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12/15/06
Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --
Conservationists want to pull trawling nets out of coastal waters. What could be bad about that?
Rick Algert>> The more of family-owned businesses we knock out here in California, the seafood is going to be supplied by international businesses with little or no regulations or little or no environmental controls on their fisheries, their equipment or canneries.
Val Zavala>> And then, the best and the brightest of California's emerging artists share their vision of the world.
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>> It's one of the most environmentally destructive ways to fish. It's called trawling, or dragging nets across the bottom of the ocean. And yet this has netted fishermen from Santa Barbara to Monterey a pretty good living for a lot of years. So why have dozens of them agreed to give it up? As Sam Louie tells us, they got an offer they couldn't refuse.
Sam Louie>> Morro Bay, a waterfront town about three hours drive north of Los Angeles, is known for its legendary rock. Tourism is the city's largest industry, but it was not always this way. From the 1940s through the 1990s, fishing was the main engine of the economy.
Rick Algert>> Historically, this town was culturally and economically tied to fishing. You know, people worked in fishing and it was an activity that almost everybody in town did.
Sam Louie>> But no longer. Now you see plenty of fishing boats just docked here in the harbor. Rick Algert is the Morro Bay Harbor Director. He's been here sixteen years witnessing the decline of the city's fishing industry.
Rick Algert>> Since I came here in 1990, this was a vibrant fishing village unloading millions of pounds of fish a year. Unfortunately, today we have a greatly reduced fishing fleet and virtually no landing this summer.
Sam Louie>> And why did that happen? Because for years there were no regulations and the fishermen over-fished. In the mid-1990s, the federal government clamped down, establishing an extensive array of quotas, limits and regulations, and that was the beginning of the decline.
Rick Algert>> There have been a lot of losses. A lot of people have moved out of the businesses, lost their jobs, converted, and that's still going on.
Sam Louie>> Then in June, the fleet was further reduced when several local fishermen sold their vessels. And the buyer? An unusual customer, the Nature Conservancy of California. Chuck Cook is the Director of the Conservancy's Coastal and Marine program.
Chuck Cook>> The culmination of that work resulted in the Nature Conservancy acquiring six federal ground fish permits and four trawl vessels in exchange for an agreed-upon plan to protect 3.8 million acres of sea floor habitat on the central coast.
Sam Louie>> The Nature Conservancy wanted to stop bottom trawling. Trawl fishing involves dragging large heavy nets across the ocean floor to catch fish. Environmentalists believe this type of fishing is destructive to marine life.
Chuck Cook>> Most trawling is done in tows that are about eight hours in length and about fifteen miles in duration, so you do fifteen miles at a time. One of the biggest problems, besides the contact with the sea floor habitat and the degradation it can do, is this indiscriminate method. It catches everything in front of it.
Sam Louie>> The buy-out of the trawlers was an historic first for the Nature Conservancy aiming to keep the ecology vibrant.
Chuck Cook>> The more frequent people trawl, the less chance for a recovery and restoration of the sea floor habitat. In other words, if you go into an area and you don't trawl so frequently, it gives the chance for what we call the biogenic structure. The corals, sponges and anemones actually have time to respond and come back.
Sam Louie>> Chris Kubiak sold his vessel and license to the Nature Conservancy. He's a third generation fisherman.
Chris Kubiak>> It was a good way to go. Like I say, my whole family, my cousins are fishermen, my uncles, my brother, my dad, so it was just a natural thing to do.
Sam Louie>> Now Chris and his brother have retired from trawling. The Nature Conservancy paid them several hundred thousand dollars for each boat and permit. They saw it as a rare opportunity.
Chris Kubiak>> These things aren't a real hot item nowadays, so that was part of it. And the other part of it is that I felt like I needed to do something different, so that was a good way for me to do that. You know, it may be fishing. I'm not sure, but it may be not.
Sam Louie>> Especially since trawling isn't what it used to be.
Chris Kubiak>> I always felt like I was going to make money. It wasn't a question. I may not have been going fishing regularly, but it was always good. Yeah, more recently, it was a question. By the time everything was said and done, it wasn't necessarily profitable.
Sam Louie>> Fishermen were also hit hard by the rising cost of fuel. It tripled while the price for his fish went down.
Chris Kubiak>> We were having to question whether we wanted to go over there and spend the money on the fuel to go make the fishing trip. So because of the high cost of the fuel, because of the high cost of all of the equipment to go do it, I felt like, to stay successful at fishing, that I would need to do it a different way.
Sam Louie>> Mark Tognazzinni is one such fisherman doing it differently. Fishing is still his passion, but he's decided to diversify.
Mark Tognazzinni>> So what we did is, we started selling consumer direct and that kind of evolved into a very strong clientele, it evolved into a restaurant and now we have a fish market and we try to keep that disparity between what the fisherman gets and the consumer pays much more narrow than most places.
