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Life & Times Transcript
10/04/05 Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times -- Reality is setting in for Katrina victims, but Californians are helping them wade through the challenges. Obaka Adedunyo>> I live in California. We have earthquakes. We have fires. We have landslides. We have mudslides. That could be us. Val Zavala>> And then, actor Alan Alda talks with Patt Morrison about his unusual childhood and his memoir, "Never Have Your Dog Stuffed". It's all straight ahead on tonight's Life and Times. Announcer>> 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 Zavala>> The stream of Katrina evacuees has slowed down, but for those who ended up here in Southern California, reality is setting in. That reality includes high rents and scarce jobs. Toni Guinyard went to the Red Cross Family Services Center in the mid-Wilshire area to see how relief workers and attorneys are helping survivors wade through their problems. >> "We had no lights and no water, so we had to leave. I was living on the second floor and they knocked on the door and said we got to go. No ifs, no ands, no nothing." Toni Guinyard>> It's a scene replayed again and again, victims of Hurricane Katrina trying to explain the unexplainable, their private hell played out in a public venue as they make their way through the maze of forms and questions before they can get the help they want and need. >> "They're long-term." >> "Correct." >> "In other words, this is just a band-aid right now." >> "Correct". Obaka Adedunyo>> I live in California. We have earthquakes. We have fires. We have landslides. We have mudslides. That could be us. People come in here. They don't understand the system of bureaucracy. They don't understand that everything is A-B-C before you get to X-Y-Z. Toni Guinyard>> And so we watch and we learn what we could face if forced to deal with a natural disaster of catastrophic proportions. They are at the mercy of total strangers to guide them through the process and most gravitate to what's familiar, in this case, the Red Cross. On this day, legal help is being offered. Ed Anderson>> We're looking at issues like housing, HUD housing, insurance issues. We're dealing with areas of education. Where do they put their kids in school? How do they get the kind of services from FEMA? "She just moved here with her family, but there are certain things that she might be entitled to, so just take her through whatever that she needs to go through." Toni Guinyard>> Ed Anderson is a student at Southwestern University Law School. He's also a Red Cross employee. It was his idea to provide legal help to Katrina victims. Ed Anderson>> The people aren't just refugees. They're not coming in here as evacuees from a different country. They're our own neighbors. Toni Guinyard>> It wasn't tough to get a team of law school faculty students and members of the Los Angeles pro bono counsel to sign on. They know the evacuees may not be aware of all of the legal issues they face until now. From paying a mortgage for a home that no longer exists to replacing driver's licenses and birth certificates, the problems are sobering. Ed Anderson>> A family that comes who's been devastated, who has no hope, if we can bring a little bit of hope to that one family, then I'll feel like we've done our job. But, you know, this is going to be long-term. I have a feeling that we're going to be looking at issues that go months, maybe even years. Obaka Adedunyo>> When catastrophes happen, we all jump onto it. But after it begins to drag out over time, over time, over time, we begin to lose interest in it. I hope that it doesn't happen. I'm afraid that this is what's going to happen. Toni Guinyard>> His fears are not unfounded. Weeks after the hurricane, evacuees continue arriving by the carload in couples or alone. [Film Clip] Toni Guinyard>> They are strangers bound together by a common thread, a natural disaster. They've taken different paths, but eventually make their way to Southern California winding up here at the Red Cross in Los Angeles. H.T. Linke>> They sort of self-evacuated. They got in their car when they evacuated in New Orleans or Louisiana or Mississippi or they got on a bus or they got on a plane, and they came to Los Angeles. [Film Clip] H.T. Linke>> My concern is just having enough resources to do the job. The job keeps getting bigger. It was a big job with Katrina when it first came ashore. As these families started to come here to Los Angeles, the job got even bigger. Toni Guinyard>> The Red Cross of Greater Los Angeles has received twenty million dollars in donations from Los Angeles area residents and served fourteen hundred Katrina evacuees so far. At one point, one hundred evacuees a day were showing up here. That number is down to a trickle now, far from what was seen in Houston, Texas where thousands of hurricane victims were housed. Michael