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Life & Times Transcript

11/21/05

This program is made possible in part by a grant from the City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department.

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

A romantic little town is drawing Southern Californians, but are they finding what they want or ruining what they find?

Arthur Van Rhyne>> We had a little two-lane road there before. Now we've got cross-stripes, we've got X-ing Ped Ahead. I mean, it looks like Reseda, for God's sake.

Val Zavala>> And then, he's the king of Latin Jazz, but it didn't come easy. We meet Poncho Sanchez as he releases his twenty-third album.

[Film Clip]

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>> Year after year, thousands of Southern Californians, mostly retirees, leave the big city behind and relocate to smaller towns. They're looking for a quieter, simpler life, but is small town living really simpler? Not necessarily.

As you drive through Cambria's downtown, you can't help but think, ah, I could live here. Main Street has a Norman Rockwell feel to it. People find time for simple pleasures and front yards remind you of Hallmark cards. Little wonder that it's a popular spot for tourists doing the Big Sur drive or visiting the Hearst Castle only thirty miles north. The hills are dotted with plenty of vacation homes, but it's the year-round residents who do the work of keeping Cambria charming and that's not as easy as it may seem.

Most of the locals have a similar story, like artist, Arthur Van Rhyne. He's a former big city dweller who found refuge along this gorgeous stretch of shoreline in Cambria called Moonstone Beach. So you were a civil engineer in Los Angeles?

Arthur Van Rhyne>> Well, a highway engineer.

Val Zavala>> Highway engineer. Ironically, Arthur helped lay the first concrete miles of the 101 Freeway near downtown Los Angeles.

Arthur Van Rhyne>> It was, "Get out of my way, we're going to pour concrete and open it up."

Val Zavala>> Several decades later, he set off on the 101 to get away from the traffic. Today he has a gallery below his home and spends one day a week painting landscapes. What's your favorite?

Arthur Van Rhyne>> An artist never has a favorite.

Val Zavala>> Oh, really?

Arthur Van Rhyne>> The only favorite you have is the one you just sold and you always tell the people that that was my favorite painting (laughter).

Val Zavala>> But don't be deceived by these picture-perfect landscapes. Keeping life simple and quaint can be hard work and, if there's one thing Cambrians do well, it's disagree.

Arthur Van Rhyne>> We are the kind of town that will go absolutely critical on any given subject. You want to put a stop sign, we did. Two years ago, they put a stop sign in, a four-way stop, because it's a very dangerous crossing. Oh, my God, we had people in the streets and yelling and letters to the editor.

Val Zavala>> Unlike big cities, here in Cambria, your opinion actually counts. Arthur puts his in political cartoons for the local paper.

Arthur Van Rhyne>> Yeah, in which we experienced the death of Main Street as we know it. You probably don't notice because you come from a city. We had a little two-lane road there before. Now we've got cross-stripes, we've got X-ing, Ped Ahead. I mean, it looks like Reseda, for God's sake.

Val Zavala>> He's right. Tourists don't seem to notice. They're too busy checking out shops, galleries and restaurants. Kathy Tanner is a former bakery owner turned newspaper columnist and also a member of the historical society.

Kathy Tanner>> Many of the plants here are a hundred years old or more.

Val Zavala>> Like Arthur, she's a refugee from the Los Angeles area and, yes, she concurs that townsfolk here have a history of disagreeing. It started way back when they were naming the town.

Kathy Tanner>> In typical Cambria fashion, a disagreement over what to call the town. Because there's Santa Rosa Creek here, they wanted it to be Santa Rosa. However, a community to the north had already absconded with that name.

Val Zavala>> A couple of Santa Rosas.

Kathy Tanner>> It had a nickname of Slabtown, which nobody liked because it was not particularly dignified.

Val Zavala>> Finally, someone suggested Cambria, after a town in Pennsylvania. And people are stilling arguing over whether to pronounce it Cambria and Cambria.

Kathy Tanner>> Or if you get somebody from Wales or our nitwits, they pronounce it Cambria.

Val Zavala>> (Laughter) There are three options.

Kathy Tanner>> Three options.

Val Zavala>> Today, nearly two million visitors make tourism Cambria's life blood. "This is the busy season, isn't it?" So how does Cambria keep people from pouring in? How have they managed to limit the population to only sixty-five hundred? Part of the answer is found in their forests.

Drive just a few miles off the main street and you enter a fifteen hundred acre preserve of rare pine trees. And would you believe this beautiful forest was going to be developed by a Singapore conglomerate into a huge resort complete with a helicopter pad?

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> Richard Holly is Executive Director of Green Space, one of the groups that bought this land from an overseas developer. He wanted a resort?