Sam Louie>> Mark is a salmon and tuna fisherman. He does not use a trawler, but expects the loss of trawling to impact restaurants and the local economy.
Mark Tognazzinni>> There are numerous species of fish that will no longer be caught that live right here and many of the flatfish are Sole, Dover, Rex. They're not going to be accessible anymore because they are caught with a trawl net. That's how they're caught. They're not caught with hooks. They're not caught with any other method. That's how they're caught commercially on this coast, so all those species of fish won't be caught here locally anymore.
Sam Louie>> With fewer locally caught fish, Mark fears that quality could be compromised.
Mark Tognazzinni>> Absolutely, the quality won't be there. It's always nice to promote a local product and have local fish and support the local infrastructure. Usually, the Special of the Day, we could tell you the boat that it was caught on and the fisherman that caught it. Not always, but usually, and we post that.
Sam Louie>> What's good for the sea life means fewer choices for customers.
Rick Algert>> The more family-owned businesses we knock out here in California, the seafood is going to be supplied by international businesses with little or no regulations and little or no environmental controls on their fisheries, their equipment or their canneries.
Sam Louie>> The Nature Conservancy says the trawling near Morro Bay will stop, but other forms of fishing will continue.
Chuck Cook>> The Nature Conservancy is not anti-fishing. We are against fishing that could be destructive and damages the habitat.
Sam Louie>> Experts believe more fishermen will have to reinvent themselves like Mark Tognazzinni if they want to stay in business.
Rick Algert>> It's made a tough job even tougher, but that's what it's going to take because you're going to have to have the flexibility to have a number of sources of income.
Sam Louie>> So far, the Conservancy has purchased six permits from Morro Bay's trawlers, but they hope to buy the remaining seventeen and put an end to trawling off the entire central coast. Despite the challenges that lay ahead, many in Morro Bay think, if they can weather these changes, there can still be a future in fishing.
Mark Tognazzinni>> I see a strong future, different for sure, but a strong future. I think maybe higher quality and lower volume product and teaching people about the value of it.
Rick Algert>> Fishing is not dying in this state, but we have to go through a profound change.
Sam Louie>> Even though pleasure boats have replaced fishing boats and tourism has surpassed fishing, Morro Bay's identity, like its famous rock, will always be anchored to its heritage as a fishing village. 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, plus transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org, scroll down the page and click on "Life and Times".
Val Zavala>> A couple of years ago in the middle of a bitter presidential election, an independent filmmaker grabbed his camera and headed out on a road trip through red states and blue states exploring our political landscape. He discovered that, no matter what their politics, Americans can be terribly honest. He called his documentary "Divided We Stand" and it screened recently in two Riverside County towns, two very different towns, and that gave him another chance to meet some very real southern Californians.
Tom Drew>> On the cusp of another election, I traveled to Hemet and Idyllwild. Though distinct in character, the neighboring towns had one thing in common that day, the theatrical release of my documentary, "Divided We Stand".
>> You can tell a Democrat's yard by the fact that they don't even fertilize it. It looks like a weed patch.
Tom Drew>> Although the mayor missed the big premier, she was on hand around the corner at the opening of this business.
Robin Lowe>> Originally Hemet was a farming community. Today we went through a transition of a retirement community to what I think is a city in progress. We put our flags out on Memorial Day and they'll stay that way through July 4. We have great pride in our country and, whatever the decision that's made, whether we agree with it or not, we'll certainly stand behind our men and women in uniform.
Shawnee Miller>> How do we in Hemet vote? Is this a Republican town? Red or blue?
Rhonda Hooper>> Older Americans are more conservative than younger Americans, so I would say that this has tended to be a more conservative town.
Shawnee Miller>> That's why I keep my mouth shut.
Rhonda Hooper>> Oh, no. I'll just tell you to wall up San Francisco.
Shawnee Miller>> No, it's very extreme right now, but that's just because of the last year, the Bush administration.
Rhonda Hooper>> Oh, wait a moment, ladies and gentlemen.
Shawnee Miller>> Well, no, I think that we have always had extremes right back to the founding fathers. They were an extreme. We know that we're divided and that we have different opinions, but we don't want to live it every day and we don't want somebody to jump on top of somebody else just because they express an opinion that was different.
Don>> Back when I was in school, they allowed prayer groups and prayer meetings, stuff like that. There'd be special times for it. We were free to gather. As far as the direction that our country is going, I feel it's going downhill because they're taking God out of school. It's real upsetting, but you need to address that. You know, get God back into schools, get prayer back into schools.
Tom Drew>> On the outskirts of town in the direction of Idyllwild was Hemet's oldest bar, the OK Corral.
James Davis>> You know, I know a lot of eighteen, nineteen, twenty year old kids that are out of work, you know. They would work at a McDonalds. They would work at a Del Taco. There's no room for them there. They're fighting for the same jobs that we're giving the immigrant workers. Everybody says we're letting them have the jobs that we don't want.
