by DeMille, calling him the “Napoleon of moving pictures.” Kosloff’s specialty was character roles: Continental lovers, exotic bad guys. In the Roaring ‘20s, DeMille had made a millionaire of Kosloff, who, for one movie, wisely accepted Paramount stock in lieu of a salary.
The two men became not just good colleagues over 30 silent pictures, but also close friends. Each owned a ranch in the San Fernando Valley’s far reaches of Tujunga-Sunland. At weekend getaways, they toasted each other with vodka as comrades. Tovarisch! But when sound came in, no one could understand Kosloff’s heavy Russian accent, and he was banished from Hollywood sound stages.
That’s why in 1929, when the call came for “Madam Satan,” Kosloff leapt on board. He’d be featured in an incredible six-minute dance sequence. The scene was an art deco masked ball inside a Zeppelin.
Kosloff lords over a huge throng of dancers, who in a special camera effect morph into heavy machinery. It’s astoundingly awful, kitsch and clumsy, but in its use of overhead shots foreshadows what Busby Berkeley would perfect a few short years later. That’s how quickly Hollywood figured out how to film dance in the movies.
Metro invested a million dollars in “Madam Satan,” a small fortune at the onset of the Depression. Studio brass blamed its box-office bombing in great part on Kosloff’s kooky “ballet mecanique.”
“Madam Satan” represents a crossroads in two creative careers. Kosloff would appear only once more in the movies, in a tiny cameo in “Stage Door.”
Kosloff speaks 14-seconds into this clip from "Stage Door," his final film appearance
But DeMille reconstituted after “Madam Satan.” He adapted and improved on filming techniques learned during its making. He never revisited the musical genre, and he never again released a movie so hopelessly out of touch with his audience.
But it wasn’t a crossroads for the tovarischi, Kosloff and DeMille. They had a friendship even “Madam Satan” could not destroy.
Sportstalker Petros Papadakis, radio's loudest and maybe smartest host
Off-Ramp host John Rabe talks with Petros Papadakis, former singing waiter, captain of the USC football team, English major, color commentator and co-host of "The Petros and Money Show" on AM 570 KLAC.
Culture shock (noun): a sense of confusion and uncertainty, sometimes with feelings of anxiety, that may affect people exposed to an alien culture or environment without adequate preparation. - Merriam Webster
After spending four hours in the KLAC studio in Burbank a couple weeks ago with Petros Papadakis and Matt "Money" Smith, I'm surprised I didn't wake up talking to myself at the Smokehouse, with three or four martinis drained on the table in front of me. It was that weird. Loud, fast, stream-of-consciousness, sound effects, people talking in the studio when the mike is on. If KPCC is a Prius, the Petros and Money Show is a Camaro clown car.
RELATED: LA Register shuts down
For all these reasons, the Petros and Money Show, nationally syndicated and heard weekdays on AM570 KLAC, is the opposite of public radio — but in others, it's a kindred spirit. Because when you strip out the focus on sports, and the frenetic pace, it's actually two smart guys who seem to like each other talking about an astounding array of topics in a smart way. The 41-year old Matt "Money" Smith, a Kevin & Bean alum, is more your standard radio host, playing straight man so 37-year old Petros Papadakis can do his stuff.
Papadakis grew up in his family's Greek restaurant in San Pedro, where he still lives. Duties included being a singing waiter (listen to the interview to hear his version of "Rags to Riches"), and he says working in a restaurant taught him how to deal with people. Then, he got a scholarship to USC where he became captain of the football team while earning an English degree.
He was lousy at math and science, he says, "but I always was a reader of literary fiction and real books, you know. And because of that it saved me in my career, in my life, made me able to communicate and impress people I probably shouldn't have."
That shows up in the show, which he regularly starts with a quote like, "Wise men speak because they have something to say. Fools because they have to say something." (That's Plato, another Greek.) But so do his other widely varied interests: Frogman Friday celebrates the show "Sea Hunt."
"I live by the ocean," he says, "and I love water people but I'm afraid of the water." They do "The Bachelorette Report" to review the latest episode of the show. They spent five minutes talking about Ettore Bugatti the day I was there, including an excursion into high fashion. And just yesterday Papadakis closed the show by reading song titles from a new K-pop album; I don't think they even played any music from it. They were just funny titles.
