California Secretary of State Alex Padilla on his plan to up voter turn out, Hollywood's struggle to cast roles authentically, art in the Bernie Sanders campaign.
CA Secretary of State Alex Padilla's plan to get more people to the polls
Voter turnout rates across the state of California are some of the lowest in our history.
In 2014, just 31 percent of eligible California voters actually cast a ballot. The numbers are even lower for young voters, and people of color.
As November approaches, state officials are hoping some new approaches might lure more of the state's 18 million registered voters to the polls.
California Secretary of State Alex Padilla is the author of a bill that -- if passed -- could streamline the voting process in the state by 2018.
SB 450 would put ballots in the hands of voters well ahead of election day, and create more spots where ballots can be dropped.
Padilla modeled the bill after Colorado's innovative voting system, but can that success transfer over to the Golden state?
"We're not guessing here. We know that we can save money over time, but more importantly we can increase turn out by making it more convenient to voters."
When asked about motivating Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) voters, a smaller often overlooked community, Padilla spoke of the importance of role models.
"Just having a role model or somebody to look up to goes a long way for a lot of communities too. In California our State treasurer John Chung, our State controller Betty Yi," said Padilla, "For the Asian American community it's something that absolutely motivates and reminds people that their vote can make a difference. Just like I hope I'm part of the motivating factor for more Latino's registering and turning out."
Secretary Padilla joined Take Two to share more about his plan to increase voter engagement heading into 2016 and beyond.
Press the blue play button above to hear the interview.
Click the link below that to hear the full, uncut interview.
Bernie Sanders and the 'art of a political revolution'
Engaging young voters is no easy task, but Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders' campaign is taking on that challenge through art.
Now through the end of January, HVW8 gallery near West Hollywood is staging a show called, "Art of a Political Revolution: Artists for Bernie Sanders."
It's the brainchild of Luis Calderin. He's the arts, culture and youth vote manager for the Bernie Sanders Campaign.
Calderin stopped by the studio to discuss the importance of art in this election season.
Why art?
"Throughout history, every good movement, every good revolution has always had a good visual soundtrack to it," Calderin says.
Calderin realized the power of political art in 2008 after he saw artist Shepard Fairey's now iconic "Hope" poster.
“At that moment, when I saw that image come through, it made me really think about Obama in a different way and say, ‘How does he know about Shepard Fairey? How does this guy know about this street artist?’”
Calderin says the picture made him feel as though then-candidate Barack Obama was a “cool guy,” motivating him to seek more information about his positions.
Calderin remembered the impact that the image had on him when pitching the exhibit to Sen. Sanders.
Selling Sen. Sanders
“I sat with the Senator about six months ago … and we talked a lot about art and what art is supposed to be for a movement like this,” Calderin says. “We talked about the Obama art during that time and what we wanted this to be and the differences.”
Calderin says Sen. Sanders, like President Obama, was already familiar with some of the street artists who would come to be featured in the exhibit. But he had one particular mandate: the art must be about the issues.
“Don’t make this art about me exclusively," Calderin recalls Sen. Sanders telling him. "Don’t paint me out to be a superhero."
Keeping to this directive, Calderin sought artists who would get people thinking about the presidential candidate in subtle ways. He asked them to look through the campaign website and create works inspired by what they saw. The result is a gallery featuring an array of works; some use images of Sanders, and some are a bit more abstract.
The impact on young voters
Calderin is hopeful that the art show will engage young voters and inspire them to research the issues central to Sen. Sanders’ platform, many of which he says impact their generation, including income inequality, college and the environment.
Calderin says Sen. Sanders has not yet seen the exhibit, but he plans to bring a brochure when he sees the Senator in Iowa later this week.
“I know he’s going to be really excited about it,” Calderin says.
Press the blue play button above to hear the interview.
The Gamble House turns 50
Less than two miles away from our studios is a National Historic Landmark known as the Gamble House.
It's considered a masterpiece of the American arts and crafts movement designed by legendary architects Charles Sumner Greene and his brother, Henry Mather Greene in 1908.
Fifty eight years later, the Gamble family turned the house over to USC and the city of Pasadena.
And recently the Gamble House celebrated its 50th anniversary as one of the most unique museums in California
Take Two took a tour with Dyke Messler, one of the few remaining relatives of the Gamble family. Ted Bosley, the Gamble House Director, spoke to us about the house's history.
To hear the full interview, click the blue play button above.
New music from Savages, Bill Frisell and RAM 6
If you don't have the time to keep up with the latest in new music, we've got the perfect solution for you: Tuesday Reviewsday. Every week our music experts come by to talk about the best new tunes in one short segment. This week, music journalist
Artist: Savages
Album: "Adore Life"
Songs: "Evil," "Adore"
The arrival three years ago of Savages, four young women from London, heralded something new. Or, really, something new made from something old, specifically the sounds of England circa 1980 — some early Siouxsie and the Banshees, some Public Image Ltd., some Joy Division, at least for a start, all refreshed with fire and passion on a debut album "Silence Yourself." With this follow-up they don’t reinvent their reinvention, but they have refined and revved it up.