A. Stoll>> Well, most people would say, wow, that's really generous of Houston. My reaction was, this will be disastrous if Houston doesn't have a plan in place to integrate these folks into employment and housing successfully. Toni Guinyard>> UCLA Associate Professor of Public Policy, Michael Stoll, warns that states that have welcomed evacuees, including California, could face economic challenges. Michael A. Stoll>> In the absence of additional resources, in the absence of any targeted policies to help the evacuees re-integrate through employment and housing, what we're going to be left with in my opinion is much more competition amongst those who are already having a difficult time entering employment successfully or finding housing successfully. Toni Guinyard>> Many of the people who were impacted by Hurricane Katrina came to California thinking this was a good idea, that this state would be a great place for a fresh start, but many are quickly learning that, if they were having trouble making ends meet back home, California may not be the best place to be. Zina Shannon>> When I got here, I realized that the cost of living was high and it was very expensive. But I'm the type of person, I'm a survivor. I don't expect too much to be given to me or nothing like that. All I'm saying is, just treat me fair. Whatever I deserve, just give it to me and let me live on until I can sacrifice to go back home. Toni Guinyard>> The emotions of evacuees looking for a foothold to rebuild and their families looking for a way to help them range from resignation to outright frustration. [Film Clip] Toni Guinyard>> Obaka Adedunyo is a Red Cross volunteer. Before Katrina hit, he'd never volunteered for anything. Now he finds himself face to face with person after person desperate for help. [Film Clip] Obaka Adedunyo>> Oftentimes they're desperate, they're distressed. I contact them before they get to the case managers and the mental health people. I try to diffuse them as best I can and try to relax them somewhat and sort of relieve some of their stress by talking with them. Toni Guinyard>> But that's something you don't learn through a training program. Obaka Adedunyo>> No. It's called OJT, on the job training. Toni Guinyard>> Adedunyo is no stranger to dealing with the unexpected. He's a cancer survivor, an unemployed facilities and operations manager. Struck by the haunting images he saw on television, he decided to volunteer, knowing the weight of compassion for the evacuees won't last forever. He's determined to help in any way he can. Obaka Adedunyo>> If we don't do it, who's going to do it? I have some time on my hands. Why not? Why not? Toni Guinyard>> Why not? Especially when disaster can strike at any time and any one of us could become victim or evacuee without warning. I'm Toni Guinyard for Life and Times. Val Zavala>> The Red Cross has been the subject of criticism lately. Some people say that it's not the best place to send your donations when it comes to rebuilding. We'll explore that criticism and get a response from the Red Cross in Thursday's program. Announcer>> Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org and click on "Life and Times". Val Zavala>> He is one of the most beloved actors in Hollywood, Alan Alda. But you may be surprised at what kind of childhood he had. In fact, Carl Reiner once told him "You're entitled to be a lot crazier than you are." Patt Morrison talked with Alan Alda about his new memoir that looks at his childhood and the ups and downs of show business. Patt Morrison>> Alan Alda, thank you for joining us on Life and Times. The book, "Never Have Your Dog Stuffed". Is that the eleventh commandment of your life (laughter)? Alan Alda>> (Laughter) It sounds like it's telling other people what to do. It's really a reminder to myself. Patt Morrison>> So the metaphor is about Rhapsody, your black and white cocker spaniel? Alan Alda>> Just a black cocker spaniel and gorgeous. Patt Morrison>> I'm sorry. I was thinking of Checkers. Excuse me. Alan Alda>> (Laughter) A natural mistake. I was eight years old. My dog died and my father thought it would be helpful, so he thought he'd make it better and said, "Well, maybe we should have the dog stuffed." I didn't know what he meant. He said, "You know, we'll take it to a taxidermist and you'll always be able to keep the dog." The trouble was, when it came back from the taxidermist, it was horrifying. The expression on his face was ferocious. It looked like he was going to leap at you and bite your face. I realized in that moment that you can't do anything about death. You can't fix it by stuffing the dead person (laughter). You're not going to keep them around that way. Then as I got older, I began to realize there were a whole lot of other things that I needed to learn to do so that I wouldn't be stuffing a lot of other kinds of dogs, you know. You know, like hanging on to an idea longer than the idea is useful