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Life & Times Transcript

11/28/05

David Okarski>> Tonight on Life and Times --

Is this any way to start and end your day? No one likes rush hour traffic, so why does this woman put up with it four hours a day?

Brittany Smith>> They just can't believe it. They don't know how I do it. Why am I doing it? They think I'm crazy for doing it.

David Okarski>> And then, man about town and television legend, Merv Griffin, takes us on a tour of his town, Beverly Hills.

These stories and more next 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.

Sam Louie>> Commuting to work is a fact of life for most Californians. It's not uncommon for some people to spend an hour on the highways. But as real estate prices keep climbing and the urban sprawl keeps expanding, some people are taking this to an unprecedented level. Brittany Smith is a management assistant in the Cardiology Department at Cedar Sinai Medical Center. She's had this job for three years, working full-time Monday through Friday. Her biggest challenge isn't the job, but getting to work.

Brittany Smith>> They just can't believe it. They don't know how I do it. Why am I doing it? They think I'm crazy for doing it.

Sam Louie>> You see, Brittany is considered a Super Commuter. She lives in Bakersfield, but makes the daily one hundred-plus mile trip to Los Angeles to work.

Brittany Smith>> Cedar Sinai is a really good job. They have great benefits, a great salary. I haven't found anything to match my salary in Bakersfield at this time and I like it here. I'm not ready to leave Los Angeles completely. I was born and raised here, so it's kind of hard for me to give everything up.

Sam Louie>> To get to work by eight in the morning, she usually leaves home by five a.m. As she gets into her car, she prepares herself for the long journey.

Brittany Smith>> It is tiring if you're not used to driving. I listen to the tape and I listen to the radio and I might turn it up really loud.

Sam Louie>> Brittany readily admits she also gets a little help from caffeine to stay alert.

Brittany Smith>> I drink so many, so I call it like the Red Bull graveyard (laughter).

Sam Louie>> The day is long, but she believes it's well worth it. Her family will soon move into a brand new four hundred thousand dollar house similar to this one in February.

Brittany Smith>> We've got a five bedroom, three bathroom, three car garage with a pool. It's just really nice to see something built from the ground up that you know is yours. You're the first one moving into it. You get to see it being built.

Sam Louie>> Her future home is located in South Bakersfield, an emerging neighborhood dotted with new homes.

Jim Eggert>> "We have a lot of points of access onto 99."

Sam Louie>> Jim Eggert is with the Bakersfield Planning Department. He says the city has seen tremendous growth in the past three years, especially portions of the city closest to the highways. During that time, the Bakersfield population has swelled to just over three hundred thousand and it gives no indication of slowing down.

Jim Eggert>> A decade ago, we were growing seven or eight thousand people a year because we've always had some type of growth into the area. Last two or three years, it's been usually about double that, thirteen or fourteen thousand people. We're anticipating the same over the next at least two or three years.

Sam Louie>> Eggert credits the growth to a number of factors such as the city's small-town charm and lower housing costs.

Jim Eggert>> There's a feeling that folks are more friendly, doing business with people, you just have more friendly businessmen. We hear that from folks in schools that they can talk with their teachers if they have problems with their kids. There's a lot more willingness of everybody working together.

Sam Louie>> Over the years, Eggert says he's used to seeing people move to Bakersfield from other parts of the state, but he's still surprised by the recent trend in commuting.

Jim Eggert>> People just wanted to hold the meeting later because they said, "Most of us don't get home until closer to seven o'clock in the evening." Certainly when we just asked why, just to be curious, they said, "Well, we got to get home. We all commute from Santa Clarita or we commute from Burbank." It was an eye-opener to some of us because it sounded like there was more people than we anticipated that would be doing that.

Sam Louie>> The influx of commuters has led to a steep rise in home prices. The average home in Bakersfield now sells for three hundred ten thousand dollars, about twice the amount of five years ago. Still, it's much lower than the state average of five hundred forty thousand.

Bill Redmond>> In Los Angeles, if you try and purchase a home for five hundred thousand, you're going to get a shack. In Bakersfield, give me five hundred thousand, I'll put you on the golf course.