You don’t even have to hear a note to get the idea. Just look at the cover photo, a stark black-and-white photo of a raised woman’s fist, tightly clenched, with three heavy rings. Guitarist Gemma Thompson’s power chords kicking off opening song "The Answer" carry that same sense, soon joined by singer Jehnny Beth repeating the lines "If you don’t love me, don’t love anybody" with the same obsessive intensity, with Ayse Hassan’s bass and Fay Milton’s drums soon piling in with claustrophobic fury. Probably a good idea to take a deep breath before dropping the needle on this one.
But just when it seems you, or they, might suffocate from the tension, the tone lifts with the next song. Not that it’s light and happy — it is titled "Evil," after all. But here’s where these Savages start to show the extent of sophistication growing in the music. Over a galloping rhythm, Beth (real name Camille Berthomier, and born and raised in France, not England) explores some possibilities of, yes, love, with some open ended musings. When she sings "Don’t try to change," her dramatic tones slashed by Thompson’s guitar lines, she’s neither compliant nor caustic, but is expressing real affection for whoever the object of the comment may be.
Throughout the album, Savages traverses the range of emotions suggested by these tracks, sometimes wildly and abruptly. The song titles alone suggest that it’s just all too much to take in at times — "Sad Person," "Slowing Down the World," "I Need Something New," "Surrender."
But the range, and maturity, of the music gives the sense that they’ve got it all under control, that it’s a quest being embraced as an adventure. It also makes it clear that they’ve handled the acclaim that accompanied the debut with grace and spirit, rising to the challenge to keep growing, keep exploring, keep moving forward. The key song is one of the most austere and atmospheric, the quasi-title track, "Adore." It’s Hamlet by way of Ronnie Spector, existential musing as Beth wonders the extent to which "to adore life" is a human quality. Toward the end of the song, the instruments back away some and she sings "I adore life" a handful of times, at first with some sadness, then with confident certainty, before adding "You adore life" to the mantra, the music swelling to full glory to match the grand conclusion.
Artist: Bill Frisell
Album: "When You Wish Upon a Star"
Songs: "Psycho Pt. 1," "You Only Live Twice"
Let’s go to the movies! Better yet, let’s go with Bill Frisell. We don’t even need a screen. The images the guitarist and his cohorts, including vocalist Petra Haden, conjure are vivid runs through some of the greatest cinematic experiences. "To Kill a Mockingbird," "Psycho," "The Godfather," "Once Upon a Time in the West," "Breakfast at Tiffany’s," "Pinocchio," they’re all here. That’s right: Norman Bates and Jiminy Cricket, together again!
Well, more specifically, of course, music from those films, the works of such masters as Bernard Hermann, Ennio Morricone, Elmer Bernstein and Henry Mancini. The interpretations of scores and songs alike prove make up one of Frisell’s most engaging and accomplished albums, and that’s saying a lot given the considerable accomplishments in his decades-long career. It’s also a lot of fun.
Bill Frisell has some of the nimblest fingers in music, applied to electric guitar with such dazzling skill that it can be easy to overlook his great taste as a player, and with such taste that at times the skills can be obscured. Those are both compliments. And complements. But as such, it can be, well, hard to put a finger on exactly what it is he does, not least because he does it over such a wide range of music in such a vast wealth of styles, from out-there avant-garde to lilting country. From California surf to Liverpool Lennon. Ostensibly he’s a jazz player, but that’s more a term of convenience than accuracy. At the moment, he can be heard shining on a new album from veteran jazz sax and flute player Charles Lloyd, as well as a soon-to-be-released tour de force from Americana star Lucinda Williams.
Here, with his small, tight group, he manages to evoke the full technicolor world of movie music. That’s tribute to his cohorts, in particular viola player Eyvind Kang and Petra Haden. The latter, the daughter of the late bassist Charlie Haden, with whom Frisell collaborated in the past, has done her own all-vocals renditions of film music in the past, and here offers both wordless lines in some of the score extracts and sultry renditions of some of the songs. She never tried to compete with or imitate the original singers’ versions, but celebrates the spirit with distinction. That says a lot when it’s such well-known and well-covered fare as "Moon River" and the album’s Disney-favorite title song. Best of all might be the Bond theme "You Only Live Twice," done with pure love and no irony. And that goes for the whole album, even a couple of TV-Western ringers, the rousing "Bonanza" and the album’s fitting closer, the Roy Rogers-Dale Evans theme song, "Happy Trails."
