Life & Times - Transcript

About Us \| Contact Us

Life & Times Transcript

05/11/06

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

Saying goodbye to the gas pumps. Meet a man whose car runs on fuel made from, among other things, used vegetable oil.

Joe Gershen>> It got a lot of press. People were sort of making their own biodiesel, using straight vegetable oil, you know, often recycled that they collect from restaurants, in their cars.

Val Zavala>> And then, underwater, underage and under the spell of a drifter. Our FilmWeek critics take aim at the latest big screen releases.

These stories and more 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>> Imagine being able to make fuel for your car out of used cooking oil. Well, it's not a thing of the future. It's possible right now today. It's called biodiesel and it's cleaner and cheaper than gasoline, so why hasn't it taken off? Toni Guinyard takes a closer look at this alternative fuel.

Toni Guinyard>> Santa Monica resident, Joe Gershen, is a man on a mission.

Joe Gershen>> We're trying to adapt a cause of biodiesel really everywhere, but certainly in southern California.

Toni Guinyard>> He's out to convince the public we can improve air quality while cutting our dependence on foreign-produced oil by using this: biodiesel. It's a nontoxic, clean-burning alternative fuel for use in conventional diesel engines. It's made from soy or other vegetable oils.

Joe Gershen>> Mustard seed here in California makes sense, canola. In Europe, they use something called rapeseed which is sort of an industrial canola.

Toni Guinyard>> Or recycled grease and animal fat.

Joe Gershen>> It got a lot of press. People were sort of making their own biodiesel, using straight vegetable oil, you know, often recycled that they collect from restaurants, in their cars.

Toni Guinyard>> While the use of biodiesel initially received a lot of media attention, the spotlight seemed to dim over time, but when few were looking, biodiesel slowly and quietly began developing a loyal following.

Joe Gershen>> We bought a couple of cars. My wife bought one and then I bought one. We sold our gas-powered cars and we started using it. We thought, well, we're not going to go out here and evangelize this great alternative fuel if we're not using it ourselves, so we started doing it and it was frustrating.

Toni Guinyard>> Frustrating because access to biodiesel is limited depending on where you are in southern California. Consumers in the Los Angeles area looking to fill her up with biodiesel often end up here, ITL in Cudahy.

Jeff Irvin>> The only place, I understand at least in southern California, that has it at the pump. We have B20 at the pump.

Toni Guinyard>> Jeff Irvin is President of ITL. A few years ago, he started selling B20, a blend of twenty percent biodiesel mixed with eighty percent petroleum diesel.

Jeff Irvin>> Right now, our retail sales at the pump are only about five hundred gallons a day and that's not a good day.

Toni Guinyard>> ITL also sells biodiesel in its purest form, B100, so-called neat biodiesel, in five gallon containers. But there is a downside to biodiesel. It produces NOX, oxides of nitrogen, an ingredient in smog, and it's one issue dirtying the reputation of biodiesel.

Jeff Irvin>> You know, in the other parts of the United States, in the Midwest particularly, biodiesel is taking off. It's just really a going product. But here in California, the Resources Board does not accept biodiesel as an alternative fuel and that's primarily because, although there is a reduction of particulates, there's a slight increase in the NOX.

Joe Gershen>> NOX tends to go up very slightly, but what's encouraging is that there are all sorts of technologies and additives available and being developed right now that will bring that NOX down.

Toni Guinyard>> And perhaps make it more appealing to environmentalists with concerns. Irvin is counting on commercial sales to drive the use of the alternative fuel. Right now, the consumer market for biodiesel amounts to a mere drop in the bucket.

Jeff Irvin>> As far as the individual, I think it's just somebody that wants to reduce the demand, do their part in reducing the demand, on crude oil. I think, from that aspect, it works pretty well. There's just not enough of those people yet. There's not a lot of diesel personal vehicles out there right now, particularly in California.

Toni Guinyard>> Joe Gershen is one of those people and he hopes others follow his lead.

Joe Gershen>> I have my one hundred percent biodiesel delivered and I have a little shed in my back alley behind my garage.

Toni Guinyard>> Not only does he use biodiesel, but he promotes its use to anyone willing to listen.

Joe Gershen>> If you would have asked me five years ago before I got into this, would I ever be promoting diesel, I would say, you know, you're crazy. There's no way I would do that. Diesel is disgusting and black, you know, toxic fumes. That was before I learned about biodiesel.