Sam Louie>> Bill Redmond is the Sales Manager at Coldwell Banker. He's worked in real estate for twenty years in Bakersfield and has also noticed the increase of commuters.

Bill Redmond>> If you're living in Los Angeles, you can spend an hour and a half just sitting there on the freeway to where you can spend an hour and a half actually moving and getting from point A to point B.

Sam Louie>> So to you, it doesn't seem that ludicrous to buy a home here and commute to Los Angeles to work?

Bill Redmond>> No, not at all.

Sam Louie>> Redmond says his company is on pace to break a record one and a half billion dollars in sales this year, an indication of the city's strong housing market.

Bill Redmond>> In the first years of my practice in real estate, you never heard of an all-cash deal, somebody coming in with cash. Then we had people from Los Angeles coming in and buying property, selling their houses in Los Angeles and paying cash for their homes here in Bakersfield.

Sam Louie>> While the growth has added to the city's tax base, city officials say that it's also causing some growing pains.

Jim Eggert>> Our challenge has been keeping maintenance up because you add more roads and it's going to add just general maintenance. Pot holes, repaving, redoing intersections, synchronizing traffic signals that may not have been.

Sam Louie>> And the pattern is being repeated across the state. California's population will increase by an estimated eleven million people in the next fifteen years, leading to even more congestion and longer commutes.

Donna Andrews>> We're all going to be sitting in parking lots. We're not going to be moving. We're over-capacitated on our highways. We're over-capacitated on our corridors, our streets, throughout the state.

Sam Louie>> Donna Andrews is with the California High-Speed Rail Authority.

Donna Andrews>> I'm just suggesting that we do not proceed to do the same old, same old, which is building out new highways. We have to think of other ways to address this problem.

Sam Louie>> Andrews envisions shortening commutes by building a high-speed train system similar to those operating in Japan and Europe. Those trains can carry both passengers and goods at speeds close to two hundred miles an hour.

Donna Andrews>> The high-speed rail will get you there in a comparable time to flying there. It would get you there a lot sooner if you took a car. And, of course, it would get you there a lot sooner than a traditional mode of train transportation today.

Sam Louie>> The proposed thirty-three billion dollar energy and environmentally friendly high-speed rail system would cover seven hundred sixty miles from as far north as San Francisco and Sacramento down to San Diego.

Donna Andrews>> It is needed. It is needed because we have to start looking at other solutions. The high-speed rail is something that has existed in Europe for such a long time.

Sam Louie>> However, Andrews is quick to point out that this is not the panacea to our traffic growth.

Donna Andrews>> We need the cars to be more efficient. We need people to get out of their cars and carpool. We need the commuter trains. We need it all.

Sam Louie>> The proposal still needs to pass many environmental studies. The goal is to put it before voters in 2008. If approved, the prospect of riding one of these types of trains would be a welcome relief for Super Commuters like Brittany Smith. But until then, she's settling in for the long road ahead. I'm Sam Louie for Life and Times.

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>> You're about to meet Kinko, as in the man behind the Kinko's copy stores. But would you believe he started out life as a dyslexic, hyperactive kid who flunked second grade and had to talk his way into college? It's a remarkable success story and I asked him how he did it. I met the unconventional Paul Orfalea at USC where he was speaking to a class of business students.

Paul Orfalea>> "What could a worker do to you? Steal from you, fudging their hours, give horrible customer service and lie about you to all the other workers. You think I'm the boss? First, who works for who here? I work for them. Is that fair to say?"

Val Zavala>> You were not dealt the best hand in life starting out in school. Tell us about it and how you dealt with it.

Paul Orfalea>> I was raised here in Los Angeles. I couldn't read and that was before the term "dyslexia". And then I can't sit still and that was before the word "ADD". But I was lucky because, out of the birth canal, I had great parents that made me feel important and loved.

Val Zavala>> But you were ADHD, which is Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

Paul Orfalea>> Why is that a disorder? I don't get it. Nowadays is it normal for anybody to sit still? A hundred years ago, would you consider anybody sitting still an abnormality? Because people were always moving and doing something.

Val Zavala>> So how did you overcome that and become who you are today?