Artist: RAM 6
Album: "Manman m se Ginen"
Songs: "Koulou Koulou," "Mprai Domi Nan Simitiye"
No secret that some of the most boisterous, life-affirming music comes from the most challenging lives. So no need to recount the earthquakes, floods and various political and economic devastations that have marked Haiti’s history as we listen to the percolating rhythms and chanted vocals propelling the sixth album (and first studio recording in a decade) from the outfit known as RAM, one of the top modern acts in Port-au-Prince. This is a street party, a celebration, blaring horns and electric guitars powering the way.
The band name comes from the initials of Richard A. Morse, the act’s founder and guiding force, and the album title references the Haitian vodou sensibilities passed down from his mother, a well-known Haitian folk singer. Morse grew up in New York, though, and became part of the heady art scene. But in the ‘80s he developed an interest in his cultural/musical roots and moved to Haiti, met his wife-to-be, singer and dancer Lunise, and formed a band. Unlike many in the world music realm, rather than reach out to international artists, his goal was to bring some international sensibilities to Haitians, so whiles using Kreyol for the band’s language, he drew on African highlife guitar, American funk and rock, European dance to create a distinctive, energetic style. Of course, all of those elements have strong cultural ties to Haiti’s colonial history, so it’s not like it was a forced fit.
Some of the core elements might be familiar to alt-rock fans via Arcade Fire, whose Regine Chassagne is also of Haitian heritage. That band made Haiti a focus of cultural and charitable efforts after the 2010 earthquake, and then brought Haitian musicians into its music both on the "Reflektor" album and tour, to great effect. RAM takes the music to different places, though. The skittering electric guitar streaming through "Koulou Koulou" is straight from modern West Africa, the ancestral home of so many Haitians, descended from those kidnapped for the slaving trade, but with words derived from prayers associated with the time of the revolution that brought about Haiti’s independence around the turn of the 19th century. The fruits, and troubles, of that independence all come into play in "Mprai Domi Nan Simitiye," with rara horns and guitar power-chords leading a dance through Port-au-Prince to honor the spirits of death, sex, birth. Yeah, just that stuff. Life, fully affirmed.
Open enrollment for health insurance ends soon
The open enrollment period to buy health insurance for 2016 ends on Sunday.
And that means if you're one of those who've figured it's cheaper to go without insurance for yet another year, you still have time to re-run the numbers.
Southern California health care correspondent, Stephanie O'Neill, joins Take Two's A Martinez to share some details about the new, higher tax penalties for people who fail to buy insurance in 2016.
The Brood: A mother who drank while pregnant warns of the risks
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one in 10 women report drinking some alcohol while pregnant. 1 in 33 say they binge-drink.
Last year, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a new warning to expectant mothers— no amount of alcohol is safe during pregnancy. But not everyone agrees, and understanding the effects of alcohol on an unborn child can be a challenging task.
Today on The Brood, our regular segment on parenting, we take a closer look at what's known at this point on the subject with one of the most vocal advocates against drinking while pregnant.
Joining Take Two to discuss:
- Kathy Mitchell, licensed addiction counselor, parent of a child with an FASD, and Vice President of the National Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
- Dr. Lyn Laboriel, director of the Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders Clinic, Los Angeles County+USC (LAC+USC) Medical Center
El Niño triggers rapid erosion throughout the California coast
So far, we haven't seen too many storms in southern California since the beginning of the month.
The Pacific storm track has been focused further north, swelling rivers, and creating a rich snowpack in the mountains.
That much is good news for a perennially parched state.
But El Niño's effect has been a bit less positive along the coastline... Powerful waves and heavy rains triggered significant erosion of the coastal bluffs in the northern town of Pacifica.
City officials have declared an emergency and local residents have been forced to relocate from 20 apartments.
For more about the dangers of accelerated erosion, Take Two's Alex Cohen spoke to Lesley Ewing senior engineer with the California Coastal Commission.
Casting authentically in Hollywood
Over the weekend, Twitter tied itself in knots with multiple folks chiming in about the casting of actor Charlie Hunnam as a Mexican American Drug Lord.
Hunnam, of 'Sons of Anarchy' fame, is white and British.
To be fair, the narco he's been tapped to portray, Edgar Valdez Villarreal (pictured on the right), is light of hair, blue-eyed and nicknamed " La Barbie" because of his looks.
Still, this all comes at a time when a lot of people in Hollywood are talking, again, about the fact that not a single actor of color was nominated for an Oscar.
It raises a question that's been around for decades. Should actors always be of the same ethnicity as the character they play?
Or should casting directors have some creative license? We asked one.
Angela M. Hutchinson is a casting director for independent films and the founder of the nonprofit "Breaking into Hollywood".