And yes, they do sports. Probably 60-70 percent of the show is sports related, but even that stays smart. When I visited, they had an expert on who could actually explain NFL rules in a way a non-football fan could understand. That's good radio on the public or commercial dial.
I ask if they've ever focus-grouped the show, and Papadakis reacts in horror. "No, no. And frankly I don't care. I really don't. I do a show that we enjoy. We all put the show together, we make it, then we leave. Whatever it is, that's what it is."
When we're debriefing about my culture shock, and I say how different "Petros and Money" is from public radio, Papadakis laughs and says, "I'd like to think the show is different from anything out there. And that makes me good because so much has been done a thousand times. The kind of show we do, we do because we can. We're comfortable with each other to be kinda joyful."
Those notes passed in junior high are just clutter
Off-Ramp commentator Taylor Orci on the things you keep, and shouldn't.
I was cleaning out my closet and came across three Ziploc bags of handwritten notes I passed in junior high. Some of the notes were from friends, some were from crushes. Some were very tiny and on lavender paper addressed to Frog 1 from Frog 2. I do not remember who Frog 2 was.
Hey Taylz. Mind if I call you Taylz? I'm in Algebra eating Pez. I think it's cool you like Dave even thought Cindy went out with him.
Out of habit, I put all of the notes in my "to keep" pile. But then, I wondered what exactly I was holding on to. I opened a note and read it. Whoever wrote it to me was bored in a class she hated. She talked about a boy she liked. She swore a lot. She made an inside joke I forget the meaning of, she used a code name for a boy I have forgotten about. Why was I doing this?
Keeping these notes didn't make me feel good. In fact, they made me feel more anxious than anything, because I hated junior high. In junior high a group of girls tackled me, pulled up my shirt and took a picture of my bra because who knows why — and those were my friends.
I remember being 12, 13... and saving these notes in freezer bags with all the pride of an archivist. Like I would read them when I was grown, and they would have in them some wisdom, some childhood spark of imagination I had since lost, and reading them would help me remember something great.
But the notes weren't great; they were all about buying jeans and saying the word “crap” a lot. I guess I thought time was the thing that transformed a friend lamenting about French fries into the kind of letter a dying Civil War soldier would write to his fiancée with his one good arm.
Dear Taylor, wazzup? How's life? Eat any pie lately? Caught any pie thieves? Just kidding, I was trying to be funny. Or funny-la. That's what I'm gonna say from now on, I'm gonna make it my thing, funny-la. Do you remember Sublime? Bradley Nowell is my God.
I do remember having big thoughts as a kid, thoughts about isolation, death, how many hours Jimi Hendrix practiced guitar when he was my age and if I was missing out on greatness because I didn't really practice anything. It's just that, those weren't the things I wrote about to my friends.
I came across a note full of quotes from the movie "Clueless," the greatest movie ever made:
"Clueless," the greatest movie ever made
And I remembered this was the summer my school forced me to go to therapy. I had started cutting myself for a number of reasons, mostly because I didn't really like me very much. All I wanted to do was go to the mall and some swanky new place I'd heard about called Louise's Trattoria with the girl who wrote the “Clueless” note.
So I lied to the therapist and told him I was hurting myself for attention because I hadn't accepted my stepdad as a positive male role model. Do I think that makes sense? No. But sure enough, it got me out of therapy.
But there was nothing so on-the-nose in that note I wrote to that girl, or in anything I wrote to anyone. So I took the three bags of notes, and I threw them away.
At first, I felt like I was betraying my kid self. I imagined little 12-year-old Taylor, confused and upset that what she worked so hard to save never actually became all that important. She probably would call adult me a dumbass, and journal about me all night. But adult me knows that junior high sucked, and I don't need three freezer bags full of kid notes to remind me of that.
After I threw out the notes, I felt lighter. And I'll never have to come up with some lame explanation to my kids why this was so important to me and why they should care about it, too.
I should add I was inspired to clean out my closet because I just helped clean out my grandparents’ house, and tumbling out of every closet were bags and bags of similar things. Not notes passed in junior high, but skeins of synthetic yarn with a quarter of a bright orange sweater attached, commemorative coins you looked at to remember the tenth anniversary of the moon landing. A limited edition jar of cologne inside a ceramic figurine of Betsy Ross. These things were waiting for a day that they had value, but value wasn't something time alone could give those things. So they sat in closets, waiting.