Paul Orfalea>> Well, the world is so interesting. It's not hard to find the whole world interesting. My mother would always say that all five fingers are different for a reason. School wants to make them all the same. So our family was about learning. We always had a very interesting conversation at the dinner table. You were compelled to be involved with the world.

Val Zavala>> But still you ended up here at USC.

Paul Orfalea>> Yeah.

Val Zavala>> How did you manage that?

Paul Orfalea>> I graduated eighth from the bottom of my class of twelve hundred.

Val Zavala>> Eighth out of twelve hundred? From the bottom?

Paul Orfalea>> Bottom, yeah. I don't know how eight people beat me out (laughter). But I learned in life that, if you want to be accepted by the in crowd, dress like a Republican. You don't have to be a Republican. I wore my tie and went and saw the Admissions officer and she said, okay, if you do pretty well here, we'll let you in.

Val Zavala>> So you talked your way into USC.

Paul Orfalea>> You know, it's interesting. A good way to get into college. All these schools want to brag about their freshmen class in September, but they let all the folks like me in the second semester.

Val Zavala>> So you went on to start one of the most successful businesses there is out there, Kinko's, named after you, by the way, right? You were called Kinko?

Paul Orfalea>> Yeah, because my hair was kinky.

Val Zavala>> Well, how did it get going?

Paul Orfalea>> I needed some copies here at USC, so I figured if there are people in line making copies at USC, why wouldn't they be in line in Santa Barbara making copies?

Val Zavala>> But how did you get it going? I mean, did you have capital investment?

Paul Orfalea>> You know what was cool? I started my business with five thousand dollars. My dad co-signed the loan and I was able to pay it back within four months.

Val Zavala>> And you've now written a book that takes all the lessons you've learned and puts them very neatly together in chapters. Tell us some of the things you've learned as lessons.

Paul Orfalea>> I learned to basically be on your business and not in your business.

Val Zavala>> Be on your business and not in, and that means --

Paul Orfalea>> A lot of times, like at Kinko's, you're looking at the customer. It's more important to pretend like you are the customer. You walk in the front door as a customer. That's being on your business as opposed to being in your business.

Val Zavala>> Well, how as a business person do you maintain that larger perspective?

Paul Orfalea>> It's very hard. You have to -- like in my case, I'm really good at getting out of work (laughter). So if you're really good at getting out of work, you always can keep the big picture. I was never a capable person to write letters or run the machines at Kinko's. So if you don't have a lot of capabilities, you kind of have to get a big picture of you.

Val Zavala>> You put a lot of emphasis on the emotional experience that a customer has as opposed to the particular skills that some of your workers have. Why is that so important? How did you discover that?

Paul Orfalea>> Well, you just go inside the counter of a Kinko's and our customers have two characteristics. They're uptight and confused. They don't know what they want and they want it yesterday. So you can see them doing some worthwhile project and they're huffing and puffing and they come and all of a sudden they feel a sense of ease. You can see it in their demeanor. So you're managing their emotion. These are important projects. Helping people save the wilderness or get a job or celebrate a life event.

Val Zavala>> How do you make sure your employees understand that?

Paul Orfalea>> Well, the real question is how do you make sure the executives understand? The employees got it real simple. My problem was, I think some of the executives weren't so attached to our customers and never really understood the emotional connection. But every worker behind the counter at Kinko's understood it innately.

Val Zavala>> Now a lot of companies have very specific policies. You shouldn't date because they don't want married couples on the job in the same company. You have a very different attitude about that, right?

Paul Orfalea>> I don't believe in a lot of rules. I think the best thing we could probably do in society is erase half the laws we have. People innately want to go to work every day to do a good job. People are honest and trustworthy. I believe innately that if people want to hang out together and get married, who cares? It's none of my business as long as they do a good job. I think that there are too many people in ivory towers making too many silly rules.

Val Zavala>> And you think that couples that are married actually strengthen Kinko's?

Paul Orfalea>> I think, more importantly, trusting people in making their own best decisions is a philosophy I firmly believe. So if they wanted to marry a zebra, I didn't care. It's none of my business. We have same-sex benefits at Kinko's. I didn't particularly care what you did or how you did it. I was really always against the rules committee. It's very easy to be on the Board of Directors and you hear a problem and, every time you make the solution, you take a little initiative from the field and you have to really be guarded against hearing the problems and setting edicts.

