05/04/05

LC050504

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

He won a seat on the city council, but as a Persian politician
in Beverly Hills, can he beat the stereotypes

Jimmy Delshad>> They were telling me that it's not the time,
you're not ready, the city's not ready, the community is not
ready. Others have done it. What makes you think you can?

Val>> And then, he's perfected the art of tough love and he's
using it to turn around some tough kids.

It's all straight ahead on tonight's Life and Times.

Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of
the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality
of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of
medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val>> They've been accused of building gaudy Persian palaces
and locking themselves behind the gates, but could it be that
the growing Iranian population in Beverly Hills is just
misunderstood? Well, now one man is trying to close the culture
gap and, as Philip Bruce tells us, he's blazing a trail as
Beverly Hills' first ever Iranian city councilman.

Philip Bruce>> On the sidewalks of Beverly Hills, his isn't the
most famous face by a long shot, but when Jimmy Delshad goes out
on the town, he gets noticed.

>> "I'm very proud of you. I am so glad to know you."

Philip Bruce>> The waitresses at Nate & Al's Deli say he's the
best thing the city's got going and, judging from all the other
smiling faces here, they're not the only ones. Such is life for
the only Persian politician in 90210. He's living his American
dream.

Jimmy Delshad>> When I started running, nobody took me
seriously. They were telling me that it's not the time, you're
not ready, the city's not ready, the community is not ready.
Others have done it. What makes you think you can? And that
gave me more of a challenge to overcome that. I used to say to
them that I will change that impression. Every time they said
that, I would say I will change that impression.

Philip Bruce>> His plan worked. Delshad got elected to the
Beverly Hills City Council by beating a much better known
opponent. Now the bigger challenge is bringing this wealthy,
but sometimes divided, city together. For the new councilman,
it starts by persuading his fellow Iranians to leave their gated
homes and get involved.

Jimmy Delshad>> The Iranians feel totally accepted and all
that, but they're just within themselves, get together with
their own families, their own people and they feel very
comfortable doing that, mostly for protecting their culture.

Philip Bruce>> Protecting it from what?

Jimmy Delshad>> Protecting it from what they perceive to be an
outside pressure to take away from their culture. They're very
family oriented. They want their children to grow up with the
value systems that they have which is families, closeness,
education, and they're very much afraid to get their children
involved in something that they see on TV. What they see on TV,
they think that's going on in everybody's family.

Philip Bruce>> The city's famous Rodeo Drive lifestyle isn't
the problem. Delshad says most Iranians love the big cars and
the trendy shops, but they're less receptive to the Southern
California vibe. To many, it seems as foreign now as the day
they moved here. So they're afraid their kids will get sucked
into that whole Beverly Hills 90210 life?

Jimmy Delshad>> Yeah, yeah. It's not just in Beverly Hills.
It's all over like this, even in Los Angeles, Westwood and other
places, that they're afraid to get involved in something that
would be maybe a negative on their children.

Philip Bruce>> And you were telling me that many Iranians have
not typically voted or even registered to vote.

Jimmy Delshad>> That was probably the biggest challenge I had,
which I was not aware of at the time I started.

Philip Bruce>> That's significant, considering that Iranians
comprise about a quarter of Beverly Hills's population and their
numbers are growing. They started moving here in droves after
the Islamic revolution that forced the Shah from power. But
just because Iranians immigrated here didn't mean they had to
join in, especially if it meant putting their names on the
dotted line.

Jimmy Delshad>> When I got somebody, for example, registered to
vote, first they were afraid to register because they said,
well, our name will get on different names. People will call
us. In fact, they were afraid to get called by the IRS. They
were afraid to get called by the INS.

Philip Bruce>> They were afraid of the government?

Jimmy Delshad>> They were afraid of the government. They don't
like their names on anything that the government would come.
That shows you because they were afraid even in Iran to put
their names somewhere because of the government. One, they
didn't trust the government. Second, they didn't want to be
picked up for some other reasons.

[Film Clip]

Philip Bruce>> Jimmy Delshad understands fear very well. He's
not only Iranian, but Jewish, a combination at odds with today's
realities in Iran, but it wasn't always so.

Jimmy Delshad>> Being a Jew in Iran was comfortable under the
Shah, quite comfortable. He was always encouraging people to
study and go out and do that, so I left the country just to get
a better education and I thought I would go back. After my
graduation and school and all that, I'll go back to Iran and
help Iranians.

Philip Bruce>> The Iran of Delshad's boyhood is history, yet
he's held on to the things that matter most: his family, his
memories and his music.

[Musical Clip]

Philip Bruce>> So how did the councilman learn to trust his new
home, to move beyond the comfort of his traditional Iranian
family? Well, he says it all began with his wife. He credits
her with teaching him how to be an American.

Jimmy Delshad>> My life really changed drastically when I met
my wife. Lonnie Delshad is Israeli-born, but raised in America,
so her family was a great influence on me in learning the
culture of Americans and other cultures and I used that bridge
which I created at home to create at other places.

Philip Bruce>> Then came two children and a successful business
career that gave him the financial freedom to pursue his two
American dreams: serving on the City Council and raising money
for a nonprofit that awards scholarships to needy youngsters.
But other Iranians here haven't been so lucky and, in spite of
the prevailing local stereotype, they're not all rich, a fact
that most non-Persians still don't get.

Jimmy Delshad>> What Iranians perceive is what they look like,
what cars they drive, what dresses they have, what clothes they
have. They have no idea what goes on inside their homes. If
you saw the movie, "House of Sand and Fog", you would see that.
Iranians like to be able to be perceived as well-to-do and
sometimes they are not well-to-do at home.

[Film Clip]

Philip Bruce>> In "House of Sand and Fog", Ben Kingsley plays a
once-powerful Iranian immigrant who works many jobs to project
an image of affluence when, in fact, he's barely getting by.
It's just a movie, but Delshad says it provides a true picture
of an Iranian community that's mostly misunderstood.

Jimmy Delshad>> I need to do an educational thing for the non-
Iranians to show that, even though they dress well and are
necessarily driving big cars and all that, they are not all
well-to-do, so they're here to relearn and do good business and
get ahead.

Philip Bruce>> With his new job at City Hall, the councilman
says he has a platform to get everyone's attention. He's
convinced that all sides can learn to be part of the same
community and leave behind the same old stereotypes.

Jimmy Delshad>> It is happening. It is happening without me
working on it because they see, as a representative or as an
Iranian that's in the open, they see he's a normal man, he's
intellectual, he's just like us. Maybe he's got a little accent
and I never had it when I was in Iran, but I have it here. So
it is changing by itself. When I ran, nobody took me seriously.
They said, oh, sure, you've got money, you've got a business and
all that, but you can't get votes because you haven't been
involved. So I tried changing that by bringing the other third
dimension. In order to get anything done, you need some
political power, so that's what I'm hoping to get across to all
the others, to get involved.

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Val>> The New York Times called it a gem of a documentary.
It's a film about two elderly women who would otherwise be
invisible to the world. They have a special friendship and they
live in a retirement home in Los Angeles, but not just any
retirement home. This one is for political liberals, or as they
like to call themselves, free-thinking elderly. Vicki Curry
talked with the filmmaker, Laura Gabbert, about what it was like
to document a special friendship at Sunset Hall.

Vicki Curry>> Laura Gabbert, you have made a documentary called
"Sunset Story" about a very specific kind of retirement home.
Tell me about Sunset Hall.

Laura Gabbert>> Sunset Hall is a retirement home here in Los
Angeles. It was founded back in 1923 by women from the
Unitarian Church. It was founded for religious and political
progressives specifically and it has maintained that tradition
until today.

Vicki Curry>> And how does one get into the hall? Are there
sort of requirements?

Laura Gabbert>> There aren't really, but it attracts a person
with a certain political bent. It's in sort of the Wilshire
District near Koreatown here in Los Angeles and really it's for
people who just want to stay engaged sort of politically and
otherwise in life as they age.

Vicki Curry>> So why did you choose to make a documentary about
this place?

Laura Gabbert>> Well, my collaborators, my producers and
myself, had read an article about Sunset Hall in the New York
Times back in 1998 and it described the place. We were
interested in the politics of the place and that it was a really
unusual type of home. Usually people are grouped together in
nursing homes by age, not by sort of interests, and that was
really fascinating to us. So we went down there and spent some
time.

What we discovered was that many of the people there had
Alzheimer's and dementia and it was really hard to elicit
stories from them. We thought originally we'd do this piece
about the history of the left through the eyes of people at
Sunset Hall and that was actually difficult to do. So about a
year into our research, two women, Lucille Alpert and Irja
Lloyd, moved in who were wonderful sort of extremely lucid,
bright, funny women. We thought, hey, this is our story, these
two women.

Vicki Curry>> So once you found these two women, where did you
go from there?

Laura Gabbert>> Basically, we just started following them
around. They became best friends when they moved in and we
thought this is maybe more of a story about friendship and about
growing old and how people stay engaged personally and through,
you know, political activities and such rather than a specific
piece about the history of the left. So the politics of the
piece sort of became the backdrop of the film and the story of
Lucille and Irja, their friendship, really became the main
narrative of the film.

Vicki Curry>> So tell me a little bit more about these two.

Laura Gabbert>> Well, the reason we were attracted to them is
that they sort of flung this dynamic duo. They're really kind
of a classic comedic team. Irja Lloyd was a Finnish immigrant,
a political activist her entire life, very earnest, a do-gooder,
a wonderful person.

Irja Lloyd>> "I was a teenager during the big Depression and I
used to march then and do you know that was sixty-seven years
ago? And I am still marching for the same thing."

Laura Gabbert>> Lucille Alpert was an assimilated Jew, very
ironic, very incredible wit.

Lucille Alpert>> "I could follow you."

Irja Lloyd>> "Yeah, you could follow me. We'll have a race."

Lucille Alpert>> "Yeah. I'll hang on your chair, your
chariot."

Irja Lloyd>> "Yeah, but no, I use my walker."

Lucille Alpert>> "Oh, your walker."

Irja Lloyd>> "Yeah."

Lucille Alpert>> "Oh, well then, I could use my walker."

Irja Lloyd>> "Yeah. We'll have a race."

Lucille Alpert>> "Yeah. I'm so excited about it (laughter)."

Irja Lloyd>> "Yeah. I walk four times a day (laughter)."

Laura Gabbert>> And the two of them together just made this
great team. They loved each other dearly, but also kind of were
able to get under each other's skin like kind of great odd
couples do. In the film, there's this sort of running theme
that Irja wants Lucille to observe the Jewish holidays.
Lucille, being a very secular Jew, doesn't want to do that.

Lucille Alpert>> "You keep pushing us out. Be Jewish. Be
Jewish. I told you. We send cards, Happy New Year, and that's
enough for us. Don't have to be in Jewish."

Irja Lloyd>> "(Laughter) I love lighting candles."

Lucille Alpert>> "Well, light them if you want to. You don't
have to drag all the Jews into it."

Irja Lloyd>> "(Laughter) Yes, I do. It's your holiday."

Lucille Alpert>> "Yeah. We'll drag the Fins in. We'll eat Rye
Krisp, eat the raw fish. Be Finnish."

Irja Lloyd>> "Oh, no comparison."

Laura Gabbert>> I think another moment that does, again, sort
of capture the essence of their relationship is a scene where
they're talking about what it's like to be Jewish in a small
town. Irja grew up in a small town. Lucille grew up in
Chicago. They're sort of having this debate about each other's
experience and who really understands what discrimination is
like.

[Film Clip]

Vicki Curry>> So you had set out to do a film about Sunset
Hall, but it really ended up being more about these two women?
So where did your film end up going? What story did you end up
telling?

Laura Gabbert>> We ended up telling a very intimate story and a
story that's, I think, much more universal. I think that people
will respond to these women and what they go through, whether
they're of the right or the left. The politics really just
became the thing that they are engaged in, so it doesn't really
matter if you're engaged in politics of the right or politics of
the left. It's just something that they both cared about deeply
their entire lives and continued to care about into their later
years. Our goal as filmmakers was really to humanize the
elderly in this film, and our hope was that somehow their age
would sort of fall away and you would just become involved in
their story and the sort of narrative thread of the film and
kind of fall in love with them.

Vicki Curry>> Laura Gabbert, filmmaker of "Sunset Story", thank
you so much for taking the time to talk to us.

Laura Gabbert>> Thanks, Vicki.

Val>> As for the future of Sunset Hall, it's struggling. Only
about half of its rooms are occupied and it's got a debt of
about $300,000. A developer has offered to pay off the debt in
return for control of the home. In the meantime, the board is
also considering selling the property.

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Val>> He's considered a professor in the school of hard knocks
and his students are some of the toughest kids to ever hit the
streets of Los Angeles. He's a martial arts teacher we met a
few years back and his story made such an impact on us and
others that we thought we'd take another look. In the heart of
South Central at 61st Street Elementary in an auditorium after
school, the toughest kids in the hood come to a martial arts
program called Jeopardy.

Marvin Calmes>> "Come on now. All you got to do is sign your
name. Discipline and focus, people. Hurry up."

Val>> It's taught by a tough love teacher, Marvin Calmes, who
doesn't tolerate disrespect, delinquency or marijuana.

Marvin Calmes>> "Who you puff bud with?"

Student>> "Oh, that was one of my friends."

Marvin Calmes>> "Okay, check this out. That puffing bud and
shit, that means you got a cloud in your head, you understand?
That means you got a cloud in your head. You want to be stuck
on stupid forever? All right, then."

Val>> To inner city teens, Marvin Calmes is known as Professor
Marvin. For much of his life, he was a gang member himself and
a drug addict. But now at age forty-four, he can clearly see
the potential that young people have, and yet Marvin Calmes is
legally blind. He sees only dark shaking shadows, but little
escapes his awareness.

Marvin Calmes>> "You think I'm playing? Then you better, you
know, sir, yes, sir;, sir, no, sir. Do you understand?"

Student>> "Yes, sir."

Marvin Calmes>> "Right."

Val>> His approach is like the military. He prowls in a manner
of a boot camp officer. He circles his students, seemingly
ready to pounce on them and he launches into controlled mini-
tirades.

Marvin Calmes>> "Don't say you can't, boy. Let's go. Get it
up. See what bud do for you? See what bud do for you?"

Val>> And when kids give him attitude, he gets physical.

Marvin Calmes>> There you go. Give him a good shot.

Val>> Gang members send death threats to Calmes, angry that
he's stealing their potential recruits, but Calmes doesn't
flinch.

Marvin Calmes>> Why I do what I do? Someone got to. If you're
not a part of the solution, you're part of the problem.

Val>> The professor has accomplished more with kids in one
class than some parents have in a lifetime.

Alicia Gonzalez>> Chris was an extremely horrible bad kid. He
had a gang incident. This kid was moments away from either
being killed or just a hopeless cause -- he was going to kill
somebody.

Val>> After just two classes with Professor Marvin, thirteen-
year-old Chris has become a model teenager.

Alicia Gonzalez>> And it was something that I couldn't do.
Nobody could do.

Marvin Calmes>> They come telling me, "Thank you for giving me
my son back."

Val>> And fifteen-year-old Lamar used to be a juvenile
delinquent. Now he gets A's and B's.

Lamar Fields-Brewer>> Professor Marvin, he's like another
father or brother to me because he helped me out a lot.

Marvin Calmes>> I use a lot of slang because you got to get at
these kids a certain way. They're tough kids. "Your momma and
your father go to work for you every day to make shit straight
for you. All you got to do is bring them good grades. Give
them that honor, respect, virtue, discipline and focus. You do
that, partner, you go far."

Val>> Today is Ricky Young's first class. His parents signed
him up because he was caught smoking marijuana. He's only
fifteen.

Marvin Calmes>> "Women wear long nails, you understand? You
supposed to be what?"

Ricky Young>> "A man."

Marvin Calmes>> A man. Cut them f..... nails, you understand?"

