A look back at the last government shutdown; GOP strategist Mike Madrid on CA's Republican summit in Anaheim; Dodgers fans hopeful at team's chances at a championship; Profile: The first Latino president of the State Bar of California; Cheech Marin on Chicano art and 'Chicanitas'; Odd Hollywood Jobs: Celebrity profiler, plus much more.
A look back at the last government shutdown
The big news of the day is really no news. There have been no real movement on efforts to resolve the government shut down.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid traded insults with House Speaker John Boehner, but no negotiations are scheduled and much of the government remains idled. With nothing happening in the present, we thought it might be smart to revisit the past, and the other big impasse that shut down the government in the winter of 1995 and 96.
Dodgers fans hopeful at team's chances at a championship
If thinking about the government shutdown bums you out, then how about some Dodger baseball to chase the blues away?
Last night, Carl Crawford's home run gave the Dodgers the lead, but later in the game, Crawford once again left the yard, this time literally. The Dodgers beat the Atlanta Braves 13-6, and if they win again tonight, they'll advance to the National League Championship Series.
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That puts them four victories away from going to their first World Series since 1988. A Martinez visited Dodger Stadium last night. Dodger fans were thrilled to see how the club's fortunes have changed so quickly and what this championship chase has done for Angelenos:
Those were Dodger Fans Oscar Terriquez, Bobby Morales, Kristen Allfred, Richard Lee, Adam Wymat and Doug Payne.
The team has an explosive offense, dominant pitching, great defense and they seem to have luck on their side right now so L.A. could be in for a very special October.
'Valentine Road' examines the tragic killing of 15-year-old Larry King
On February 12, 2008, in the computer lab at E.O. Green Junior High School, a tragedy unfolded.
14-year-old Brandon McInerney shot his 15-year-old classmate, Larry King, twice in the back of the head at point-blank range. Two days later, on Valentine's Day, King succumbed to his injuries.
McInerney pleaded guilty to second degree murder and voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to 21 years in prison.
The case may be closed, but the tragedy leaves many questions behind. Questions raised in the new documentary "Valentine Road," which airs tonight at 9 p.m. on HBO. Filmmaker Marta Cunningham joins Take Two to talk about the film and the shocking murder.
On The Lot: Tom Hanks, 'Avatar,' and more
Time for On The Lot, our weekly look at the business of entertainment with Rebecca Keegan of the LA Times.
Rebecca has a pretty glamorous job. She gets to interview movie stars, and this week she wrote about one of the biggest, Tom Hanks. He's got a new movie, Captain Phillips. For this project, Hanks teamed up with a director who is best known for a pretty gritty, documentary style of shooting. We'll talk about Captain Phillips.
There's a film opening next weekend that was shot undercover at Disneyland and Disneyworld called "Escape From Tomorrow." It's gotten a lot of hype, but we'll see if it will actually draw audiences.
Everyone expected Disney's lawyers to swoop down and annihilate this movie, but they haven't. At least not yet. Why is that, especially since Disney is so well-known for protecting its brand?
Let's move to James Cameron, who won a legal victory when a judge dismissed a suit by a writer who claimed Cameron stole the idea for "Avatar" from him. He not the first one to claim Cameron stole the idea.
Yesterday's New York Times magazine had Daniel Radcliffe on the cover, and the story was all about the actor trying to escape his role as Harry Potter. You've seen his first, big attempt, and he's going way out in a different direction.
We talked about the new L.A. film czar last week, and now the head of the motion picture association is saying California needs to step it up on tax credits if they don't want to lose film shoots to other states and other countries. Is this just talk, or will lawmakers listen?
GOP strategist Mike Madrid on CA's Republican summit in Anaheim
Over the weekend, the state GOP held their annual meeting in Anaheim. The keynote speaker was Texas Governor Rick Perry, who addressed the crowd on Saturday night.
Washington certainly does seem broken. This year's convention came amidst a government shutdown and a rift between various Republican factions on Capitol Hill. For more on this weekend's summit, we turn now to Republican Strategist Mike Madrid.
Profile: The first Latino president of the State Bar of California
For the first time in its 89-year history, the State Bar of California will swear in its first Latino president this Saturday in San Jose, LA County's deputy public defender Luis Rodriguez.
He has a self-professed love of the Constitution, but he didn't grow up dreaming of becoming a lawyer. He grew up an outsider. From the California Report, Susan Valot has this profile.
Rodriguez was born in Los Angeles to parents who immigrated to the United States legally. When he was three years old, they moved the family back to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, a border city now known for its violence.
A young Rodriguez struggled to fit in.
"I remember kids making fun of me, saying that – there’s a term in Spanish ... called 'pocho' that is somewhat derogatory of Mexican-Americans and it's used by Mexicans. And that's how they referred to me," Rodriguez said. "They called me 'from the other side,' 'del otro lado.' So in Mexico, I wasn't Mexican because I wasn't born there. When we came back, even though I'm a U.S.-born citizen, I was not treated as an American."
