The San Francisco v. Sheehan case that could have wide impacts on how police treat the mentally ill, Starbucks calls off 'Race Together,' a new report on Latino poverty.
San Francisco case could have wide impact on police, mentally ill
The U.S. Supreme Court is taking up a case the could redefine how police treat the disabled and mentally ill.
The justices will begin considering a case known as San Francisco v. Sheehan, which dates back to the 2008 shooting of Teresa Sheehan by police officers who charged into her room at a group home.
Many legal experts believe the case could have wide implications. For more, we turn to San Francisco Chronicle legal affairs reporter, Bob Egelko.
Radio Skid Row: Internet station gives voice to diverse downtown LA
A military reveille blares through the speakers in a small studio in downtown Los Angeles. As the bugles fade, Bob Rosebrock leans forward into the mic. "Fellow veterans, and friends of veterans," he says. "This is a wake up call."
Rosebrock is hosting the debut of his podcast, "Veterans Revolution Radio," a show devoted to a topic that he holds dear: ending veteran homelessness in the city.
VRR is one of a series of shows put out by SkidRow Studios, a small internet radio station that has been building momentum over the past three years.
The station broadcasts online and streams live video. Listeners can also listen to podcasts available on iTunes and Stitcher, among other outlets. Its approach is live talk radio by way of the Internet.
With shows like SWAG (Sistas Working Against Gang Violence) Talk, The Dark Mark Show, Intellectual Kink, Neighborhood Love Radio and Positive Perspectives, you're as likely to encounter a serious discussion of chronic homelessness as you are to land on an earful of off-color comedy.
The shows are typically unpolished, sometimes uncomfortable, and occasionally jarring in relation to one another — not entirely unlike the rapidly-changing area from which they emanate.
Reflecting the sound of downtown
SkidRow Studio's walls are covered with scenes from downtown L.A. — a man in baggy clothes pushing a cart stacked with belongings; the marquee of a local bar, and portraits of downtown luminaries. Those include one of Charles Bukowski, the so-called "poet laureate of Skid Row," whose cigarette smoke curls into a quote that hovers above the recording studio: "Poetry is what happens when nothing else does."
If SkidRow's shows have one thing in common, it's that they each pay $50 an hour for use of the equipment and its technicians.
That's more of an editorial strategy than a money-making scheme, says the studio's founder, Jeremy Hansen.
"Anybody can come in here —anybody — and talk about what they want," he says. "It's very important to me that we as the studio do not influence the content." He adds that he prefers to allow each show host to stumble toward his or her own on-air voice and style.
Hansen says he had a kind of "Field of Dreams" approach to creating his studio. "Build this and they will come," he says with a slight smile.
And they did come. The station brings in former hustlers and service providers from Skid Row and aspiring comedians from nearby lofts. It brings in deejays and artists from the Arts District and religious figures from downtown's recovery community.
But it doesn't bring in much money.
"We're nowhere close to being profitable." Hansen says he loses about $1,000 each month on the project.
He says he's fine with that; he makes enough as a computer programmer to shoulder the cost, but adds he'd love to see the station break even at some point.
Caption: A taping of The Qumran Report is livestreamed online.
SkidRow Studios is no bootstrap micro-power operation. It's a high-end production house, complete with state-of-the-art soundboard and deck, sleekly-designed branding, and paid board operators who oversee audio and video production.
Hansen even used his skills as a programmer to automate some of the tasks usually performed by board operators at larger outlets. He calls the project a combination of his twin interests in talk radio and Internet technology.
But his hands-off approach to programming doesn't mean that Hansen hasn't been involved at all in the station's content. He organized a live broadcast from the King Eddy, a local haunt that closed down before it changed ownership several years ago. SkidRow Studios was there to buy drinks and capture the last day before the dive bar shut its doors to be redesigned.
Hansen has said he sometimes brings people he meets on the streets into the studios to record on a whim. That includes several of downtown's popular characters — some of them, like the well-loved man known as Ricky the Pirate, are homeless or formerly homeless.
"When you get serious with someone like that," he says, "there's a real story, and it's very touching."
Honing a voice and vision for Skid Row
If Hansen is SkidRow Studio's sponsor and laissez-faire administrator, Melvin Ishmael Johnson is the studio's advocate and its muse.
Johnson — an actor, director, and community activist, among other things — has spun off around eight or nine different shows, including "The Bobby Buck Show," "SWAG Talk," "Echoes of Blackness," and Rosebrock's "Veterans Revolution Radio."
Each one was incubated on Johnson's hourlong program on community arts and culture, "The Qumran Report." It's the longest running show at SkidRow Studios. Johnson's hosted the show since the studio was run out of Hansen's apartment.
"What you have in Skid Row now, you have all of these elements that are at odds with each other. The business community don't get along with the activist community; the service providers and the homeless community—"
Caption: Melvin Ishmael Johnson is the host of The Qumran Report at SkidRow Studios.
Johnson says he saw an opportunity for downtown in Hansen's idea for an Internet radio station.
"There's all the different elements that are downtown in the Skid Row area," he says. "And I thought that SkidRow Studios had the potential to be the glue that holds all of these together."