to me is like stuffing a dog. It doesn't get me to the unexpectedness of change and allowing uncertainty. The more I've done that, the more I've come closer to being the person that I wanted to be all along. That's what the story is about. It's about that. It's not about the jobs I've had. Patt Morrison>> Now the opening line of your book, I think, is better than "Call me Ishmael" in "Moby Dick". "My mother didn't try to stab my father until I was six, but she must have shown signs of oddness before that." That's a pretty gripping way to start a story about yourself. Alan Alda>> Well, my poor mother, unfortunately, was schizophrenic and paranoid. She thought that I was trying to kill her, she thought people were spying on her all the time and she had hallucinations. She saw the devil. Patt Morrison>> So you had a mother with mental illness and a father who was on the stage. Alan Alda>> Wait, aren't they the same thing (laughter)? Patt Morrison>> (Laughter) And the sum was greater than the total of the part. Alan Alda>> Yeah. Patt Morrison>> You grew up as a mascot to burlesque queens. All of this really shaped much of your life. Alan Alda>> It must have. Patt Morrison>> What happened in your household was that you kept secrets even while performing publicly on stage. Alan Alda>> You know, there was a lot of extra pressure about having a mentally ill mother because, in those days -- it's very hard for people today to understand this. You did not talk about it. We didn't even talk about it in the family. Patt Morrison>> And then, you had, to say the least, an unusual upbringing with strippers taking their clothes off in front of you and flinging them just a few feet away from your feet. Alan Alda>> That's right, yeah. I'm watching this erotic dancing. My mother and father were kind of naïve. I think most people were then. They didn't think that this three year old really knew what was going on. They didn't think I noticed these naked ladies. You know, you do notice (laughter). It's not something that just passes by like a bus. I was taking it all in. It kind of swamps you, you know. It's a lot to get at that age. Patt Morrison>> You grew up in a show business environment, but it took you a while to get back to show business. Alan Alda>> Well, I kept getting dragged out every once in a while. When I was six months old, they brought me onstage in a schoolroom sketch. When I was three years old, the comedians, as a joke on another comic, stuck me in a safe onstage so that I could surprise him when he broke open the safe. Then when I was nine years old, my father took me to the Hollywood Cantina. We did "Who's on First", Abbott & Costello's sketch. So I was getting in there and I was doing -- my father, even after he became a movie star, he kept -- the real friends of the family, people who came over every Sunday, were comics and strippers and chorus girls and we -- Patt Morrison>> -- after church, of course. Alan Alda>> (Laughter) Yeah. My father would barbecue a lot of meat and they'd get together and they'd perform sketches, old burlesque sketches, and they'd let me play in them with them. I was nine years old. Then we'd stretch out on the living room rug and shoot craps. I mean, it was a very nice childhood. Patt Morrison>> What is this compulsion to make people laugh? Even when you were dying in Chile, you did it. You tried to make the doctors laugh. Alan Alda>> Yeah, I couldn't help it. Patt Morrison>> What compels you? Alan Alda>> It must come from standing in the wings watching burlesque comics. Everything was funny to them. I mean, nothing was not fair game to be funny and I admired that. I loved it. And in Chile, when the doctor said to me -- I mean, I was in enormous pain. About this much of my -- do you need to widen out? -- this much of my intestines was dying or dead and the rest of me was going to be dead in a couple of hours. The doctor said, "Okay, here's what we have to do." I mean, he was an expert at intestinal surgery that we just stumbled across. He said, "Some of your intestine has gone bad and we have to cut out the bad part and sew the two good ends together." I said, "Oh, you're going to do an end-to-end anastomosis?" He really was astonished. He said, "How do you know that?" I said, "Oh, I did many of them on "Mash"." Now I knew this would make him laugh, but I'm dying and he's going to disembowel me in a second, and I'm trying to see if I can get him to laugh. That is a sickness, I think. Patt Morrison>> Yes, you're a sick guy (laughter). Alan Alda>> Yeah (laughter). Patt Morrison>> This isn't a standard entertainment memoir about the people you've had lunch with. Alan Alda>> Or have slept with (laughter). Patt Morrison>> (Laughter) But it's very much a family story as well about your marriage of nearly fifty years to Arlene and your daughters and your grandchildren. Alan Alda>> You know what? I tried to tell just one story. I didn't put in everything