Rodriguez said he was almost like a man without a country. He says life in the U.S. presented other challenges. One of those: discrimination.
"I remember this one time, when my father got pulled over for a traffic violation and the officer making fun of my father's accent," Rodriguez recounted. "And I remember as a kid here in San Gabriel Valley, being pulled over and being asked to step out of the car and being searched. And we asked why and the officers were barking at us, just checking to see who we were."
Rodriguez said he also saw police harass his neighbors. He said his experiences with law enforcement were not positive.
Those experiences inspired Rodriguez to become a public defender, so he could help protect people against injustice.
He was first exposed to public defending when he worked at the Santa Clara Public Defender's Office in Northern California during law school.
"For me, it truly has been a love of democracy," Rodriguez said. "I lived in a different country. I saw what it was to be in a country that called itself a democracy, but really wasn't. And I saw the lack of protections against government abuse."
Rodriguez worked his way up in the Los Angeles County Public Defender's office, defending those without enough money to hire their own attorneys. But not with a few bumps along the way.
"There were a couple times where I walked into the courtroom and the bailiff thought I was the interpreter. Or another time, a judge thought I was one of the defendants," Rodriguez remembered.
He added that once, one of his first assigned clients – a Latino man who'd been around the prison system already – didn't want Rodriguez to be his public defender.
"And it struck me because even my own ethnic group had an uncertainty about the quality of representation by their own kind," Rodriguez said.
Years later, he will be not only the first Latino to head the State Bar of California, but the first public defender. He ran unopposed for the position, which is considered by many in the legal field to be a compliment.
Former state lawmaker Martha Escutia, vice president for government affairs at the University of Southern California, has known Rodriguez for years. She called him "fair-minded."
Escutia said the fact that Rodriguez is a well-liked public defender means more to her than his Latino heritage.
"He definitely will go the extra mile to look for different stakeholders," Escutia said. "He definitely will look for stakeholders who perhaps have not been heavily involved in the State Bar. And he will always be managing the outcome towards a win-win situation, always looking for consensus."
The incoming president takes over the State Bar as California's legal system could potentially deal with immigration reform – changes that could bring out more scammers targeting immigrant communities.
Immigration changes could flood California with up to 3 million people suddenly eligible for U.S. citizenship. Escutia said Rodriguez's background will help.
"If immigration reform does happen – and that's a big if, I'm not sure – it will make a big difference to have someone who understands the immigrant community and also understands how that community is constantly being victimized and preyed upon," she said.
Rodriguez has already begun working with state lawmakers to create legislation that would give the State Bar the ability to go after scamming attorneys – and fakes – with civil actions, like injunctions.
Rodriguez also wants to focus on court funding, which is something he said affects everybody, from people paying traffic tickets to people fighting evictions or trying to secure restraining orders.
Attorney Eric Alderete worked with Rodriguez through the Mexican-American Bar Association. He predicts Rodriguez will hit the ground running once he is officially sworn in.
"My hope – and I think he's already doing it – is that Luis focuses on issues of immigration, like he's done, and that he tries to work to diversify the judicial panel," Alderete said. "Because if you think the California Bar is not diverse, if you look at the judicial officers in this state, it's not very diverse."
California State University Los Angeles political analyst and professor emeritus Jaime Regalado said Rodriguez's selection is a sign that trade associations – like the California Bar – are moving closer to reflecting the population.
"It may not be practically very important, but symbolically, I think it is," Regalado said. "It [underscores] the fact that Latinos and Asians are the fastest-growing demographic groups in California. And Latinos will be a majority of the state of California in the not-to-distant future."
Regalado, who has studied trade associations, suggested that such organizations as the State Bar are trying to catch up to the state's demographics.
"Many associations of the professions are kind of hamstrung because they have a majority white membership," Regalado said. "And it necessitates a larger look or a broader look at what causes membership in professional associations not to reflect the population ... they serve."
Regalado said that means looking at the education system, from kindergarten through university.
Incoming California State Bar President Luis Rodriguez said he hopes the day will come when there aren't any more firsts for anyone, including Latinos.
He is surprised it has taken nearly nine decades to have a Latino in charge of the California State Bar, although he points out Latinos have been on its board.
"Although it's a compliment that I'll be the first one, it's also a stark reminder of how far we still are," Rodriguez said, "that it took all of us this long to have a Latino head the agency."
Cheech Marin on Chicano art and 'Chicanitas'
Cheech Marin is famous to most people for being the other half to, "Cheech and Chong," the infamous pot-smoking duo from films such as "Up In Smoke" and "Still Smokin.'"
He's also moved on to roles in Robert Rodriguez films like, "From Dusk Til Dawn," a turn on the TV show, "Nash Bridges," and even as an animated rat in the kids movie, "Beverly Hills Chihuahua."
But what you probably didn't know about Cheech is that he's also an avid art collector.
He joins KPCC for a pledge party Tuesday night, and also talked with A Martinez about his love of Chicano art and his book, "Chicanitas."