"Skid Row is kind of a hidden community," Johnson says. "Everyone defines it from the outside, with the exception of the people who are on the inside."
The studio, he hopes, will help downtown to develop and amplify their own voice, and become a place to discuss the neighborhood's issues. So far, it seems to be working.
Hear samples of SkidRow Studios shows below (Careful, they contain graphic language). See the station's website for more.
Veterans Revolution Radio:
Nestorius Public Radio:
The Qumran Report:
Echoes of Blackness
The Dark Mark Show:
Nearly 80 percent of Latino families struggle to get by in LA
Southern California is one of the most expensive places in the country to live.
A new statistic from the Economic Policy Institute puts this in perspective: Nearly 80 percent of Latino families in the LA area are struggling to get by, far more than other demographic in the city.
Manuel Pastor joins Take Two to explain why there's such a disparity between this and other ethnic groups.
Pastor is the co-director of the Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration at USC, where he's also a professor of sociology and American studies & ethnicity.
Ted Cruz makes it official and who's fighting about the upcoming House budget
Take Two's look ahead to the news stories we should be paying attention to over the next seven days.
Joining us this week:
reporter with the Washington Post and
, editor in chief of National Journals Hotline.
Jesus 'Chuy' Garcia stops in LA for Chicago mayoral campaign cash
Voters in Chicago are gearing up to elect a mayor on April 7.
Jesus "Chuy" Garcia is vying to replace the city's current mayor, Rahm Emmanuel. But before he can do that, he had to stop in L.A. to raise some campaign cash.
WBEZ reporter Lauren Chooljian has been covering the election, and she explains why Chuy stopped in L.A.
Does blocking a conferedate flag on a license plate violate free speech?
In a case that gets to the heart of the government's role and free speech, the Supreme Court takes up a Texas case today that looks at whether a group should be able to put a confederate flag on a license plate.
The Lone Star State's chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans wants a specialty license plate featuring the Confederate flag, along with the group's founding year and name. The state of Texas says the image is a racially charged symbol of repression.
We're joined by Sanford Levinson, professor of law at the University of Texas, Austin and author of numerous books, including "Written in Stone: Public Monuments in Changing Societies."
Now that 'Empire' is over, what to watch next?
If the ratings are any indication, chances are you're are still getting over the fact that Fox's "Empire" has wrapped its first season. But never fear, even as we approach summer, there's still good TV out there!
New shows are on their way, and perennial favorites "Mad Men" and "Game of Thrones" are set to return soon.
For new shows, here are some of Variety TV critic Brian Lowry's picks:
"Bloodline" (Netflix, March 20)
"Younger" (TV Land, March 31)
"A.D. The Bible Continues" (NBC, April 5)
"Wolf Hall" (PBS, April 5)
To hear the full interview, click the link above.
How recording Modest Mouse's new album almost made Isaac Brock go crazy
Eight years... that's the length of time a successful president might serve, or the time it takes on average to make it through high school and college, or for fans of the indie rock band Modest Mouse, it's how long they've had to wait for a new LP. Now that wait's finally over.
https://open.spotify.com/album/6iKqPv9C5oU29LR82N8lJf
The band's lead singer, Isaac Brock, recently joined Alex Cohen in conversation to talk about the new album.
There has been so much anticipation leading up to this album and and everyone's been asking you why it took eight years. But I'm wondering why it didn't take longer?
"I couldn't afford to have it take longer. I wasn't interested in living under a bridge..."
Could it have taken longer?
"I was pretty certain I was going actually crazy and it could've taken very long. I kind of saw... this could continue. This is crazy people stuff man. If you continue down this path you might not be able to find your way back from things."
How do you know when you're done? Was there added pressure because of the fact that it was taking so long? That you felt like you had to make it perfect?
"Yeah... and then that would take time. And then you would be like exponentially the expectations have gotten grander, so now we've got to work harder. And then that would take time. And you know, it just kept matching itself. So at some point I was just like it's done because this doesn't stop. This isn't the first record I've found myself in a position where it's like, 'Even though you know you can keep working on this for a long time, it's done now.'"
Can you talk about where you recorded this album? It used to be an old check printing studio, is that right?
"Yeah, it was like a check printing factory from 1947 to 2005, then some fella bought it... And banked it until he leased it to me for what at the time I was just like, 'Wow this guy's great. A six month lease, no one would do that.' It's because he knew he had a live one...
"A six month lease was all the better for him because I spent my six months of the time on my lease that I had, building a studio I didn't need to build. So, when my lease was done, I still didn't have anything that resembled a record or anything. Just a place to make one.
"We ended up just purchasing the place... The front where the first four or five offices were turned into hotel rooms essentially for the band to live in while we were recording...
"We got pretty involved in making this a really nice place and sometimes got distracted from actually making a record because we were remodeling this new home."
But because of this involvement, it seems like you might be more connected to the end product that you've created?
"Even building the place was part of making the songs and things. They're all tied together."
If you'd like to hear the entire conversation, check out the interview attached to the segment above.