Burn him at the stave! LA Chamber Orchestra maestro says it's OK to clap between movements
Off-Ramp host John Rabe continues his long piano-bench interview with maestro Jeffrey Kahane, who has announced he'll step down as music director of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra in 2017.
Hold on to your collapsible opera hats, and get out the tar and feathers: Jeffrey Kahane says it's OK to applaud between movements of classical pieces.
Which, today, makes him a heretic, a rebel. Actually, it makes him a conservative, in the true sense of the word.
RELATED: Kahane plays & explains Goldberg Variations, explains decision to step down
Sitting at the piano at a hall at the Colburn School in downtown Los Angeles, I was talking with Kahane about his approach as the leader of the orchestra. I said I loved it that he often speaks to the audience before the performances. Was LACO doing that when he took over in the mid-1990s?
His two predecessors were distinguished musicians and good friends and colleagues, "but I don't think either of them ever said a word to the audience in their whole tenure. They came from a different tradition."
Until the 1880s, Kahane says, classical music in America was a, "democratic phenomenon." Then, the concert hall became "a temple to art" and classical music became "stifled" ... including adopting the rule that audience members aren't supposed to clap until the end of a piece.
"That was not the way concerts were conceived of initially. That was not how it was supposed to be. And Mozart would have been shocked, dismayed, and furious to get to the end of a movement of one of his compositions and had the audience sit there in silence. To him, it would meant it was a failure."
(From the LA Public Library's Herald-Examiner collection: "Mr. and Mrs. Edward A. Dickson are enthusiastic opera fans. They hold tickets for the season and are among the many social leaders who attend nearly every night during opera week." October 26, 1951)
Before any of you fans of the classical arts get on your high horse (or your high keyboard), consider this additional point: ballet audiences routinely applaud great dance moves in the middle of performances, and opera fans cheer well-sung arias.
In fact, a young tenor was forced to perform an encore at the Met just the other day. So how can you argue that classical music, which provides the score to opera and ballet, is different? If it's good enough for Mozart and Jeffrey Kahane, it's good enough for Off-Ramp.
Make sure to listen to this week's interview to hear Kahane play a Mozart excerpt, and a Gershwin show tune. Next time, as our piano bench interview continues, Jeffrey Kahane debunks another musical myth: that minor chords make you sad and major chords make you happy.
The LA Chamber Orchestra continues its "Westside Connections" series Thursday, May 15, at 7:30pm at the Moss Theater, Santa Monica. Actor John Rubinstein (Bob Fosse's "Pippen") and "From the Top" host Christopher O’Riley are the special guests.
Gerald Wilson, El Chicano, and 'Viva Tirado'
LA and the jazz world are mourning Gerald Wilson, a worldwide jazz giant who lived in LA and who died Monday at the age of 96. Gerald Wilson was a jazz trumpeter who played in the big bands, he was a bandleader, and he was a venerated teacher.
RELATED: Gerald Wilson's son talks about his dad on KPCC's Airtalk.
But Wilson was also a composer, and he wrote the song "Viva Tirado," which became a huge hit for a band out of East LA called El Chicano, and was later sampled by Kid Frost. As Oliver Wang wrote a few years ago on his blog:
"Viva Tirado" is at the center of a rather remarkable, multi-generational conversation between L.A.'s Black and Brown communities. After all, here's a song, originally written by a Black composer in honor of a Mexican bullfighter, covered by a Chicano band steeped in Black R&B and jazz, then sampled by the first major Chicano rap artist. It seems no matter where the song goes, it's always a bridge between cultures. -- Oliver Wang
Just how big Gerald Wilson's composition (he always called them "numbers") was comes through loud and clear in this 2009 Off-Ramp interview between Jesus Velo of the band Los Illegals, and one of his heroes: the late Bobby Espinosa of the band El Chicano, who remembered when "Viva Tirado" hit it big in 1970.