Think about the businesses that we had a hundred years ago, the immigrants. They started a business and they treated people like family, didn't they? They were a lot of times a business with family. They cared about their workers. The patron or wherever. You just have a relationship. My father had a business. The only time I ever saw him bring work home was when he had to fire somebody. Ever. He'd keep a good separation, but the emotional attachment to your people is so strong that maybe in this corporate America we don't realize that people are really nice and honest.

Val Zavala>> So this is obviously a business you cared about deeply. It was enormously successful. After more than thirty years, why did you sell it?

Paul Orfalea>> I was getting too seduced by the business. My personality. It is very seductive, success. It's really great about being married and having children because you're never really a big shot at home. I guess there's a lot more things to live for than copies.

Val Zavala>> Now you have a lot of interesting chapters in your book. Any one that you'd really like to highlight?

Paul Orfalea>> Well, I think there's really only one measure of success on earth and you know what that is? Your children want to be with you as an adult. That's the only measure of success there is. So really when you think of it, it's not always money. It's your kids being important in your life.

Val Zavala>> Paul Orfalea, thank you so much for spending some time with us.

Paul Orfalea>> Well, it's been a pleasure, Val. Thank you.

Val Zavala>> Thank you for putting all your wisdom down in a book, "Copy This".

Paul Orfalea>> Thank you.

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 Hollywood's most enduring personalities. Who doesn't know Merv Griffin? For years, he was a staple on television, so how is he doing now? Well, Patt Morrison found out when she got a tour from Merv Griffin of his favorite Beverly Hills spots.

Merv Griffin>> So this is Bedford. We're still in the flats of Beverly Hills.

Patt Morrison>> You're a regular Thomas Guide (laughter).

Merv Griffin>> I am a Thomas Guide. My son just made a U-turn on Wilshire Boulevard. Unheard of (laughter).

Patt Morrison>> Well, let's keep looking at more of your Beverly Hills.

Merv Griffin>> Oh, boy. Every street is a memory for me.

Patt Morrison>> You've been here in Beverly Hills longer than just about everyone else.

Merv Griffin>> It's strange. I'm eighty years old now, but my memory is fresh. I remember more names from those days, you know, the late 1940's and again the early 1970's, than I do today.

Patt Morrison>> What brought you to Beverly Hills?

Merv Griffin>> Freddy Martin's Orchestra. I was singing with Freddy Martin's band who was the Hollywood favorite orchestra. They played the Cocoanut Grove and we played there and there I sat every single night. I sat out in front of the band, you know. All the stars would come to me because Freddy was conducting to request songs. For example, Howard Hughes came every single night and always with a great beauty on his arm. He did have his tennis shoes on. Danced in his tennis shoes. And he always requested the same song.

Patt Morrison>> I should have known better.

Merv Griffin>> Memory is hot.

Patt Morrison>> And you moved to Beverly Hills when?

Merv Griffin>> I moved to Beverly Hills because we had a long engagement at the Cocoanut Grove and lived first on 204 South Reeves Drive. This is South Reeves, a block south of Wilshire, at the second building on the left. Pull over to the side here. There it is. Oops, there's an apartment here for rent.

Patt Morrison>> How much did it cost you?

Merv Griffin>> Twenty-eight dollars a week. It was just one room with a Murphy bed.

Patt Morrison>> Pulling it down out of the wall.

Merv Griffin>> Pulling it down and it had a little Pullman kitchen and a couch and that was it. I would get home at two o'clock in the morning when we finished at the Cocoanut Grove. I would drive back here. But the matre'd, Michael, at the Cocoanut Grove used to give me things for my apartment. I didn't have a coffee maker or cups or any silverware or anything, so he'd just give them to me from the Cocoanut Grove. I'd be parked over here a block behind Will Wright's and then I would walk over here with my brown bag filled with all this silver.

Patt Morrison>> You looked like a burglar at three o'clock in the morning.

