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03/07/06
Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --
When one man closed up shop in Orange County, it sent a shockwave around the world. A glimpse inside the big business of surfing.
Midget Smith>> Most of the people here went into a tailspin. They did not know if they were going to have work and what they were going to do when the foam ran out.
Val Zavala>> And then, incomparable views, an unparalleled art collection and an expensive makeover. We take you inside the newly-reopened Getty Villa.
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.
Val Zavala>> It's hard to imagine that the closing of one small factory in Orange County could have such a major impact on a six billion dollar industry, but that's just what's happened and the industry is surfing. Orange County reporter, Roger Cooper, tells us that one man's decision to close his business has created a sea change for surfboards.
Roger Cooper>> You probably always thought that the world of surfing revolved around places like Huntington Beach, Hawaii or here at San Clemente, but you were wrong. The true center of the surfing universe turns out to have been this small factory located miles inland in Laguna Niguel.
Clark Foam has been a dominant player in the billion dollar surfboard industry, amassing ninety percent of its United States market and helping Orange County achieve a similar whopping proportion of the market for all surfing-related products. That's because for four decades Clark Foam has turned out the foam cores, or blanks, from which virtually all the world's surfboards are made. So when on Monday, December 5, with no advance warning, owner Gordon Clark suddenly closed his doors and went out of business, the surfboard industry went into a panic.
Bill Stewart>> Kind of like 9/11. It was a little bit of a shock.
Midget Smith>> The day the world ended (laughter). That was the feeling anyway. It was really a shock when the bombshell just dropped on us.
Roger Cooper>> The people who make surfboards, like master shaper Midget Smith, and Bill Stewart of Stewart Surfboards couldn't believe it. They'd just lost the raw material they're livelihoods depended on.
Bill Stewart>> I'd had hip surgery and I was laying on my couch when I found out. Me and my dad jumped in my hotrod and he drove me down to Clark Foam. I wanted to make sure it was real.
Roger Cooper>> It was all too real, says Shawn Price who covers the surfing industry for The Orange County Register.
Shawn Price>> Well, we're talking about a multi-billion dollar industry that stretches around the world. He had about ninety percent of the North American market and about sixty percent of the international market, which is a monopoly any way you look at it.
Roger Cooper>> It was in the 1950s that Gordon "Grubby" Clark, working with surfboard legend, Hobie Alter, created the foam blank technology that made the lightweight modern surfboard possible. Clark's only explanation for getting out came in a seven-page fax saying he was closing rather than continue fighting federal and local regulators over chemical emissions at his plant.
Bill Stewart>> Litigation. I think he got litigated out of business and he's a seventy year old guy and, you know, he's done very well for himself and I don't think he really needed to fight this war.
Midget Smith>> Most of the people here went into a tailspin. They did not know if they were going to have work and what they were going to do when the foam ran out.
Roger Cooper>> Although surfing has become very big business in Orange County, it also is still an industry of many small operators shaping and painting handcrafted boards one at a time, something surf forecaster and wave rider, Charlie Fox, appreciates.
Charlie Fox>> You all of a sudden take away, again, the one necessary component, the blank, and then what do they have to shape or pedal? Nothing. So they got to go get a real job and that's terrifying. It's that concept.
Roger Cooper>> Within days of Clark Foam's closing, surfboard prices shot up by a hundred to two hundred fifty dollars in some retail shops and surfers were hanging on to their existing boards like they were gold. But to fully appreciate the impact of all of this, you need to talk with Bob Mignogna, a former publisher of Surfing Magazine. He's also on the board of the Surf Industry Manufacturers Association.
Robert Mignogna>> All goods and products sold in the United States at retail produced by the surf industry amounted to approximately $6.5 billion dollars in retail sales, so that's how big the industry is domestically. Worldwide, it's probably more than double that, so it's a thirteen to fifteen billion dollar industry worldwide. Of the six and a half billion dollars domestically, I would just venture a guess right now that ninety percent of those dollars are from companies that are based in Orange County.