Watch El Chicano perform "Viva Tirado" live in 1971
Dark Arts: Artist, occultist Marjorie Cameron featured in new book, MOCA show
UPDATE: The Cameron show at MOCA - Cameron: Songs for the Witch Woman- opens Saturday, Oct. 11. Here's the dish from MOCA:
"Organized by guest curator Yael Lipschutz, the exhibition will be the largest survey of Cameron’s work since 1989 and will include approximately 91 artworks and ephemeral artifacts." -- MOCA blog
During a life that ended in 1995, Marjorie Elizabeth Cameron Parsons Kimmel was an occultist, an artist, an actress and wife to one of the world’s first rocket scientists. Neighbors and local newscasters called her a witch.
Cameron wasn’t really a witch. She was born normally enough — 1922 in Belle Plaine, Iowa. But from the very beginning, her art provoked.
“The first drawing that she did in school was somewhat obscene and she got in trouble for it,” says Scott Hobbs, who was a friend of Cameron and helped start the Cameron-Parsons Foundation in order to preserve and promote Cameron’s work.
Video: Marjorie Cameron performance
Cameron kept drawing after school. In the '40s she joined the U.S. Navy, where she drew maps for admirals and worked in a photographic unit during World War II.
After the war, Cameron moved to Pasadena where she found work as a fashion illustrator for newspapers. While she was living in Pasadena, she met Jack Parsons. The co-founder of Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a renowned occultist, Parsons lived in a towering craftsman on Orange Grove that had become infamous for late night revelries.
The two stayed married until Parsons' death in an explosion in his garage in 1952. In that time, Cameron’s husband Jack influenced her art with the teachings of occultist Aleister Crowley, mythology and magic rituals.
Cameron’s art continued to stimulate. A reproduction of her erotic “Peyote Vision” drawing — not much larger than a matchbook — showed in L.A.’s famous Ferus gallery in the '50s. There, it also became a target for L.A.’s vice cops.
“It was considered obscene and the L.A. police raided the gallery more than once,” Hobbs says. “As result of that Cameron vowed to never show in a gallery again. And she pretty well kept to that.”
But Cameron wasn’t only anti-commercial with her art, she was also destructive with it. “At one point in the early 50s she destroyed all of her work,” says Hobbs. “She burned it. Some of it survived because she sold it to friends for little.”
Director Curtis Harrington’s video portrait of Cameron stands as the only visual record of many of the works she burned:
Cameron had a reputation as an enchantress — and an allure about her on screen that led to acting work too. She shows up alongside Dennis Hopper in the 1961 mermaid creature feature “Night Tide.” Cameron plays a mysterious sea-witch:
Cameron was more than just the real-life witch local TV stations would interview on Halloween, more than the woman who dressed in black and drove a hearse. Hobbs says we shouldn’t forget about Cameron the artist.
With the help of Hobbs and the Cameron-Parsons foundation, Yael Lipschutz is curating a show at MOCA that will focus on Cameron’s work.
“It’s an exciting opportunity for younger artists to see the output of someone who has a rather mythic underground status in the art world but whose objects and creations we haven’t had the opportunity to see in the flesh,” Lipschutz says.
There’s no denying Cameron was a prominent figure in the counterculture and beat movements here in L.A., influencing artists like George Herms and Wallace Berman with what Lipschutz calls a romantic, William Blake-like sensibility. Much of Cameron’s work remains obscure because of her own choices, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t always working on her art.
“She led a sort of renegade life,” Lipschutz says. According to Lipschutz, Cameron was known to escape to the desert, where she led a primal lifestyle and was handy with a shotgun. “No matter how poor her existence was, she never stopped creating,” Lipschutz says. “...It was always the fire that I think fueled her, more than anything.”
As a caretaker and promoter of Cameron’s work, Scott Hobbs agrees that, while Cameron’s fantastic life story might first get your attention, her art will keep you under its spell.
“Her work really does stand on its own,” Hobbs says. “I don’t meet people quite like that anymore.”
There’s a new book out called “Songs for the Witch Woman” that features Cameron’s drawings and Jack Parsons' poetry.
Cameron's upcoming MOCA show runs October 11 through next January.
Obscura Society brings you face to face with Los Angeles' weird history
Atlas Obscura is a travel website for stuff that you won't see in Lonely Planet: offbeat museums, haunted houses and morbid bits of history. You can find where Paris' Guillotines were stationed, or tour the now-infamous abandoned Nazi bunkers at Murphy Ranch.
