Today, we begin with a discussion about a new initiative aimed at building a new generation of farmers and ranchers. Then, LGBT seniors struggle to find safe, affordable housing throughout the U.S. Plus, do incidents of anti-gay slurs, racism hint at larger problem in world soccer? Automaker recalls for 2014 already breaking records, our Tuesday Reviewsday critics bring new music from Kitten, Riff Raff and more.
Dept. of Agriculture initiative aims to encourage young farmers
Yesterday, U.S. Agriculture Deputy Secretary Krysta Harden traveled to UC Davis to announce an initiative aimed at building a new generation of farmers and ranchers.
She pointed out in her announcement that the average age of American farmers is 58 and rising. In order to maintain a strong agriculture economy and continue "feeding the world," Harden says the U.S. government must support and encourage beginning farmers and provide them with assistance, financial and otherwise, so that they can thrive.
Krysta Harden joins Take Two to talk about new Farm Bill measures and policy changes set to help new farmers get started.
Chris Velez knows first-hand how hard it is to start farming. He didn't grow up on a farm, but his drive to be self-reliant and his love of the outdoors took him to the fields. He loves life as a farmer, but it hasn't been easy.
The 39-year-old owns and operates Stella Luna Farms in California's Central Valley, where he lives with his wife and two children.
He joins Take Two to talk about the challenges of starting a farm and whether the new measures announced by USDA will attract more young people.
After 'I Do': LGBT seniors struggle for affordable housing
This segment is part two of Take Two's five-part series "After I Do," on the issues and challenges that LGBT people face beyond the gay marriage movement. Read part one here.
Alice Herman, 78, is very lucky. She's one of 103 residents at Triangle Square, an elder care facility in Hollywood mainly for LGBT seniors.
But until just last year, Triangle Square was the only one of its kind in the whole country for Alice.
"I moved in here crying and grieving," she said. She arrived in 2009 after Sylvia, her partner of 45 years, passed away. "I was crying and grieving for a long time. We're talking years."
Being around other LGBT people allowed her to talk openly about her relationship in a way that might not have been possible elsewhere. Only now are more facilities like Triangle Square appearing throughout the country, providing a safe space for these seniors. However, it may be too late for some.
RELATED: What do you think is the biggest issue for the LGBT community beyond gay marriage?
Julie Siri, a social worker in Southern California, told KPCC's Public Insight Network that a one of her gay clients arrived at a traditional elder care facility after the death of his partner.
However, he felt isolated from the other residents because of their negative attitudes towards gay people, and, "he did experience some of the staff referring to him as a faggot and a fruit, so it was very uncomfortable for him," Siri says.
That man went back into the closet and he declined to be interviewed for this story.
Kathleen Sullivan, director of senior services at the LA LGBT Center, says she's also had clients in senior housing who've encountered a hostile atmosphere.
People telling gay jokes, or people not wanting to sit with someone once they find out they're lesbian or gay," she said. "We want to make sure that this [senior LGBT] community isn't isolated," says Sullivan, "and with no connection to their community."
The graying population
Seventy percent of adults under 30 say they’re accepting of homosexuality, and that number continues to grow.
But for today’s seniors, some of whom were on the front lines of protests like the 1969 Stonewall Riots in NYC, that acceptance hasn’t reached their own generation.
Meanwhile, the senior LGBT population is set to double to 4 million by 2030 without a lot of access to gay-friendly services that help them feel safe as they age.
"What you’ll find is really very little," says Sullivan.
She says that’s because most attention for creating support and a community has gone to younger people. Meanwhile, LGBT seniors are aging out of places they once frequented.
"Does an older gay man want to go to a same bar that he went to as a younger man?" says Sullivan. "Probably not, because he also isn’t going to be accepted in that environment."
Her division in L.A. is one of the few that have taken great care to build a network of services for elderly people. However, that’s recent: the senior services department at the LA LGBT Center was established just over five years ago.
Also, the center currently provides support to less than 10 percent of the 38,000 LGBT seniors in L.A. County. Without more resources, there’s a lot of work to be done.
"In the LGBT community, we didn’t have seniors that were out a generation ago," she says.
One reason is that growing acceptance means more adults who aren’t in the closet as they age. Another is a matter of medicine.
"A lot of people in my generation cashed out their life policies because they thought, 'I’m HIV positive, I won’t be around,'" says Chris Ramirez, 62. "'So, why not go ahead and cash out my life insurance policy. I don’t have to plan for the future, there won’t be a future.'"
But then HIV antiretrovirals became available, giving people the life they didn’t think they had. That also left them struggling to get by. LGBT people face poverty rates much higher than their heterosexual counterparts.
The number one need for those seniors in L.A. County: affordable housing.
A home to feel at home
Hollywood's Triangle Square was opened in 2007 by Gay and Lesbian Elder Housing. Residents can relax by the pool, watch "Game of Thrones" together in the media room, or huddle in the front lobby where there are windows looking onto the street.