Roger Cooper>> Orange County is home to the huge surfing apparel industry and almost all the major surfing magazines are headquartered in or close to San Clemente.
Robert Mignogna>> In fact, there's a strip of Orange County from Huntington Beach to Irvine along the 405 Freeway that's commonly referred to in the surf industry by executives as Velcro Valley. The velcro refers to velcro used in a board short to affix the zipper or the fly area. You drive up the 405 and you go from Op and Billabong to Hurley and O'Neill and Lost and Vulcan and Quiksilver, you know, just a block off the 405, one exit or another.
Roger Cooper>> As the surf industry scrambles to find new sources for foam blanks, two southern California firms have been ramping up production in an attempt to meet the demand. And shipments from overseas plants are beginning to arrive at docks. But will that be enough to send board prices back down?
Midget Smith>> I don't see that happening. The foam that is coming from overseas is even more expensive than the Clark is now and domestically produced foam is going to be pretty close to that, I'm afraid. So I think the prices will stabilize. I don't think they're going to go any higher, but they definitely won't go down.
Roger Cooper>> But what the surf industry does expect is to see innovation, making surfboards of new and different materials, something that didn't happen much when almost everybody bought foam from Clark.
Bill Stewart>> I think better products will come out of it because the door has been opened for research and development.
Roger Cooper>> And Register reporter, Shawn Price, looks for improved business practices.
Shawn Price>> I think simple logic will take over. I think it's just capitalism at work. You'll see a better product. I think you'll see competitive pricing. It might go up a little bit, but I think the competition will keep boards affordable.
Robert Mignogna>> Shame on the surfing industry, myself included, that we all weren't prepared for it, but we became used to the great service and the great product that Clark put out and everybody in the industry was weaned on it, so we got sort of lulled into thinking that it could go on forever.
Roger Cooper>> There is one thing Orange County's surf industry doesn't have to worry about. It has a market that will never go away as long as there are people who live to surf like Charlie Fox.
Charlie Fox>> So it's just this complicated, complex madness that's truly a disease. I've come to grips that surfing is a disease and I'm affected by it and so are millions of others across this planet and I'm happy to be infected.
Roger Cooper>> What do they call it? Blank Monday?
Robert Mignogna>> (Laughter) Black Monday. But Blank Monday is a good alternative to Black Monday.
Roger Cooper>> In the end, most are predicting the fallout from Clark Foam's closing will actually be a positive thing once the laid-back world of surfing no longer revolves around a single supplier. In San Clemente, I'm Roger Cooper for Life and Times.
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Val Zavala>> Remember Proposition 71? That was the stem cell initiative that promised to put California on the cutting edge of this promising new technology. It allocated three billion dollars toward stem cell research, so here we are two years later and not a dollar has been spent. How did that happen?
We came to City of Hope in Duarte, a premier cancer research and treatment center. We talked with its President, Dr. Michael Friedman. City of Hope has been doing stem cell research for decades and Dr. Friedman is on the Citizens Committee that oversees stem cell funding. Now Proposition 71 was passed back in 2004. Three billion dollars worth of funding for stem cell research and yet not a dollar has been spent yet. What's going on? What's happened?
Dr. Michael Friedman>> Well, it's not exactly true to say that not a dollar has been spent, but the project has been really much slower than we would have liked. There have been legal challenges which have really slowed and made it impossible for the bonds to be issued. So all the money that was going to be set aside for the research, this three billion dollars over ten years, that's all been delayed.
Val Zavala>> The lawsuits from conservative groups don't challenge stem cell research per se. Instead, they object to the way the money is being channeled. They say it's state money and should only be handled by state officials, not a Citizens Committee. Proposition 71 supporters expect the lawsuits will eventually fail. Now Proposition 71 sort of promised to put California on the avant-garde, right on the cutting edge of this research. With all these delays and whatnot, have those hopes kind of dwindled?
Dr. Michael Friedman>> Well, the frustration that's grown from not having the funding available is certainly increasing. I think that there's much good research going on in the state of California because there are many fine research institutions that are doing this work today, but it's not progressing at the pace that we would have liked and I think there are other states that are thinking about how they can do something like what we've done.
Although in scale, California is still far and away the biggest and the most dramatic, but there are other nations around the world. Singapore, the United Kingdom, Israel, other countries where stem cell research is really being promoted and supported by the government to a much greater extent and great progress is being made there.
However, there's another set of activities that's really required a lot of attention. Coming up with processes, how to review the applications, conflict of interest, patient protection and safety, data integrity. All of these are very important features because this is a great trust placed in us by the state of California, by the citizens, and we want to get it right.
Val Zavala>> Now those guidelines and standards are specially important in light of the South Korean stem cell scandal. Tell us how that might impact California and perhaps tell people exactly what happened there.
Dr. Michael Friedman>> Well, a very prominent researcher in South Korea, someone who made extravagant claims about the value of his research, turned out to be a liar, a fraud. Tremendously disappointing, tremendously frustrating, but not really getting to the integrity of the research that goes on here.
I think what's important for the public to understand is that mistakes, whether they're innocent mistakes because of, let's say, sloppiness or random statistical variation or purposeful mistakes -- fraud, lying, cheating -- both of those things are unacceptable. Both of those things need to be eliminated. So we need a system that is as accurate and as transparent and as trustworthy as possible.
Val Zavala>> So do you think that the scandal in South Korea has actually hurt the cause of stem cell research here in the United States?
Dr. Michael Friedman>> I think what it's done is to blemish the all of science. It has been a bit of a blemish for those people who are critical of stem cell research. It gives them a reason to be even further critical. But has it really affected the integrity of the stem cell science or the intention of what we hope to do with the money from Proposition 71? The answer to that is no.
Val Zavala>> So you hope that soon the money, the three billion dollars, will be freed up and start to fund research projects. What kind of research projects can we expect to see?
Dr. Michael Friedman>> Well, we certainly do look forward to when this major funding is available. I can say that many institutions in California, including the City of Hope, are already pursuing some of this research with funds that we're identifying on our own. But there's hardly an area of medicine that you can imagine that won't be touched by some of this research. Cardiology, bone disease, devastating neurological disorders such as spinal cord injury or Parkinson's Disease or Multiple Sclerosis and one of our own particular interests here, cancer, and how to better treat cancer patients, and diabetes and how to better treat those patients.
Val Zavala>> Give us just one example of the kind of cancer research that's connected to stem cell that's happening here.
Dr. Michael Friedman>> One of our investigators is doing very interesting work with a kind of stem cell. It's not an embryonic stem cell, but still it's a kind of stem cell in which we're able to show that those cells go to any part of the body where there may be a tumor hiding and can actually be used as a vehicle to bring treatment to that tumor. It's enormously exciting.
I also wanted to mention that we've been doing a kind of stem cell research here for thirty years. Bone marrow transplantation is a kind of stem cell research. Hematologic adult stem cell research is not prohibited by any laws in the United States today. We've had much support for this, but more than eight thousand patients have benefited from this kind of technology. So there's a wonderful, rich tradition in the state of California, and here at the City of Hope, and on that, we're burnishing that tradition with the new research with embryonic and other kinds of stem cells.
Val Zavala>> And just to remind people, we're talking about therapeutic stem cell research, not the cloning, correct? That's two very basic differences.
Dr. Michael Friedman>> What an important distinction you're making. Cloning people is absolutely unacceptable. It's illegal and it's immoral.
Val Zavala>> Or animals?
Dr. Michael Friedman>> I wouldn't say animals because people are cloning animals and some of that research is continuing. But for people, this is absolutely prohibited and is not in any sense supported by Proposition 71. That would be illegal. However, there are many kinds of therapeutic uses of stem cells not just to help patients, but to understand diseases better and to try and identify treatments better. So there are so many areas that this is potentially promising.
Val Zavala>> So how important is it that California be the first, in a sense, to make progress on stem cell research?
Dr. Michael Friedman>> I think the important thing is the recognition, the daily recognition, of the patients that need these treatments and they need them now. It's going to take us years to develop it. The race is not a race for fame, for glory, for recognition or money. The race is for who's going to give something to patients that they desperately need right now. That, I think, is what's driving the vast majority of scientists not just in California, but in America.
Val Zavala>> Of course, the question everyone asks is, when will we see the results? How quickly can we see some cures? That's always the question you get, yes?
Dr. Michael Friedman>> It is absolutely the question. It's the question that drives everyone day after day. The true answer is, I don't know. I want to hope that there will be quick benefits for patients that we'll see in dramatic fashion. I don't know that that's going to occur. I am very confident that ultimately important therapies will come from this, but I can't tell you when and I can't tell you for which diseases. But I am absolutely, personally sure that this is going to happen.
Val Zavala>> Well, Dr. Friedman, we'll come back in a few years and see what progress we've made. Thank you so much.
Dr. Michael Friedman>> Thank you.
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Val Zavala>> Some people remember it fondly. Others have never been there. It's the Getty Villa in Malibu and, for the past nine years, it's been closed for renovation. But now it's open and, as Vicki Curry tells us, the new old Getty is the home for its extensive collection of antiquities.
Vicki Curry>> It's the ancient world remembered as only Los Angeles can. The original Getty Museum near Malibu is a faux Roman Villa filled with real antiquities. Now it's all back in the spotlight after a twenty-first century renovation. The renamed Getty Villa takes on its new mission as an educational center.
Karol Wight>> It's a center for the study of the ancient world. I don't think there's any place else in the world where you can find a collection of this caliber in an architectural setting like this with all of the programs that we have surrounding the museum.
Vicki Curry>> It took nine years and two hundred seventy-five million dollars for the Villa's conversion to a space devoted exclusively to antiquities.
Karol Wight>> They really are displayed best in a setting like this which evokes the ancient world which takes them back to an ancient setting.
Vicki Curry>> The Getty may have one of the country's most extensive collections of classical art, but most southern Californians just want to see the Villa itself.
Karol Wight>> We have so many people that live here, especially in the Palisades, that have a real fondness for this site, so they're anxiously awaiting a chance to get back in.
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Vicki Curry>> The museum has always been popular with the public ever since it opened in 1974 as the vision of oil baron and art collector, J. Paul Getty. Getty bought the sixty-four acres of oceanside land in 1945.
Karol Wight>> The Ranch House was the house that was on the property when Mr. Getty first purchased it.
Vicki Curry>> Getty expanded the house to accommodate his growing art collection and opened it to the public in 1954.
Karol Wight>> Now that building houses the Library. It houses the Curatorial offices and the Scholars' offices, but it also houses two of our Conservation Laboratories for the permanent collection. As Mr. Getty's collections continued to grow, he knew that there was a necessity to build a new museum and the decision that he made was to model it on an ancient Roman villa, the Villa dei Papiri, which was the structure buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79.
When the museum opened, the architectural critics likened it to Disneyland, among other places. You know, it was sort of in keeping with southern California's fantasy land. But it has turned out to be the perfect place for the collections here.
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Vicki Curry>> Long-time visitors will notice changes, including new public spaces designed by Machado and Silvetti Associates.
Karol Wight>> The decision was made early on that it was not going to mimic the old museum. That would be a mistake and it really would look like Disneyland. So they took the concept of this building, the museum building, to treat it as an artifact and, as you enter an ancient site in Herculaneum or Pompeii, you enter it from above and you walk down to the older layers.
This is the way an excavation works. The lower you go, the older it is. So they decided to treat the architecture as a series of strata walls as if you were within an excavation. So as the lower levels of the rock is leveled, as earlier architecture would be, and that the higher you go, the more refined the architecture gets.