Atlas Obscura can also take you there: the Obscura Society guides Angelenos all over Los Angeles and beyond: visiting the Templo Santa Muerte on Melrose, or hanging out with a falconer. Off-Ramp producer Kevin Ferguson went with the Society's Matt Blitz to a bucolic park near the Jet Propulsion Laboratory that's home to the Devil's Gate.
The Devil's Gate is a flood gate carved into a giant rock formation on the border of Pasadena and La Cañada Flintridge. Originally, the rock had an ominous look to it that has since given way to erosion and construction—you can still see what looks like a horn towards the top.
The Gate was also a stomping ground for Jack Parsons, one of the founding members of JPL. Parsons helped design some of the very first rockets and paved the way for America's space program. He also had an intense fascination with the Occult.
Parsons would visit the Devil's Gate, usually in the company of L. Ron Hubbard — the writer would go on later to found the Church of Scientology. Hubbard and Parsons were business partners and friends. "They would perform ceremonious, religious rituals in the gate," said the Obscura Society's Matt Blitz. "Such as believing they could conceive an Anti-Christ."
Blitz said he and the Obscura Society found about this through biographies of Parsons and letters shared between the two men.
"They would put a blanket down—some sort of ceremonial blanket. And Hubbard would ask Jack Parsons to masturbate onto the blanket," said Blitz. "They thought that would be used by the Goddess of Babylon and then in nine months, some Virgin Mary type woman would conceive the Anti-Christ."
Though the story is unsettling, the setting is beautiful. And its story combines a narrative many Angelenos already know about (Pasadena's involvement in space travel, Scientology's roots) with a darker, more ephemeral tale that shows how histories can intersect—a trademark of Atlas Obscura and the Obscura Society.
Correction: in the audio segment, producer Kevin Ferguson refers to Aleister Crowley as the founder of the Church of Satan, which is incorrect. Mr. Crowley was not a Satanist, but an occultist.
Fish census starts Aug. 1. Has the giant sea bass made a comeback?
Off-Ramp host John Rabe talks with Off-Ramp commentator and UCSB marine biologist Milton Love about the Giant Sea Bass Census, the first count of the highly endangered fish, and about how fish get their names in the first place.
The giant sea bass is a huge fish, and before it was fished almost to extinction, UC Santa Barbara marine biologist Milton Love says they probably dominated the kelp beds off Southern California. He says the giant sea bass "gets to about 7 feet long, at least 580 pounds. I have some friends who are working on Catalina right now who insist that they saw one that was bigger than 7 feet long, maybe even 9 feet long, which would be an 800-pound fish."
But giant sea bass, which are not related to the Chilean sea bass, have two big flaws: They're easy to catch, and they're delicious.
"Commercial fisherman hit them really hard in the 20s and 30s and 40s, and recreational anglers started hitting them hard, too," Love says. "And by about the 1970s, there was a handful of fish left, and the Fish and Game Department imposed draconian laws" banning almost all taking of giant sea bass.
(L-R: UCSB's Doug McCauley and Milton Love. Image: Sonia Fernandez)
Now, Love says they might be making a comeback, so he and fellow UCSB researcher Douglas McCauley are organizing the first Giant Sea Bass Census, which runs Aug. 1 to 7. Essentially, if you're in the water that week, they're asking you to report back to them via their Facebook page. Report if you see any giant sea bass (and if so, how many), and report if you don't see any, because that's important, too.
Ecstatic diver meets 2 giant sea bass on first Channel Islands dive
"The question is," Love says, "how much are they coming back? Are there a hundred off the coast here? Are there a thousand? Are there 3,000? That makes a big difference because already, there are folks who are saying, 'The sea bass are back; we should be allowed to catch them.' There are people who are pushing for a some kind of quota. That may be fine (or) it may be a stupid idea, but you gotta have some idea of how many fish there are before you make that decision."
Love and I talked at length about the sea bass census, and then chatted about how fish get their names. Love himself named a fish parasite after a girlfriend long ago. Listen to our interview to find out more.