Richard Holly>> Yes, a destination resort. Lots of housing units, it had a hotel and a conference center, helicopter pad, a lake that was going to have boats on it, and then the twenty-seven hole golf course. It was a wild scheme and the community of Cambria fought long and hard to reduce that development and finally the developer said, "I give up."

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> So instead of golf carts, there are nature walks. But growth here is in slow gear for another reason: water. There isn't much of it and that makes construction like this a rare sight. In fact, there's a ban on all building unless you've got a water permit.

Richard Holly>> Water meters are the commodities. If you have a water meter, you have a saleable product.

Val Zavala>> Because they're like gold.

Richard Holly>> They're like gold, and the last one that I know about sold for $325,000.

Val Zavala>> That is incredible. So just a water meter, which is the right to bring water onto your property, is more than three hundred thousand dollars?

Richard Holly>> That's right.

Val Zavala>> So that has definitely put the brakes on any kind of development for the time being. So no smog, no crime, no traffic. It's a world away from Los Angeles, right? Except for one thing: home prices. The average home price in Cambria has topped seven hundred thousand dollars. Sound familiar? That has caused serious changes in Cambria's demographics. Is Cambria becoming, you know, a rich man's paradise?

Richard Holly>> If you're here like I am and got here early, you're set.

Val Zavala>> It was a pattern we saw all along California's shore. Rising home prices are reserving coastal living for the well-to-do. Although here in Cambria, Arthur says, they have a welcoming attitude.

Arthur Van Rhyne>> We're allowed to live here. The public is allowed the beach forever and always. It's a public beach. It's a beautiful blend. So much better than, say, Malibu, you know, where the Malibuians, or whatever you call them, are still bitter if somebody walks on "their" beach.

Val Zavala>> Despite expensive real estate, scarce water and a penchant for protest, people here can't imagine living anywhere else.

Kathy Tanner>> They can get into some knock-down, drag-out fights, but, boy, in times of stress and in times of trouble and in times where it's important for the community to pull together, it certainly does.

Val Zavala>> And the one thing all Cambrians or Cambrians do agree on is that it's worth working hard to preserve this coastal gem.

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".

Toni Guinyard>> The Los Angeles Urban League was founded in 1921 to promote equality on behalf of the black community. It was led by John Mack for thirty-six years, but now it has a new leader. His name is Blair Taylor and he shared his vision with Life and Times.

Blair Taylor>> I think the mission of the Urban League revolves certainly around uplifting African-Americans. But given that our communities have expanded, that the diversity of our communities have changed drastically, the Urban League's mission has expanded as well and we're now an organization that is inclusive of our Latino brothers and sisters. We need them because we understand that the future of our community is integrally linked to the success of Latinos and African-Americans working collaboratively to solve our problems, and our Asian brothers as well.

So I think, even though that's where the Urban League started, it is evolving as an organization that, yes, has a strong Afro-centric focus to it, but also recognizes that our communities have changed. In fact, the communities that we used to call African-American actually aren't African-American communities anymore in terms of a majority. So it's important to understand that we can work together to solve the problems that we face.

Toni Guinyard>> If you can list the priorities that you're going to have to address 1, 2, 3, what would those be?

Blair Taylor>> I would say, number one, is the economic disparity. Number two is the educational gaps that we're faced with. We have a situation now where low-income kids with "A" averages across this nation and even in this city of ours, with "A" averages in school, are going to college at the same rate as high-income kids with "B" averages. That cannot continue. So I would say the educational disparity is the big part of what we need to rally around and what we need to change. And certainly there are other social issues.

We haven't lost the "driving while black", some of the issues around community policing and making sure that our police are actually seen as advocates of our community as opposed to opponents of our community, bringing those two sides together at the table, which has happened and started to occur in the last few years in the Los Angeles Police Department, but still has a ways to go in terms of building credibility within our community. So that has to be a big focus of ours as well.

So I think those would be the top three issues for me in terms of the gaps and addressing some of the gaps between our communities and some of the greater communities of Los Angeles. So the vision for me is build on what has been successful in the Urban League and chart a path for our future. Part of that begins with setting an agenda. Where do we want to be as an African-American community ten or fifteen years in the future?

My father taught me a long time ago that, if you don't know where you're going, any path will take you there. I think, right now, we are at risk of not necessarily having a plan for our future. A plan sort of transcends whoever's in political power. A plan is our way of engaging those around us to be able to say, "This is what we need. Whenever you come and speak to our community or our leaders, here is where we're going."

Toni Guinyard>> What's the starting point?

Blair Taylor>> The starting point is engaging a little bit deeper in the economic development side of what needs to happen in our communities. There's a big opportunity for us to engage more businesses, to recognize that businesses and the lower-income communities that we have here in Los Angeles are integrally linked. The future of each is integrally linked to each other, so the first starting point is to engage in economic development opportunities that may go beyond what the League had done in the past.

Toni Guinyard>> Give me a sense of what you're talking about.

Blair Taylor>> If you look at some of the strategic partnerships that have been very effective. Magic Johnson has done some strategic partnering with Starbucks, for example, in bringing them back into urban communities. I think the Urban League can be a proponent of that kind of a strategic partnership and maybe even engaging with corporations on that level because we have access to the human resources of our community. We have the marketing ability to be able to create a marketing story for those organizations that need the consumers that we have in our market.

But even more importantly than that, we need those future workers and managers so that, if we can marry the economic opportunity with increased job training, managerial training, and engaging corporate partners in a way that sort of breaks the typical box of thinking that they may have limited themselves to, that all the business of a city is really limited to the "wealthiest" communities and looking toward the future, they understand that that marketplace, the urban market, represents a tremendously valuable place for them.

Toni Guinyard>> You talk about the economic issues and the values there, but when you look at -- and this is a report that the Urban League put out, "The State of Black Los Angeles" -- some very depressing figures and issues that you need to address as well, how do you balance?

Blair Taylor>> Yeah, I think that "The State of Black Los Angeles" told us a lot of things, but not necessarily things that the African-American community didn't know already. I think things that greater America may not necessarily have grappled with. So what you see in the aftermath of Katrina and some of the other things that have forced America to start facing itself is a reconciliation, a re-opening in a new understanding of -- the Katrina victims are not the exception. That's the rule in our urban communities. That's what's going on in our urban centers across this country.

Toni Guinyard>> Everyone knows John Mack's name after thirty-six years of leading the Urban League and now we have Blair Taylor.

Blair Taylor>> John Mack is one of the heroes in my mind of what has happened in the previous century. He has done his job. He has done a good service for our community. He has selflessly and tirelessly devoted himself to what needed to happen to be able to enable us to be on the platform that we're on now. Now it's our turn. Now it's the turn of the next generation to engage with the problems that we're faced with, to chart a course for the next twenty or thirty years for our community, and to try to figure out where do we want to ultimately be? How does this look twenty years from now?

The path that we're on now clearly is not an acceptable path for us to stay on for the next twenty years. John's built a wonderful foundation, built a highly reputable organization, but now we need a plan for the future. What I would offer to you and to the viewers who are out there watching this program is that I understand not only is this not about me, but that this is going to take our entire community to resolve the problems that we're faced with now.

It cannot rest on the shoulders of one person. I'm not big enough. My shoulders aren't that big, but I think together, if we come together and our leaders come together and our community comes together and literally looks at that report, "The State of Black Los Angeles", and say enough is enough, it's time for us to figure this out and to solve these problems for our future and for our kids together, I think that would be a great legacy for John Mack. So even with the challenges that we face, I'm excited about the path that we're on now and pretty energized, as you can probably see as well.

Toni Guinyard>> Blair Taylor, newly named CEO and President of the Los Angeles Urban League, I'd like to thank you for spending a little time with Life and Times.

Blair Taylor>> Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure.

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>> He is one of the best conga drummers in the world and his name is synonymous with Latin Jazz. He is Poncho Sanchez and, for the past four decades, he's been putting out music that makes you move. So how has he been able to avoid the pitfalls of the music industry? I got a chance to talk with him at his home in Whittier. But first, take a listen.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> He was the youngest of eleven children growing up in Norwalk and captivated by the Cuban and Puerto Rican drummers who hung out at Griffith Park, but they would tell this Chicano kid to go home. Congas were not for Mexicanos. Oh, yeah?

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> The walls in his upstairs studio are covered with photos, posters and memorabilia from a career that started thirty years ago.

Poncho Sanchez>> People know that I'm a big fan of Ray Charles and James Brown, you know. That's James Brown over there.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> After twenty-three albums, Poncho Sanchez has managed to keep his sound fresh by mixing Latin Jazz with everything from bebop to salsa and soul. His latest album features the rhythm and blues band, Tower of Power. At first, he asked just the horn players to join him.

Poncho Sanchez>> They said, "Poncho, everything's great. We'll do it." The only thing, when I go back to the guys in the band to tell them, hey, the horn players of Tower of Power are going to be on Poncho's record, they're going to say, "How about us?" So I said, "Well, I don't know if I can afford the whole band." I mean, that's the --

Val Zavala>> -- how big is that?

Poncho Sanchez>> Well, there's like ten guys in the band.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> But his record company, Concord, sprung for it.

Poncho Sanchez>> My business influences have been Mongo Santamaria, Cal Tjader, Tito Puento, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, John Coltrane.