Well, I don't really go along with that. You can't fight a war on terror and have open borders. I mean, they go hand in hand to me. September 11? They act like it didn't even happen. They've totally forgotten about it. The nation is in a scary state of affairs as far as I'm concerned. Worst I've ever seen it.
Tom Drew>> Though close as far as the crow flies, Hemet and Idyllwild couldn't be any further apart, which was certainly evident after the screening of "Divided We Stand".
>> The people who are in the religious right and who are involving religion in the government, that's not what our forefathers, that's not what the founding fathers did. They did not try to find a religious country. It was exactly the opposite.
>> I think it's about to implode. I think we're on the verge of a collapse of our civilization, but what I'm very encouraged by is I'm not concerned about when this government, whether it's Democratic or Republican, implodes because I know there's people all over the country that are just ready to go on and actually create a true democracy.
Sarah Oates>> My name is Sarah Oates and I grew up up here. Not far from where we are up here in the lower elevation, there's an area where there's a lot of people that ride motorcycles and quads. The environment, the land, just looks like powder. I mean, there's nothing growing. People just need to be educated. They need to see what's around them and visit the national parks and the state parks.
I don't think our country is going in the right direction because we have more animals added to the endangered species lists. It just can't go on like this. We aren't going to have many years left if this continues and the animals have even less. I don't know. I want my grandchildren to be able to learn about all the good things in the environment because it's wonderful.
>> This is the American Legion. We're not allowed to talk politics.
>> Okay.
>> We don't do politics in the American Legion, although I know the country's going to hell in a hand basket.
>> I think the president shouldn't send all our guys to Iraq and kill them for no reason, all right?
Thomas Zore>> That's the most ignorant statement I ever heard.
>> You're an ignorant man. You're my big brother and I don't think you should have gone either. I just think it's stupid.
>> I wanted to go.
>> Why?
>> Because people like you and you and my mom and the people I care about and love didn't have to go. That's why.
>> Nobody should have gone at all. That's the whole point.
Thomas Zore>> We didn't invade this country to take over and claim it as ours. We invaded this country, took back the good out of and handed it back to them on a silver platter. Now whether they choose to abuse it or not is not up to us. I have no political view on it because I've been there. I've seen firsthand the reason why we're there, not because of what people are getting off the movies, CNN, you know, listening to some congressman talk about something.
>> I think Bush is doing a great job and I don't want the Democrats taking over.
>> It really doesn't matter, Democrat or Republican, anymore because, once they're all in there for a few years, it's all about getting re-elected and then you've got the contributors and the lobbyists and the media and they come in and we don't have a two-party system anymore.
Thomas Zore>> Everybody has their own opinion. Just because they're on television and they're wearing a suit doesn't mean they're right or wrong. I don't know. A lot of that bothers me. I could really care less who becomes the president. I would just -- I mean, to me, government's corrupt, but you know what? I'd rather have the lesser of the two evils.
>> You know what's good about the United States? I am a registered Democrat and I will be voting for many Democrats. Elaine is --
Elaine>> -- I'm an Independent.
>> Not voting for Republicans, but we are dear friends and we can sit next to each other and discuss this because we live in the United States.
[Film Clip]
Tom Drew>> Despite our nation's division, I like to think a period of finding common ground is on the horizon.
[Film Clip]
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Val Zavala>> It's one of the most important art events in Orange County featuring works by more than thirty up-and-coming artists and it's a chance to see why California has been dubbed the creative capital of the world. Roger Cooper takes us to the Orange County Museum of Art for a look at the 2006 California Biennial.
Roger Cooper>> We're at the Orange County Museum of Art with Karen Moss, the curator here, and it's the Biennial, the nice event you have where you find new artists in California and you find people who are just making their voice, right?
Karen Moss>> Correct. The Biennial consists of thirty-one young emerging artists, mid-career artists. They were selected from over one hundred studio visits in both northern and southern California throughout the state. I think that the work that you see here is representative of a broad range of artistic practices in every medium from traditional painting to sculpture to photography to installation art and video.
Roger Cooper>> Karen, Joel Morrison. Where's he from?
Karen Moss>> Joel Morrison is a young artist who lives in Los Angeles and part-time in Berlin.
Roger Cooper>> He takes objects and does very interesting things with them. He collects objects.
Karen Moss>> Well, he actually, I think, is interested in making satirical sculptures about very classical artwork such as Michelangelo's "David", as you see here.
Roger Cooper>> Yeah, but not like we've seen it before.
Karen Moss>> Not like we've seen before. You'll notice he has an asthma inhaler here, a surgical glove that has been blown up affixed to the head. These are cast from different objects into these new versions of the classical works.
Roger Cooper>> Joel's alligator shoes.