Toni Guinyard>> Gershen developed a nonprofit advocacy group called GreenDepot to help educate the public. He also founded the company, LA BioFuel, to promote improved local access to biodiesel and other sustainable fuels.

Joe Gershen>> I'm not just a guy trying to go out there and market it and get it out there. I actually use the stuff.

Toni Guinyard>> So every three to four months, the biodiesel delivery man comes rolling through this Santa Monica alley making his way to Joe Gershen's house. For Joe, this has been a lesson about perseverance, determination and perhaps even a bit of stubbornness. You see, Joe doesn't think it's as easy as it should be to get the one thing he wants.

What he and a growing number of alternative fuel users want is access to biodiesel at their own neighborhood gas stations from a traditional fuel pump. It's an argument managers at General Petroleum in Rancho Dominguez are familiar with. The fuel and lubricant distributor sells biodiesel in bulk.

George Hopwood>> Sales are coming on strong because the federal government is the one that said to some of their agencies like the Navy, Air Force, they've mandated its use.

Toni Guinyard>> When GP began selling biodiesel in 2000, there was very little interest.

George Hopwood>> At that point, it was unique. Nobody else was handling it in this area. We had the forethought, I guess, to think this could be something for the future, so we brought it in and it moved slowly at first, but it's catching on strongly now.

Mark Mason>> In a month, we're doing about fifty thousand, fifty-five thousand, gallons a month.

Toni Guinyard>> What is that telling you?

Mark Mason>> That the alternative fuel of biodiesel is definitely blossoming not only just in the military, but just to local people.

Toni Guinyard>> On the average, biodiesel costs more than petroleum diesel, but federal subsidies tend to make its production and use more attractive.

Jeff Irvin>> I think, if you see diesel and biodiesel come into parity as far as price, then commercial businesses will start taking a serious look at it.

Toni Guinyard>> Municipalities statewide are taking note. The city of Santa Monica already had some vehicles powered by compressed natural gas. In February 2005, they made the transition in its existing diesel fleet vehicles to the B20 biodiesel blend with plans to test the use of one hundred percent biodiesel in the future.

Javier Valle>> The city has made a commitment to become a sustainable city and, even though it does cost a little bit more, the city is being sustainable so that it's worth it to all of us.

Wes Thompson>> We have ninety-four pieces of equipment currently using biodiesel and the worst we've had was a couple of clogged fuel filters.

Toni Guinyard>> The city uses an average of seventy-five hundred gallons of biodiesel every month. They're hoping this effort to cut air pollution while supporting domestic fuel production and renewable sources of energy will be replicated by other cities, but it's likely to be a slow process.

Joe Gershen>> You know, there is no magic bullet and the community, I think, sometimes looks for what's going to replace petroleum. I don't think any one thing will replace petroleum. I think it's going to take a lot of different things. Biodiesel is one of those things and it's something that we can use right now.

Toni Guinyard>> One of several alternative fuel sources available to the public, if you're willing to pay a little more and go the extra mile. I'm Toni Guinyard for Life and Times.

Val Zavala>> Southern California now has its first biodiesel filling station. It's in Pacific Palisades. The fuel is made from walnut oil. It works in any diesel engine and it sells for $3.49 a gallon.

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>> Admit it. All of us at one time or another in the back of our minds have had that politically incorrect question we would love to ask about an ethnic group and, in southern California, that often means about Mexicans. Well, now there's a person who has the brains and the guts to answer anything.

He lives and works in Santa Ana, or Santana, as he calls it, population three hundred forty thousand and a whopping seventy-six percent are Latino. But not one of them is like Gustavo Arellano.

Gustavo Arellano>> "We try to make ourselves so spic and span and, all of a sudden, here comes this young loud-mouth."

Val Zavala>> Gustavo is a reporter for the O.C. Weekly. He writes a column called "Ask a Mexican". Yes, he's the Mexican and there's no question he won't answer, like "Why do Mexicans paint their houses such bright colors?" "Why do they throw their toilet paper in the wastebasket?" And "Why do they display the Virgin of Guadalupe everywhere?" On his way to work, Gustavo passes an immigration office, a bit ironic, considering his father crossed the border illegally in the trunk of a car, a bit of personal history he doesn't hesitate to tell.