I could remember and I certainly didn't put in all the jobs I've had. It's not an illustrated resume. I never wanted to write a book like that. But what I found I was writing, especially because this happened after Chile where I almost died, I was looking at this kid who had this strange background, this strange childhood, who then grew into an actor, and only then realized he still had to keep growing to become a person, to become the person that he wanted to be. All of that was in terms of trying to be more alive, more spontaneous, more present, more aware of what's really happening. That was a thing that started early on because I had to really be aware of my mother because she was schizophrenic and I had to read her face to figure out if she was telling me real reality or her reality. But then I had to watch the other actors when I was acting with them and I had to learn to listen. I had to learn to give up old ideas that didn't work anymore or that were actually a reflection of ignorance and let myself be open to new ideas. All of that turned out to be like not stuffing the dog. You know, when I learned that I couldn't stuff my dog when I was eight years old and still have a live dog, I realized that the same thing applied to ideas and all these other things in my life. Patt Morrison>> Alan Alda, thanks very much for being here with us. It's quite a book for a kid. Thanks very much for joining us. Alan Alda>> Thank you. It was great to talk to you, Patt. Announcer>> To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us by mail at this address: Life and Times 4401 Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles, California 90027 You can also call our viewer comment line (323) 953-5555) or contact us the fast way by e-mail at kcet.org. Val Zavala>> Are you tired of the classic detective in a trench coat always being a man? Well, now there's a new kind of detective, a Chicana, a cross between Sam Spade and Jennifer Lopez, and she is the creation of writer Marcos Villatoro who's a poet and graduate of one of the most prestigious writing programs in the United States. It's a Tuesday afternoon at Mount St. Mary's College, an all-girls university on a hilltop overlooking Brentwood. It's not hard to spot Marcos McPeek Villatoro. He's the writing teacher with the trademark hat. Today he'll be giving his students a lesson that every serious writer has to learn, usually the hard way. Marcos M. Villatoro>> "It is a packet of rejection letters." Val Zavala>> Villatoro is the author of four novels, two books of poetry and a memoir, but to get here, he had to run the gauntlet of rejection. Marcos M. Villatoro>> "While I found this to be intelligently written, evocative, lyrical, atmospheric, poignant, I did not feel it would work for Stepping Stone. The large cast and unwieldy convoluted plot made for a tough read. I missed a clearer, stronger plot in exposition. Very intriguing, though. Best of luck. Katherine Sandy, I think, Acquisitions Editor. Okay, what's your reaction to that?" Marisa Smith>> "I think that what she's saying is she liked the actual story line, but what she doesn't like is the way you present your characters and that maybe you should cut down the amount of characters, then that would make it less confusing and a more enjoyable read rather than one you're trying to study." Marcos M. Villatoro>> "You think you got too many characters here? So instead of making them alive in the first ten pages, seventeen people and killing them all off in chapter two, I just got rid of them completely and just started out with one man and his son. I turned around and I sold the novel and then they published it, all right?" Val Zavala>> Villatoro's genre is the gritty crime novel, but his main character is not your conventional gumshoe. She is someone who students can relate to, a Latina detective named Romilia Chacon. Marisa Smith>> Being Mexican, I think that's really cool. I mean, to me it's great. I think that it's great that he makes her not only a detective, but a good one and a smart one. Val Zavala>> Romilia is a modern character who emerged from an old-fashioned typewriter. No computers here. Villatoro prefers the feel of an old Royal. Marcos M. Villatoro>> I'm one of those writers who goes into the dark stuff more. My crime fictions are not cozies. They're much more dark, so in many ways I follow in that Los Angeles tradition of the noir. "I didn't get along with the other soccer moms on the field. They talked differently than I did. They worried about Kelloggs commercials that their children were in." Val Zavala>> Romilia is an FBI agent who's also a single mom raising a young son in Van Nuys. Her fellow agent and lover is murdered the night he proposes to Romilia. Now she must delve into his past and Los Angeles's criminal underbelly. Marcos M. Villatoro>> She's always very suspicious about the drug world and its presence wherever children are or wherever