Karen Moss>> Yes. These are kind of traditional Keds or Vans slip-on sneakers affixed with these sharp kinds of points, but it makes them look like alligator feet, kind of maybe a protection for the artist who wears these shoes.
Roger Cooper>> At first glance, this is Hitchcock's "The Birds", but he takes some liberties with it.
Karen Moss>> Yes. As you can see, instead of landing on a children's swing set, in Joel's version, the birds land on a kind of a classic minimal sculpture on open cubes by Sol LeWitt.
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Roger Cooper>> Tim Sullivan does things you don't believe with your eyes. Levitation, for example.
Karen Moss>> Yes. This is a photograph from his Levitation series, "At the Ocean Floor", where he mysteriously hovers above this white shag carpet. His works very often use his body in odd situations, often with kitschy wallpaper or costumes or other things.
[Film Clip]
Roger Cooper>> And he does all kinds of things. He does a "Magic Carpet Ride" that we're seeing?
Karen Moss>> Yes. The video you see here is a piece that he made on a flight simulation ride at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco with his mentor, the filmmaker George Pitchard.
Roger Cooper>> And the billboard. He has a California sunset that's kind of a billboard.
Karen Moss>> Yes. The California sunset billboard, as you can see, has a cut-out where the sun would be. So when you look at it, you see both the billboard and the actual clouds behind it. Then that central disc of the sun has kind of rolled its way into the gallery.
Roger Cooper>> And you talk about the tacky wallpaper. He actually made a suit of wallpaper?
Karen Moss>> That's correct. In the "Self-Portrait with Wallpaper", Tim is wearing a suit made from wallpaper that he stands against, kind of again this interest in kitsch. As you'll note, he has a slight resemblance to Andy Warhol. I think that he creates his own persona just as Andy Warhol did in the 1960s.
[Film Clip]
Roger Cooper>> Christopher Ballantyne. He likes to depict the environment and what industrial things have done to the environment.
Karen Moss>> That's correct. Chris grew up all along the coastlines of California, Texas and Florida. So a lot of his work shows nature, particularly the ocean, in relationship to the suburban built environment, such as empty parking lots. All of this comes from his experience as a skateboarder traversing through empty spaces of suburban America.
This is "Untitled Parking Lot" and, as you can see, it's a parking lot that has a cast of that kind of greenish-yellow light in a flower shape on this empty space. Chris was very interested in depicting what he calls the empty spaces of suburban locations.
Roger Cooper>> This is the house that will not stop.
Karen Moss>> Correct. I like to call it the ranch house on steroids that continues to multiply itself over and over again. This comes out of Chris's experiences growing up in neighborhoods with endless rows of ranch houses from the mid-1960s onward.
Roger Cooper>> This one adds an annex to an annex to an annex.
Karen Moss>> It's the house that never ends.
[Film Clip]
Roger Cooper>> It's kind of like a maze.
Karen Moss>> Exactly. It's a labyrinth of chain link fence kind of imagined by Chris, again harking back to some of his experiences of these empty urban and suburban areas.
[Film Clip]
Roger Cooper>> Goody-B Wiseman does some things with album covers.
Karen Moss>> Yes. This piece consists of three iconic albums from the 1960s and 1970s. "The Sound of Silence" by Simon and Garfunkel, Carole King's "Tapestry" and an album with Yoko Ono and John Lennon. What she has done is taken that iconic photo and imagined, during the course of the song, a little film. So we didn't know where Simon and Garfunkel were going when they walked down that long road, and here they are going on a journey.
[Film Clip]
Roger Cooper>> Shana Lutker pays more attention to dreams than most people, her dreams.
Karen Moss>> Yes. This particular work, "Dream House No. 2", is a model that is roughly based on the house that she grew up in. Inside each room, you see objects and artworks that she dreamed about making in her dreams and then made miniatures of.
Roger Cooper>> Freud would love this.
Karen Moss>> Well, it may not surprise you to hear that Shana Lutker's father is a Freudian psychoanalyst.
Roger Cooper>> That explains a lot.
[Film Clip]
Roger Cooper>> Well, as we wrap up our tour, we haven't begun to see all that's here. What is the importance of it to the young artists?
Karen Moss>> The Biennial is an important opportunity for young emerging artists to show their work in a professional manner with a large public coming to see it, to have a professional catalog published, and really it becomes a way to catapult their careers. They can then get galleries, dealers, they can do another exhibition, and it becomes an important building block for them.
Roger Cooper>> Well, we can all see it here in Newport Beach in the days ahead. Karen Moss, thank you so much.
Karen Moss>> Thank you very much, Roger.
Roger Cooper>> And thanks to the Orange County Museum of Art.
Val Zavala>> The California Biennial will be up through December 31. For more information, you can go to their website for the Orange County Museum of Art at ocma.net. 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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