Erin Corwin's death hurt one of her last refuges: White Rock Ranch Horse Rescue
Off-Ramp contributor R.H. Greene has been spending a lot of time in the High Desert recently, where he became obsessed by a story of unsung kindness lurking behind one of last summer's grimmest tabloid headlines: The murder of Marine wife Erin Corwin.
(A photo of Erin Corwin released by the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department.)
White Rock Ranch Horse Rescue is a charity for horses, still surviving, but changed forever by a brush with evil. It’s a non-profit orphanage for unwanted horses near Yucca Valley, at the end of a long dirt road so pocked by the wind it threatens to shake a car to pieces at speeds above 10 miles per hour.
It's feeding time for the 53 horses who live here. Isabella Megli, co-founder and currently White Rock's sole proprietor, tosses armloads of hay from a golf cart, as unfettered horses canter by. Carol Davison is a weathered retiree who has worked and lived on the ranch for over six years. She hovers by Isabella's side, protectively.
RELATED: AudioVision's beautiful slideshow on horse racing
On the other side of a picket fence, a trim, middle-aged "people doctor" who won’t give her name is bandaging a horse's leg wound with practiced hands. Inside the big corral, some two dozen horses frolic and snort, attended by a pair of young-looking military wives, in for the day from the Marine base at Twentynine Palms.
Davison says most of the animals have been through some combination of abuse and loss.
RELATED: Group fighting for ban on some exotic pets
There's Gemeni, a pharmaceutical industry castoff, nameless when she arrived except for the large inventory number "605" branded onto her side. There's Mystic, a quarterhorse, with a raw and permanent knee injury on her right hind-leg, and a rigid leg muscle that dangles in the wrong place. She was lamed by "horse-tripping," an antique roping practice still popular at rodeos and Mexican charreadas.
And then there's Cassy, the horse I came to see. Lexie Marks, one of the visiting Marine wives, is "sponsoring" Cassy, a big step on the road to adopting her. But there are complications, "because her owner recently died." Cassy is skittish and has trust issues. And no wonder — the horse’s story is almost entirely about loss.
Isabella told me Cassy came to the ranch from an abusive household, run by a hoarder. For months, she was too skittish to make a friend. Then a shy 19-year-old newlywed named Erin Corwin relocated to Twentynine Palms with her Marine corporal husband and visited the White Rock ranch. The bond between Erin Corwin and Cassy was instant and profound.
Isabel said, "Erin picked her out of 30 (horses). I don't know why or how, and she says, 'I want this one.' But she walked in and caught her. She rode her bareback without a bit, and those two were just one."
Later, when the microphone has been turned off, Isabella broke down talking about Erin, and blamed herself for all the signs of trouble she did and didn't see. But as we spoke of Erin and stared at the horse she once loved, the 19 year old girl seems present… maybe like the wind in the distance.
With the negative publicity surrounding Erin Corwin's murder, White Rock ranch, a 501(c)(3) relying heavily on charitable contributions, has taken a major financial hit. Volunteers have been harder to come by, and donations are down.
Right now, she says they're trying to raise money to dig a well, because every one of the dozens of horses there needs to drink 62 gallons of water a day. Then, she turns briskly to attend to the myriad chores she has left to do — and as magnets go to pull us through our days, it's enough.
'12 Years a Slave' Oscar winner John Ridley
UPDATE 3/2/2014: John Ridley won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for "12 Years a Slace," which also won Best Picture this year.
For KPCC's new iPad app, Off-Ramp host John Rabe sat down with screenwriter and director John Ridley ("Undercover Brother," "Three Kings") to talk about his two new films - "12 Years a Slave" and "All Is by My Side."
Ridley on finding a way to tell a story about Jimi Hendrix that has not been told already:
"I wanted to tell the story about, not just Jimi Hendrix, but the people that were close to him, and the people who were influential to him. I think that with Jimi, his iconography as a person is so overpowering that a lot of times we don't think of him in terms of a person, we don't think about the relationship, we don't think abut his human nature."
Ridley on the pitfalls of making a movie about slavery:
"I think sometimes the dangers are trying to preach to an audience, proselytize. I mean, people go in, unfortunately, and think, 'I know about slavery, I've heard all there is to hear about slavery.' And the reality is that most of us don't really have a concept of that system, of the stories, of the individuals who lived through it."