"We kind of call it the fishbowl because people can sit here and watch the world go by," says resident Alice Herman.
Designed with LGBT seniors in mind, it’s home to many who believe that the gay community is and always will be their shelter from discrimination. Because while society has become more tolerant of LGBT people, decades of being ostracized have left these seniors wary.
"Most would prefer it if everyone in the building is gay because we give them a feeling of protection," says resident Alice Herman. "I don’t think anyone here really hates straight people, but the fact is that they feel safer."
It's the main reason why this residence is important to Herman: it gives a generation that fought for LGBT rights together a place to be share their stories.
"That’s the gift it gave me," says Herman. "I spent 45 years with this one person. If I can’t talk about the time I spent with her, then what do I have? Who I am is who I was with Sylvia."
Additional housing for LGBT seniors is just being built now. Similar facilities have opened in Minneapolis and Philadelphia in the past nine months. Another is on the way in L.A., and one in Chicago, too.
For LGBT seniors looking to spend the rest of their years still out and proud,specific housing that’s made for them gives people like Alice Herman a chance to remember her life, and that of her partner Sylvia.
"We had a thing where we’d say, I love you forever and one day more," says Herman. "And that’s way it is, forever and one day more."
Orange County British expats unite for the World Cup
England will play Costa Rica this morning in the World Cup, although the British soccer team already has been eliminated from advancing in the tournament. Even so, there's a place in Orange County where soccer continues to hold a tight-knit community of British ex-pats.
KPCC's Leslie Berestein Rojas takes us there.
World Cup 2014: Do offensive slurs and chants hint at a larger problem in soccer?
Recent incidents at the World Cup of anti-gay chants and racist behavior from fans caused many to call on FIFA to investigate. Monday, FIFA cleared Mexico, one of the countries with fans at the center of the probe, of wrongdoing.
RELATED: World Cup in LA: Mexican soccer fans view game as 'a culture, a religion'
But soccer has a long history of controversial behavior from fans and supporters. What is FIFA’s responsibility to address the issue? And how has this played out in different countries?
"You've got several things going on in football: you've got what goes on on the pitch and what goes on around it," reporter Alex Bellos tells Take Two. "It kind of reflects society."
Bellos, author of the book, "Football: The Brazilian Way of Life," spoke to Take Two from Rio de Janeiro.
FIFA responded to a request for comment on the incident by saying that the organization "abhors any insulting or discriminatory behaviour displayed by any person within the game of football."
It continued in a statement:
FIFA’s zero-tolerance stance against any form of discrimination is enshrined in the FIFA Statutes in article 3, which stipulates that: “Discrimination of any kind against a Country, private person or group of people on account of race, skin colour, ethnic, national or social origin, gender, language, religion, political opinion or any other opinion, wealth, birth or any other status, sexual orientation or any other reason is strictly prohibited and punishable by suspension or expulsion.”
Automaker recalls for 2014 already breaking records
Multiple auto manufactures issued recalls related to faulty airbags this week.
Automakers like Honda, Mazda and Nissan are recalling millions of vehicles related to faulty airbags manufactured by the Japanese firm, Takata Corp. The company also makes airbags for other car manufacturers like BMW, Ford and Mazda, who have not yet issued recalls.
The recall stems from airbags that can explode and potentially send metal shrapnel flying at occupants during a crash. So far, 2014 hasn't been a good one for car companies, with more than 31 million recalls already issued. That number breaks the record set in 2004.
So what's the reason for the recalls? We talk to Jeff Green, the Detroit bureau chief for Bloomberg News about the recalls, and what it means for the car industry.
Tuesday Reviewsday: Kitten, Riff Raff, Claire and How to Dress Well
On today's Tuesday Reviewsday we have the artists Claire, How to Dress Well and a guy who argues that James Franco's character in "Spring Breaker"s is based on him, the rapper Riff Raff. We also have a woman Chloe Chaidez from the band Kitten, who's been on the show before. She's been rocking since she was 12 years old.
from The Hollywood Reporter and
from Spin Magazine join A Martinez for a chat about these new tunes.
Shirley's Picks:
Artist: Kitten
Album: Kitten
Songs: “G#,” “Why I Wait”
Kitten is 19-year-old
, raised in L.A. on electro music and punk rock, she’s been opening for bands like No Doubt, Paramore and Charli XCX since she was 12 years old. To say she's wise beyond her years is an understatement.
This is her major label debut, but it follows an EP released in 2012 that quickly put her on critics’ radars as a girl to watch – alongside Sky Ferreira and Charli XCX. Here she is having her moment with a stellar first single – “G#” — an arena-ready teenage angst anthem that is both massive, melodic and desperate with wall-of-sound guitars ready to drive the depressed crowds over an apocalyptic cliff.
It sounds a bit like the world is ending, but in the best way.
On another track, called “Why I Wait,” Kitten seems to be hell-bent on being anointed queen of the mopey bad girls and falls squarely into the whispering zeitgeist.