Gustavo Arellano>> My great-grandfather actually came here to pick in the orange groves, but he would always go back to Mexico. He was always back and forth. My father was an illegal immigrant who came here in the trunk of a Chevy. But with my parents --

Val Zavala>> -- a Chevy.

Gustavo Arellano>> A Chevy. That's actually an "Ask a Mexican" question. "Why does a Mexican pronounce shower as chower, but chicken as shicken?"

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> The questions he gets range from the sincerely interested to the racist to the absurd.

Gustavo Arellano>> Like "What's the Mexican obsession with midgets?"

Val Zavala>> Mexicans are obsessed with midgets?

Gustavo Arellano>> Absolutely. We love midgets.

Val Zavala>> I didn't know that. You mean on Mexican television?

Gustavo Arellano>> Yeah. You see Mexican television or Mexican films and you always have these small little midget men running around chasing after big-bosomed women. Who doesn't love them?

Val Zavala>> What is with that?

Gustavo Arellano>> I read that question and I started laughing. I said, all right, it's an easy question and the easy answer is for me to say that everyone loves midgets. But then, I did my research and it turned out that the Aztecs considered midgets to be holy people, that they were children of God and they held up the sky. Irony of ironies, they held up the sky. So much of our psyche comes from conquests and Aztecs and all that. That must have been one of the things that trickled down, our obsession with midgets.

Val Zavala>> Gustavo graduated from Chapman University and has a Masters in Latin American studies from UCLA. You can hear the academic side emerge in his answers, though not for long.

Gustavo Arellano>> There was one of "Why do Mexicans have so many babies?" That's always a classic one. So I would say, okay, if we want a theological response, the Catholic Church is opposed to contraception, so maybe many Mexicans don't use contraception. The anthropological response is that, when you have poor societies, poor societies tend to have large families so they can have more wage earners. But I said that the real reason is because there is no prophylactic in the world that could hold back the Mexican spermatozoa. They just go through the condoms and, you know, nothing could really stop them.

Val Zavala>> Gustavo is also the food editor and an investigative reporter for the O.C. Weekly, all without any formal journalism training. How did that happen?

Will Swaim>> He was a film studies major, I think, at Chapman University and he was a senior then. He wrote us this wonderfully sardonic letter to the editor and I thought this is a guy who has a lot of potential as a writer. He was sort of disrespectful of authority and I thought perfect for a weekly.

Val Zavala>> Will Swaim is the O.C. Weekly's editor. So how did this come about, "Ask a Mexican"?

Will Swaim>> Well, I think the real trajectory of the column began with me driving up Seventeenth Street and seeing a sign in Spanish that I completely could not translate. I thought, you know, I got to ask Gustavo what that means. It's got to be some sort of play on words. It's about a guy on a radio show or something.

Val Zavala>> Yeah, a radio DJ, yeah.

Will Swaim>> Right. I asked Gustavo, you ought to write a column at least once to just sort of explain something to a complete ignoramus Gringo. He said, oh, we don't even call them Gringos. I said, well, there's column two. So he did this thing as a joke the first time and he's brilliant. As soon as he wrote the first one, people didn't take it as a joke. They took it quite seriously and he was suddenly like the Miss Manners of all things Mexican.

Val Zavala>> Well, I don't know if you'd say Miss Manners, considering his biggest influences are The Simpsons and Howard Stern. But his outspoken expertise on Mexican culture is certainly propelling him into the national -- actually international -- spotlight.

Gustavo Arellano>> "I think I told you that the largest news weekly or news magazine in the Netherlands is doing a profile on me too. I'm doing that. I'm doing a television show tomorrow in the morning and I'm going to do another radio show for NPR as well. Not day to day, but . . ."

Val Zavala>> One of the most common questions is "What ever happened to the lazy Mexican?" That's an easy one for Gustavo.

Gustavo Arellano>> And my response is "Really? Mexicans are lazy? You know, go over to a street corner and you have all these fifty men trying to get a job pulling weeds for five dollars a day. That's lazy?" One of the great questions was "Why do Mexicans sell oranges on the side of freeways?" I say, "Well, what do you want them to sell? Steinway pianos?" They know it's something that you can sell easily, you can transport easily and you can make pretty good profits off of it. Five thousand dollars a year and you don't have to report it to INS.

Val Zavala>> Okay, he meant the IRS, an understandable slip. Gustavo is always in high gear. Today he'll put in fourteen hours. He's got a regular radio appearance tonight on KABC.