Merv Griffin>> And I got stopped by the cops. What are you doing? I said, I sing with Freddy Martin's Orchestra and I live right here. I'm coming home after work. Oh. Then I'd be praying that the bag didn't go rattle, rattle, rattle. It was all filled with fake silver (laughter). It felt like a village. Even today, there's only thirty thousand people here. Lord knows in 1948 how many people were here. And Rodeo Drive was just a simple street with little stores, not very classy. All this on the right was all parking lot and then, of course, over on the left here where Louie Raton is now was the great Fred Hayman store. Fred Hayman really was the instigator of this becoming the great shopping street like Rome, like --

Patt Morrison>> -- Bond Street.

Merv Griffin>> Bond Street, Madison Avenue in New York. I did my whole show from here and we parked Rolls Royces across the street and I did the show from the front of all these Rolls Royces. As I would walk up and down Rodeo Drive, the various shopkeepers would come out and tell me about their stores. That was one of the first big promotions for Rodeo Drive.

Merv Griffin>> "Rodeo Drive is a mere two and a half blocks long, but because it's populated by the world's most lavish stores, it's been referred to as The Half Mile of Style, The Gold Paved Ride."

Merv Griffin>> I was the first to leave New York and do my shows here on a permanent basis. So I flew out. Tony and my wife, Julann, stayed back there until I found a house. The minute, the first day we moved in, I saw all these Hollywood buses outside and you could hear the man broadcasting. I said, gee, they find you so fast here (laughter). I was amazed. It wasn't until I gave a party for Michael Caine. Then at the party for Michael Caine was James Bacon, the columnist. He walked in and said, "Whoa, Merv, I haven't been in this house since the murder." I said, "What murder?"

Then I started to realize why all the celebrity buses were here. He said, "Well, this is where Lana Turner's daughter murdered Stompanato." And here's the house. Then I moved up to what had been Leonard Firestone's estate and didn't realize that there had been a murder there. Well, not a murder. There was a shooting because the man was attempting to kidnap Leonard Firestone. So then I had moved out from New Jersey on a farm where a very famous murder had happened, but I didn't know that before. Then we moved to a home that had no crimes. It's a lovely home. We got a divorce. So it was murder that was keeping my marriage.

Tony>> Maybe if they'd stayed married, there might have been a fourth murder.

Patt Morrison>> That's right (laughter).

Merv Griffin>> We'd have murdered you, you son of a gun (laughter). And here's my little house I owned for seventeen years.

Tony>> His grandkids, they called it Poppa's house.

Merv Griffin>> They couldn't understand why I had a buffet every day.

Tony>> They would say, "Can we go to Poppa's house? We want to swim in Poppa's pool (laughter).

Merv Griffin>> As you know, it was a very big honor that Beverly Hills named this little street here.

Patt Morrison>> Merv Griffin Way.

Merv Griffin>> Yes. It is one of the most traveled streets. This is your only real access. This is Santa Monica Boulevard -- no, this is Wilshire -- over to Santa Monica Boulevard without having to go all the way around the Beverly Hilton.

Patt Morrison>> So we are going home for you when we come to the Beverly Hilton.

Merv Griffin>> Well, yes. There's the man. Good to see you again.

Patt Morrison>> Now tell me the history of the hotel. What was here before the hotel?

Merv Griffin>> It was built in 1955. Richard Nixon opened the hotel officially. He was Vice President under Eisenhower in the 1950's.

Richard Nixon>> "We have seen a great metropolis constructed in this era."

Merv Griffin>> I bought it in 1987. I sold "Wheel" and "Jeopardy" to Coca-Cola in 1986 and decided to head my life towards hotels, my second great love after, you know, performing.

Patt Morrison>> Well, you were at one point the biggest taxpayer.

Merv Griffin>> The largest employer and the largest taxpayer in Beverly Hills the whole time I had the Hilton.

Patt Morrison>> So this is your town.

Merv Griffin>> Well, it is. I grew up in San Mateo which I'm very proud of, but then when I left, I left being in the business and touring with the bands and then the contract with Warner Bros. and back to New York. I went back to New York for fourteen or fifteen years, back to do Broadway and records and started my talk show in New York. Then I finally just said I'm going home and came back to Beverly Hills.

Patt Morrison>> So this is home.

Merv Griffin>> It really feels like home.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> 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.

Sponsored in part by:


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