There’s a little Lorde in there and a hint of Lana Del Rey’s hushed bummerscape, while the record piles on the 80s New Wave vibe that occasionally falls into Pat Benatar territory vein when it should be shooting for the grandeur of Berlin.
Still, there’s an underlying sensuality to Kitten that that’s pretty devastating when it’s on and there’s plenty of that throughout this first full-length.
Artist: Claire
Album: The Great Escape
Songs: “Games,” “My Audacity”
Here we have a group that’s truly of the Internet age.
A 5-piece from Munich Germany who met in a recording studio then recruited their singer, Josie Claire Bürkle, through Facebook , they describe their sound as “Neon Pop” – almost as if you can ascribe colors to the sounds.
So for this first song, I want to encourage all of our listeners to picture shades of purple, maybe some light blue as “Games” plays.
Lots of great female singers out there right now – Phantogram come to mind, Lorde, of course, La Roux — each has synthpop at its core. Likewise. Claire manages to sound really of the moment and yet pretty timeless, even if it too swerves towards the '80s at times.
The production is really clean and totally focused, pretty German in that sense — and closer to Disclosure and Depeche Mode than the Max Martin hit-factory or EDM, for that matter, which with all its fireworks, is starting to sound pretty tinny and annoying.
You certainly couldn’t say that of Claire or “The Great Escape,” as the album is called — named in part after the fact that the group was locked in a studio for the better part of six months “without seeing any sunlight.”
If the result of that isolation brought us a song like “My Audacity” then off to the darkness they go!
Chris's Picks
Artist: Riff Raff
Album: Neon Icon
Songs: "How to Be the Man," "Cool it Down"
Where to begin with Riff Raff? I love this dude so much. He's really special to me and I can't quite explain it. If you've seen him, you know how easy he is to write off. He's a white guy with ornate cornrows and tattoos of the MTV and BET logos on his neck. He's completely ridiculous, and totally silly, but he's also 100-percent serious about being those things, which you can really hear on the song, "How to Be the Man."
I think you either love a guy who calls himself "the white Danny Glover" or you hate him. The only mistake to me is assuming, as many do, that what Riff Raff does is parody somehow, when in reality, I think he's long been enamored with rap's more flamboyant side. He's totally this Frankenstein's monster of flossy Bad Boy Records rhymers, legit crazy people like Kool Keith, and messianic social-media hustlers like Lil B.
To be fair, it doesn't help that he was on MTV reality show "From G's to Gents." Or that he then appended his name then to make it MTV Riff Raff. The man born Horst Simco has his bonafides. He's a high school dropout from a tough part of Houston with his fair share of family drama. Before the rap thing seemed viable, he'd been betting on a basketball career. Now he gets to hang out with Snoop Dogg, make songs with names like "Aquaberry Dolphin," and get 15,000 Instagram likes every time he posts a picture of his pet husky — who it should be noted is often dyed blue.
I, for one, am throwing no salt on that swag. And one of my favorite songs on the album is "Cool It Down," which surprisingly features Amber Coffman of the Dirty Projectors.
Artist: How to Dress Well
Album: What Is This Heart?
Songs: "Repeat Pleasure," "Face Again"
Once upon a time there was a thing we music geeks kinda regrettably called PBR&B — a mashup of the cheap beer preferred by hipsters, and the early '90s music they were weaned on. Our next subject was seen as part of that — a shy bedroom-recording sensualist (and white guy) who used to cover R. Kelly songs and still sings the word "boo" with sincerity.
But Tom Krell has evolved massively since, and his new album under the name How to Dress Well might be a masterpiece.
He was strongly touched by the boldness and attention to detail of Kanye West's 'Yeezus,' but in terms of his overall identity, Krell sings and writes like a wild mashup of Bon Iver, the-Dream, Tracy Chapman, and '00s Justin Timberlake. He's got a incredible voice, a real mastery over atmosphere, incredible emotionality, and he just plain feels one-of-a-kind.
The dude's a deep-thinker too. SPIN ran an interview with him this week, and at one point, he completely flips the script on our scribe. Marc Hogan asks him about a lyric that may sound familiar to any fans of Celine Dion or 'The Titanic.' It's a line that seems uncharacteristically corny at first. But he explains:
"What I mean when I say 'my heart will go on' is not, 'I'm broken but I'm gonna keep on keepin' on,' or whatever. What I mean is that what desire at the end of the day desires is more desire. Nothing and no person on this earth will make me stop desiring."
Picture This: Artist Jason deCaires Taylor on 'The Underwater Museum'
If you are heading to Mexico this summer, may we recommend one stop off the coast of Cancun?
There you can visit the Museo Subacuatico de Arte. It's an underwater museum filled with more than 500 sculptures covered with a fascinating array of sea life.
Sculptures of human-like figures created and placed on the ocean floor by artist Jason deCaires Taylor. His new book about his artwork is called "The Underwater Museum." And photos of his work can be seen now at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, California.
Jason deCaires Taylor joins Take Two to talk about his bizarre, ethereal and fascinating art.