Val Zavala>> By far, it was vibe player, Cal Tjader, who had the biggest impact on Sanchez. Sanchez was only twenty-four years old when Tjader asked him to join his band. It was a dream come true for a young man who couldn't read music, then or now.

Poncho Sanchez>> Well, these are some old Cal Tjader records. Of course, I bought these when I was in high school. That's Cal Tjader, Verve Records. Great vibe player, man, and a great person.

Val Zavala>> I asked Sanchez how he was able to avoid the pitfalls that other musicians fall into, everything from creative clashes and business feuds to drugs.

Poncho Sanchez>> The last couple of years with Tjader's band, I was messing around with drugs and drinking a little too much. What happened to me is, when Cal Tjader died, it was like somebody pulled the rug from underneath me because Cal Tjader was like my musical father. I mean, man, I was not ready for that when Cal died. I was with him in Manila in the Philippines Islands when he died of a massive heart attack. I was there with him.

At that time, I was messing with the drugs, like I was telling you, and it was like somebody pulled the rug from underneath me. I didn't even want to play after that. I mean, I was in shock. First of all, just losing him and not understanding. Wait a minute, what's going on here, you know? I mean, I wasn't done with him. You know what I'm saying? I would tell God, "What are you doing? That's Cal Tjader. You can't do that. I'm not done with him. I still want to play with him and travel all over the world." Of course, as I got older, I learned that it ain't up to us. You know what I mean?

Val Zavala>> After Tjader's death, Sanchez started building up his own band, but he kept his day job driving a liquor truck for several years. Then again, he came from a hard-working family.

Poncho Sanchez>> My father worked in a dry cleaners all his life and my mother was a homemaker.

Val Zavala>> With eleven kids (laughter).

Poncho Sanchez>> Eleven kids (laughter). Somebody better stay home, right? My mother was beautiful.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> Slowly and steadily through years of touring, Poncho Sanchez's band emerged as one of the tightest in the business.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> And this --

Poncho Sanchez>> -- is the Grammy that we won for Latin Soul in 1999 and we're nominated right now for another Grammy.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> A couple of years ago, the magazine Jazz Times dubbed Sanchez the King of Latin Jazz, but he doesn't see himself in a castle as much as a fort.

Poncho Sanchez>> I am here to hold the fort down, so to speak, for Latin Jazz because I love Latin Jazz. That's what I know and that's what I do.

Val Zavala>> And he will do it on anything he can find.

[Film Clip]

Poncho Sanchez>> "Get your newspaper in the morning, man."

Val Zavala>> But the drumming has taken a toll on his hands. A few years ago, he had a cut on his finger that refused to heal. Doctors said blood was not getting through.

Poncho Sanchez>> And I went to a hand specialist and what they figured out is that this big callous that was here -- it's down now. It was a big callous. I was hitting the rim of the drum and developing a callous there. I was hitting the rim a lot and it developed a callous and it was pinching the main artery here and the blood that goes to the tip of the finger was not reaching there, so that finger was slowly dying. You know what I'm saying?

I remember when I told the doctor who said you've got to be hitting the rim of the drum with that part of your hand. I said, no, I don't hit the rim. I hit with this part, you know? He goes, no, bring me a video of you. The doctor wanted to see a video of me, so I took a video of me playing and put it in slow motion. Sure enough, I was hitting it like this. It was like a habit or some kind of movement. He goes, look, right there. The doctor showed me what I was doing wrong. I don't know what you're playing, but you are hitting the rim with that part of your hand. So now I learn to keep this hand up a little more and I don't hit the rim no more.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> Poncho Sanchez's band is going strong. Although some of the earlier members of his band have moved on, Sanchez has brought on young talented artists. Over twenty-eight years as a band leader, one thing hasn't changed. He's still with Concord Records, a major accomplishment in the volatile music business. Besides performing, Sanchez enjoys cooking. He's even melded music with food in a drumming instruction book called "Conga Cookbook".

Poncho Sanchez>> It's an instructional cookbook to teach you how to play congas, but yet we've put recipes between each chapter of different rhythms. You know what I mean?

Poncho Sanchez>> "Now I would like to do an original composition of the band and do a number written by Mr. Francisco Torres and myself, "El Shing-A-Ling".

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> At age fifty-four with one of the best Latin Jazz bands in the world, Poncho Sanchez can say that he's made it and he credits his longevity to staying true to himself and his music.

Poncho Sanchez>> I remember when Latin Jazz was not very popular. You know what I mean? And I know that the Poncho Sanchez Latin Jazz band plays a very important part in the growth of Latin Jazz because we take it all over the world.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> Poncho Sanchez has a new CD out. It is called "Do It!" And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks 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.

This program was made possible in part by a grant from the City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department.

Sponsored in part by:


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