Al Rantel>> "There it is, music to walk out by."

Gustavo Arellano>> "We need happy music right now."

Al Rantel>> "Or protest by."

Gustavo Arellano>> "Everyone feels bad. All of America is sad, so I reward all of you with happy music."

Al Rantel>> "Yes, Gustavo Arellano, the author of "Ask a Mexican" in The Orange County Weekly, and he's become now a national figure. You'll be the most famous Mexican before long in all of America."

Gustavo Arellano>> "More famous than the Frito Bandito?"

Al Rantel>> "Well, maybe not quite that famous."

Val Zavala>> This was the week when half a million Latinos marched in Los Angeles for immigrants' rights. There was plenty to talk about.

Caller>> "I see these people willingly flaunting the law, rubbing it in my face."

Gustavo Arellano>> "How do they rub it in your face?"

Caller>> "Well, I think the flag exhibition and the fact that --"

Gustavo Arellano>> "So if they waved the American flag, then that would be okay?"

Al Rantel>> "Well, it would be better.

Caller>> "Let 'em be American."

Al Rantel>> "If I wanted to be American, I'd be waving the American flag and saying this is the country I love, I want to stay here, I want to work here and I want to raise my family here."

Gustavo Arellano>> "I'm sure since you saw the demonstration, you saw a lot of these immigrants waving American flags."

Al Rantel>> "I didn't see that."

Gustavo Arellano>> "Oh, really?"

Al Rantel>> "Oh, you did? Well, I'll take your word for it."

Gustavo Arellano>> "So, go ahead, caller?"

Caller>> "Well, there was a few burning American flags."

Gustavo Arellano>> "Yeah, those people are idiots and, frankly, they shouldn't be here."

Val Zavala>> Gustavo has been answering questions like these ever since his column started back in November 2004.

Gustavo Arellano>> There is always going to be questions about Mexicans. Again, Mexicans have been the obsession of Americans for a hundred fifty years. If I never received another question ever again, I have enough material to last me at least five years.

Val Zavala>> What do your folks think of this column that you have?

Gustavo Arellano>> (Laughter) My mom always reads it and she says, "You know, Gustavo, maybe you don't want to say some of these things because people get offended by the truth." So my parents, the most Mexican people that I know, love the column. They like the fact that I do discuss some things.

Val Zavala>> But they're a little concerned, it sounds like.

Gustavo Arellano>> Well, they're concerned because they have that traditional Catholic propriety and shame and think, oh, you can't cuss on the air or you can't cuss in print. You can't talk about Mexicans hating Black people or Mexicans hating gay people. You can't talk about that. But at the same time that you're talking about it, you're right, it's true.

The big fear with Mexicans is that somehow we're the exception to the melting pot. We're the society that just won't marinate, that won't dissolve into all these clich�s. But give me a break. Assimilation is inevitable in this country and I always tell people don't worry about it. You know, we're going to be as American as everyone else, if not more so, and we're also going to hate Mexicans like you do.

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.

Larry Mantle>> Welcome to FilmWeek on Life and Times. I'm Larry Mantle of 89.3 KPCC. Our first film this week is a remake of the disaster epic, "The Poseidon Adventure". "Poseidon" is directed by Wolfgang Petersen and stars Kurt Russell and Richard Dreyfuss.

[Film Clip]

Larry Mantle>> I'm joined this week by critics Ella Taylor of the L.A. Weekly and Peter Rainer of the Christian Science Monitor. Peter, what did you think of "Poseidon"?

Peter Rainer>> Well, it's not as campy as "The Poseidon Adventure" and that's something of a demerit as far as I'm concerned. There's nothing like being bunkered with, you know, Red Buttons, Carol Lynley, Stella Stevens, Ernest Borgnine and so forth.

Larry Mantle>> Shelley Winters.

Peter Rainer>> Shelley Winters, yes. This has Josh Lucas, Kurt Russell, Emmy Rossum and a few other stalwarts. Not quite the same thing. This moves a lot faster. It's only ninety-something minutes and I appreciate that because most of these franchise kind of movies go on forever. This one is pretty lean and straightforward. The effects are good to better than good. Some of it is CDI stuff and some looks to be, you know, actual recreations on a sound stage of this cruise ship turning upside down and so forth. It's a pretty good program, I think.

Larry Mantle>> Ella?

Ella Taylor>> Well, Wolfgang Petersen is awfully good with moisture. I enjoyed "Das Boot" and -- what's the other one?