Vicki Curry>> Visitors will also notice a major change to the Villa itself.
Karol Wight>> Rather than entering from the Outer Peristyle Gardens, they'll now walk along the pathway looking down on the buildings and then arriving at the new Outdoor Theatre and seeing the museum's new front door. In the past, visitors would go through two gardens before they ever entered a gallery and saw a work of art. People will now be entering the museum through the Atrium which is the proper front door of a Roman house.
So this is how they should have always entered the site rather than exiting through it on their way to the old Tea Room. In antiquity, the Atrium is the front door of the house. It's the reception room, so it was important to respect the fact that the museum's architecture reflects that first century Roman architecture and to use these rooms accordingly.
Vicki Curry>> So tell me about some of the changes that have been made to this space.
Karol Wight>> Well, since we now have the opportunity to display the antiquities on both floors, it was extremely important to bring more natural light up to the upper gallery. Previously, they'd had paintings, they'd had French furniture, all materials that were light-sensitive. So the architects opened up every window they possibly could here in the Atrium as well as in the Inner Peristyle and we added two skylights to the large galleries on the second floor that used to have renaissance and baroque paintings in them.
Another change is the opening up of the ceiling. In an ancient house, rain would have fallen in here. Certainly daylight and sunlight would have come into a room to illuminate it, so we have changed what used to be a permanently closed fixture in the ceiling to an operable skylight.
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Karol Wight>> The gardens were then replanted again, but still using Mediterranean species, so they're authentic to the ancient world. But the major change on the ground floor here is the addition of this new stairway on the east side. It was a real challenge for our visitors to find their way up to the second floor because the stairways were tucked into the corner of the building. So we asked the architect to design a new stairway and it was very important to maintain the view all the way from the Atrium through to the East Gardens. This is the access to the house and this was a view that needed to be maintained.
So they came up with this incredibly beautiful design with the two rises here on the sides and then this gorgeous central rise which is completely made out of bronze. They consciously didn't try and design the staircase to fit with the ancient architecture. It would have been an intrusion and an obvious one.
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Vicki Curry>> This area looks familiar to me and I'm sure will be recognizable to people who've visited the old villa.
Karol Wight>> Absolutely. This used to be the entrance to the villa and you can see that it's incredibly decorated. Rooms like this, we didn't change at all. We simply protected them during the renovation process. But now, with visitors coming in through the Atrium, the gardens are going to be a pleasant surprise along the way. This is something they'll encounter during the course of their journey.
Vicki Curry>> Visitors used to enter here at the Outer Peristyle and go in that way, but this now seems to be kind of the final stop on the museum.
Karol Wight>> Exactly. This is meant to be a destination. This is meant to be what you discover after you've visited the galleries and, certainly in a Roman house, that was the same thing too. It was something that you discover after you've spent time indoors. This was part of the property that visitors loved the most. They just loved sitting in the gardens here and, as it was in the past, we've replanted the gardens with species from the Mediterranean, plants that we know grew in cities like Pompeii and Herculaneum.
Vicki Curry>> And you were saying that there was a new mural painted back on the wall there by the original artist?
Karol Wight>> That's right. A mural artist named Garth Benton painted the murals out here for the museum when it opened in 1974 and we were very fortunate to be able to ask him to come back because we needed a new mural designed for the end of the Outer Peristyle. Garth very happily came and designed a new wall on the north side for us with a beautiful piece based on an ancient Roman wall painting, so we're happy to add it to the repertoire that we've got out here now.
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Karol Wight>> This is really another cultural jewel in the crown that we're continuing to build in Los Angeles. It's kind of a small intimate place where you can come, take in one part of the museum's collection in a beautiful setting, spend half a day here, and really have a wonderful time.
Val Zavala>> Admission to the Getty Villa is free, but you do have to make reservations and pay for parking. For more information, you can go to their website at getty.edu. And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks for watching. We'll see you later.
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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