Val>> Just like first-time recruits, Ricky must endure two
hours of rigorous exercises, weightlifting, push-ups, crunches.

Marvin Calmes>> "Come on. Too slow. That's that f.... bud
you're smoking, partner. Delayed reaction. Come on. See, you
late. Come on, keep going."

Val>> Exhausted, Ricky is commanded to spar with Lamar, a black
belt-level student. Professor Marvin's point is made. Obey
authority and get your act together, or else.

Marvin Calmes>> "You're here because your father loves you,
that's number one. Number two, all of that ignorant bullshit,
you got to get up off of. Number three, you understand, you got
to give him just respect. Do you understand? Number four, mom,
you got to give her her respect, yes, ma'am; no, ma'am. Your
father, yes, sir; no, sir. You understand?"

Ricky>> "Yes, sir."

Marvin Calmes>> "From this day forward."

Val>> As Ricky's parents watch in silence, the boy who is known
to friends as "Smoky" is finally humbled.

Ricky>> "I'm sorry."

Marvin Calmes>> "Who's sorry?"

Ricky>> "I am."

Marvin Calmes>> "And?"

Ricky>> "All the things that I did."

Marvin Calmes>> "And you not going to what?"

Ricky>> "I'm not going to do drugs. I'm not going to do it
ever again."

Officer Richard Dixon>> They know that he's watching, and
there's consequences if they mess up. But then they know too
that he shows a lot of love.

Val>> And then there's ten-year-old Dwayne.

>> "Mom asked him where was his homework at. Said he had a
substitute teacher. He couldn't do his homework. Mom went to
school. Teacher's been there all week, so he's been lying to
his mother."

Val>> The professor sets his punishment. One hundred push-ups
on his knuckles.

Marvin Calmes>> "Lying don't get you nothing. Lying don't get
you a damn thing but trouble, you understand?. When you lie,
that means you'll cheat, that means you'll steal. Do you
understand?"

Dwayne>> "Yes, sir."

[Film Clip]

Marvin Calmes>> "Get off your knees. I said all you have to do
is go to a hundred, huh?"

Dwayne>> "Yes, sir."

Marvin Calmes>> "I lied. Come on. See how it feels? Get off
your knees. Get off your knees. Get up on them knuckles.
That's not a good feeling, huh? Get - off - your - knees! See,
I told you a lie, right?"

Dwayne>> "Yes, sir."

Marvin Calmes>> "Right. Get off your knees. Get - off - your
- knees! I lied to you, huh? Just like you lied to your momma,
huh?"

Dwayne>> "Yes, sir."

Val>> But why would these hard-edged kids put up with this kind
of treatment? Simply put, they have to be here. They are
either ordered by the courts or forced to be here by determined
parents. In either case, the professor has some of the roughest
cases eating out of his hand.

Dwayne>> I did something wrong in my life. He's helped me
become a better person.

Val>> As for Professor Marvin, the work is part volunteer, part
pay, but even without a monthly stipend, he'd be here for these
young people.

Marvin Calmes>> They go from not bringing home no books, coming
home with beer on their breath, bud on their clothing, maybe a
joint in their pocket, you know what I'm saying, to bringing
home books, yes, ma'am, wash dishes. Big time. Make you proud.

Val>> Professor Marvin will never get rich doing this, but his
rewards are counted in the number of lives he's turned around.
Over the last four years teaching martial arts, Professor Marvin
has set a hundred fifty young kids on the right track.

Marvin Calmes>> You see them in the beginning, trials and
tribulations that they went through, then flip the switch to put
them on the right track. Then the growth from that point on?
Oh, yeah, I guarantee it make you cry every night.

Val>> And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at
Life and Times, thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.

Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of
the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality
of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of
medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val>> Next time on Life and Times --

The future looked bright in 1955, but what's ahead for
Disneyland on its fiftieth anniversary?

>> Disneyland can be better than it is now as long as it holds
fast to that and doesn't get distracted. It will continue to
make lots of money, make lots of people happy and be here, the
big star of Southern California.

Val>> That's next time on Life and Times.