anybody is. She says, "You know, in the glove compartments of the cars, of all the nice cars that are parked right over to the side, or underneath the caps of certain men who are wearing baseball caps, just how much meth could you find? I don't know. Something I said to the soccer ladies about the lacerations around the girl's neck. It didn't look like it had been done with a wire, but rather a hemp cord which wasn't our boy's M.O. And besides, she was fifteen, not twelve, which was another red flag, so we handed it to the blues. The other moms never asked me under the umbrella again." Val Zavala>> Villatoro knows about living in two cultures. His father was from Appalachia, his mother from El Salvador. It was love at first sight. Marcos M. Villatoro>> My mother said, oh, those green eyes that man had. Green is a very loving color in Central America and my dad had those green eyes. Dad didn't speak Spanish and mom didn't speak English, so they got married. Within a year, they were married and, within the year, they were married and got on the back of a Harley Davidson and rode across back to Tennessee. One of nine trips across the country on the back of a Harley Davidson. Val Zavala>> And like his parents, Villatoro has meshed two cultures in poems like this one called "The Holy Spirit of My Uncle's Cajones". Marcos M. Villatoro>> "He broke all the sacred laws, drinking Jim Beam from the bottle and smoking homemade joints thicker than his electrician's thumb." Val Zavala>> Villatoro started his formal writing training late in the game in his mid-thirties. By then, he was married with four kids, but he decided to apply for a coveted spot in the most competitive and prestigious writing program in the country, the one every aspiring writer dreams of, the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and he got in. It was a stressful two years, he says, but worth it. Marcos M. Villatoro>> What happens is, every Monday afternoon, there are workshops where you hand out your poem or your short story and people eat it for lunch (laughter). You can bring swords in if you want (laughter) as in swords as in your pen, but leave your ego at the door because there's no place for it here. Marcos M. Villatoro>> "Thanks, clan. Oh, I got to show you one of my many New Yorker rejections." Val Zavala>> Today's lesson is also about leaving your ego behind. Marcos M. Villatoro>> "We're sorry to say that this manuscript is not right for us in spite of its evident merit. Unfortunately, we are receiving so many submissions that it is impossible for us to reply more specifically. We thank you for the chance to consider your work." Okay, now that's Xeroxed, right? But somebody at the New Yorker wrote, "Good story. Thanks." When I received this, I went "The New Yorker. There's somebody at the New Yorker who thought my story was good." Val Zavala>> For Villatoro, teaching at this Catholic college is a perfect fit. Marcos M. Villatoro>> It's been a tremendous match. In fact, the Romilia Chacon novels started coming out when I came here, so I have dedicated all the novels thus far to the students of Mount St. Mary's College, to my writing students especially. Linda Ignarro>> I was so upset that I had to take a writing class. I'm an English major. It's required and I was like, no, I don't want to take a writing class. But the first day of his class, he became my favorite teacher. I love him and now I want to be a writer because of him. Kiran Rawat>> When I'm sad or happy or I just had a moment or anything, I could just take a piece of paper at my computer and just go off on it. He calls it vomiting. You just throw up on your laptop everything that comes out. If it's making sense, you don't think about grammar, you don't think about anything. You just put your feelings down and you organize it later. Marcos M. Villatoro>> At some point, Romilia is starting to gain a little weight. So one of my students said, well, okay, if you want her to gain weight, have her throw herself on the bed so that she can button her jeans and then wiggle like this (laughter). I never would have thought of that. Marcos M. Villatoro>> "If you get a Xerox rejection with somebody's handwriting on it, what do you think? How do you feel about that? What's going on?" Val Zavala>> No Los Angeles writing career would be complete without interest from Hollywood and, in fact, one of the Romilia Chacon novels has been optioned for television. In the meantime, it's the mornings Villatoro loves the most, those four to five hours where rejection letters are miles away and there's only the sound of typewriter keys tapping life into a soccer mom detective in search of killers and good pupusas. And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks so much for watching. We'll see you next time. Announcer>> 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. Sponsored in part by:  | |
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