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Odd Hollywood Jobs: Celebrity profiler
To many people, getting paid to hang out with celebrities sound like a dream job.
Journalist Benjamin Svetkey was a celebrity profiler for 20 years, and he profiled the likes of Angelina Jolie, Julia Roberts, Jack Nicholson and Tom Hanks for Entertainment Weekly. But writing about movie stars isn't always all that it's cracked up to be, as Svetkey recently revealed in a piece for LA Magazine.
He joins Take Two to talk about his career, his favorite moments and who he'd like to interview next.
Interview Highlights
On just starting out as an entertainment journalist:
"I started making mistakes pretty early. I was on my first Hollywood sound stage and I saw the Enterprise's Bridge, the show that I had been fantasizing my whole life. I tried to sit down in the captain's chair and stage hands came running from out of everywhere, waving their arms, telling me 'don't sit in the captain's chair!' because Patrick Stewart hated it…It was a bit of a scandal that I sat down."
On the process of profiling a notable person:
"It varies from situation to situation. If you're in a movie or TV set, there's a publicist you have to sort of trail. You can't just wander around and bump into stuff and ask people stuff without being escorted. If it's a profile in a restaurant or somebody's home, it's a little more casual. You sort of sit down and you start a conversation. It looks like from the outside, pretty normal, but before you sit down, there's a whole range of negotiations that go on to get to that point. It can take weeks to set up an interview."
On his approach to talking to famous people:
"Well, there's kind of a famous saying that you should talk to famous people like they're normal and normal people like they're famous. I don't even think stars like it when you suck up to them. You sort of try to be a normal human being. That's not always easy because stars aren't always normal human beings and it can get kind of complicated in that sense."
On some of his favorites over the years:
"My favorites aren't always the people you'd expect. For a while in the '90s, I was obsessed with the show called "Mystery Science Theatre 3000" and so I went out to Minnesota or some place and saw puppets they used for the show and was probably more starstruck by that than I was with Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise. But Jack Nicholson was great. The more iconic and sort of legendary they are, the more fun it is, because you're sitting down with a legend, really, and you get to see them as a real person and they're kind of cool."
On getting asked 'What's Jack Nicholson like'?:
"I have no idea. I know what he's like in a very controlled, self-aware situation, but I don't know what he's like when he's yelling at his assistant and being his normal self. The smart stars, and there are a few, are very well aware that every word they say to a journalist is going to potentially end up in print. So they are pretty careful about what they say.
"There are stars who cannot control themselves and their sort of inner jerkiness comes through even when they are trying to be on their best behavior. That can be unpleasant, but kind of fun to write about."
On one of his favorite moments ever in a celebrity interview:
"Sometimes find yourself getting into weird predicaments. I did an interview with Hugh Grant when he first sort of broke out as a movie star. He came out to Hollywood, and back then, the idea was you do stuff with stars. So I had the bright idea that we'd get a Hollywood map of the stars and I'd drive around with Hugh Grant and his white BMW convertible and we'd go visit the stars' houses. We had a great time, he was incredibly charming.
"I wake up the next morning at 7 a.m. with a phone call from my editor. Hugh Grant's been arrested. He was busted in his white BMW convertible, and suddenly the story completely changed. I started remembering stuff that I didn't think about before. I happened to be in a hotel room next to his and he was very concerned I could hear things going on in his hotel room, and I remember driving around and he was checking out women. All of a sudden the entire experience completely changed because of the context. I became the Bob Woodward of elicit sexual activity among stars for a week there when that happened."
On how the celebrity journalism industry has changed:
"It's changed completely. When I was doing it at the height of the magazine world in the late '90s, I would go visit a movie star. I could pretty much put a pin in the map and wherever in the world there was a movie going, I'd convince some editor to send me there. It was a great gig and I'd do the interviews and I'd spend a couple of days there. I'd come back, put the tapes in the drawer and I'd wait six or eight months until the movie came out and I would settle in and write a 3,000 word story.
"Now, everybody's live blogging from the set. Anybody who wants to know about a particular project can get real-time updates about what's going on. The kind of production story that was the bread and butter of Entertainment Weekly, nobody really needs that anymore. They can get that in other places. It's more Internet-driven. It's what can you put online that people will be wanting to read and because it's on the internet, it's shorter, long-form journalism is sort of..i'm sure you know.. has seen better days. it's changed radically."
On how much his work as influenced his new novel, "Leading Man."
"A lot. They say write what you know, so for my first novel I stuck pretty close to what I knew. The character in the book is a magazine journalist who travels around the world and interviews movie stars. I used a lot of experiences I had as kind of a mash-up. I took little bits of different stars that I had interviewed and made new stars. It was fun, I'd come in the morning, crack my knuckles and say OK, what kind of star am I going to invent today?"
On which star he would love to interview:
"I would love to sit down with Woody Allen. I've talked to him very briefly on the phone, but I would love to do a long Q&A with Woody Allen just because I love his movies. If we were going back to sort of raising them for the dead, there's countless — Humphrey Bogart, Alfred Hitchcock — the list would go on."
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