Peter Rainer>> "The Perfect Storm".

Ella Taylor>> And "The Perfect Storm". The effects are terrific. It's completely implausible because you're asked to believe that these people are trying to fight their way from the bottom of a capsized liner to the top. But he has absolutely no feel for character or story. At the same time, the movie has absolutely no sense of humor, so it's up to the viewer to find humor in it.

Most of the humor comes from Richard Dreyfuss who, as the movie is beginning, has one foot over the balustrade as he's trying to commit suicide. Then this wave comes towards him and he finds life's meaning and purpose, so it's that kind of a movie (laughter). It's enjoyable for the effects, but anyone looking for a character story or even a date movie is going to be sorely disappointed.

Larry Mantle>> Our second film this week is set in the San Fernando Valley. "Down in the Valley" is directed by David Jacobson and stars Edward Norton and Evan Rachel Wood.

[Film Clip]

Larry Mantle>> Ella, what did you think of "Down in the Valley"?

Ella Taylor>> It's a very strange and compelling movie. The whole idea of a mysterious stranger who appears to be a cowboy coming down into the San Fernando Valley and seducing Evan Rachel Wood seems very odd and yet there's something that works about it. The acting is terrific and you really get this sense of the loneliness of both the San Fernando Valley in the suburbs and, at the same time, the lonely cowboy. It's an extremely romantic and sensible movie, but it worked for me.

Larry Mantle>> Peter?

Peter Rainer>> Well, it is very strange. Sometimes that's good and sometimes it's not so good. What the director seems to be doing is trying to graft a sort of neo-noir movie with, you know, something that doesn't really fit for the location. It's like a neo-western and the neo-noir and Edward Norton is supposedly the kind of cowpoke drifter, nice guy. But because it's Edward Norton, we know that there's a lot more going on there that turns bad.

The way the film kind of evolved wasn't terribly surprising to me. It was sort of like watching wings being pulled off a fly. The director has a very good sense of wide screen composition and he sustains a very good note of low-key dread throughout the film, but I think its implausibilities did it in for me in the end.

Larry Mantle>> And finally this week, a film written and directed by Richard E. Grant. It's set in Swaziland, Southeast Africa. "Wah-Wah" tells the story of family trials in 1969.

[Film Clip]

Larry Mantle>> Peter, "Wah-Wah"?

Peter Rainer>> I beg your pardon (laughter)? The Barbara Walters bio pick (laughter). This is an interesting movie because it's a personal film. It's not very successful, I think, overall. It reminded me a little bit of "The Lost City", the Andy Garcia movie from a few weeks ago which was also a very personal movie about his birthplace of origin.

Richard Grant grew up in Swaziland and the movie is actually filmed there, apparently the first time ever for a movie. The most compelling parts of the film for me were the relationship between the father, Gabriel Byrne, and his son, Nicholas Hoult.

The father is a wonderful chap by day and, at night, is a raging, violent alcoholic and the terror that the son experiences and the way that he tries to deal with that and with his stepmother, Emily Watson, who's terrific, I thought was the core of the film emotionally. As a piece of direction, I think it's very much of a fledgling effort and suffers for that.

Larry Mantle>> What did you think, Ella?

Ella Taylor>> I liked this movie. It's not expert filmmaking by any means and the visual clich�s come thick and fast. But what I liked about it is the way he doesn't stint on just how awful his parents were and you can certainly see what put this, you know, sneer on his face has made his career as an actor. I also liked the zanier parts of it, the portrait of British community and all its loony racism and its idiotic baby talk and its absolute anachronisity to an agent that was about to become independent. So, despite myself, I enjoyed it.

Larry Mantle>> Thanks for joining us for another FilmWeek on Life and Times. I'm Larry Mantle of 89.3 KPCC joined by critics Peter Rainer of the Christian Science Monitor and Ella Taylor of the L.A. Weekly. We welcome your joining us again next week at this same time for the next FilmWeek on Life and Times.

Val Zavala>> KPCC public radio broadcasts a full hour of FilmWeek Friday mornings at eleven. And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks for watching. We'll see you tomorrow.

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:


Home \| Features \| Arts \| Health/Science \| OC Edition \| L&T Blog \| Archives \| About Us \| Contact Us \| Privacy Policy \| Terms of Use © 2007 COMMUNITY TELEVISION OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA