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Life & Times Transcript

5/08/07

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

When it comes to speeding up traffic, could one-way streets be the fast track or a dead end?

Grace Yoo>> Why are we only looking at two streets? Why are we looking at only connecting downtown to the west side? What happened to the Valley? What happened to every other part of the city?

Val Zavala>> And then, they're called poets, but this is not your grandfather's "Ode on a Grecian Urn".

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.

With additional support for Life and Times from The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation.

Val Zavala>> Some say that it's a possible solution to our terrible traffic problems. Take two streets and turn them into one-way boulevards. Experts say that it would speed up cross-town traffic and give our freeways some relief. But as Hena Cuevas found out, there are two sides to this one-way idea.

Hena Cuevas>> If there's one thing Angelenos can agree on, it's that traffic is bad and it's only getting worse. No surprise that the most congested area is the west side. That's home to one-third of the busiest intersections in the city and all that gridlock is having an impact. People don't like to drive to the west side if they don't have to. Just ask restaurant owner, Jay Handal.

Jay Handal>> People just stop coming now. You know, they're past the point of sitting in traffic for thirty-five minutes to go out and have dinner. One of my customers the other night made it very clear to me. "You know, you're getting a lot more business from me than you ever got because I don't go to Olympic and Pico anymore. It's way too much for me."

Hena Cuevas>> Handal is the President of the West Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce. He says, for the past two years, the Chamber has been asking the city to explore ways to alleviate congestion.

Jay Handal>> There's no question that, no matter how many more billions of dollars we spend widening the 10 Freeway, it's not going to help in our lifetime. So what we need is drastic measures.

Hena Cuevas>> And drastic is precisely how some are describing a new plan to reduce traffic in the area. Last April, County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky presented his Olympic-Pico One-Way Feasibility Report. The idea is to turn Pico and Olympic Boulevards into one-way routes. The proposal covers about thirty-five miles from downtown to Santa Monica.

With traffic going in one direction, seven lanes would open up on Olympic. That boulevard would move east towards Los Angeles. There would also be seven lanes on Pico flowing west to the ocean. The man behind the study is transportation engineer, Allyn Rifkin. He literally drove the route noting the number of intersections, as well as how much on-street parking there was.

Allyn Rifkin>> I had a helper taking notes while I drove and I just pointed.

Hena Cuevas>> Rifkin found that, by changing the flow of traffic, capacity would increase by twenty percent. If the same number of lanes remain, how is it that when it goes one direction, there is a twenty percent increase?

Allyn Rifkin>> Because we're able to get rid of what I think is the worst thing about this corridor: left turn arrows. Left turn arrows waste a lot of time.

Hena Cuevas>> But this is just one of many proposals on the table. There are also plans to extend the subway line and proposals for the widening of freeways. But Rifkin says that his plan could be implemented now for a lot less money. It's basically a way for the city to buy some time.

Allyn Rifkin>> Well, this is a solution to provide some rapid transit to the corridor giving people an alternative that can be done so far in advance of the light rail proposal and the subway proposal that they're talking about. So we need everything we can do in Los Angeles and I think this is something worth exploring.

Hena Cuevas>> It's already being explored by Los Angeles's Department of Transportation. Gloria Jeff is the General Manager.

Gloria Jeff>> The key here is to recognize that this is one of a series of actions, that this is not a solution whole unto itself.

Hena Cuevas>> She says that changing the direction of the boulevards involves retiming traffic lights, repainting the streets and replacing signs. It also requires input from two other cities, Santa Monica and Beverly Hills.

Gloria Jeff>> As we move traffic east-west, we have to look at the communities that it goes through. There are places where Olympic and Pico are wide and there are places where they are wide, but have a significant amount of commercial development. We want to continue to have that kind of economic activity taking place in the city.

Hena Cuevas>> One of the concerns is the removal of parking along the corridor during peak hours. That's brought opposition from business owners in Koreatown.

Grace Yoo>> All the east-west like Third Street is also congested.

Hena Cuevas>> According to Grace Yoo of the Korean-American Coalition, owners are worried that no parking will drive customers away.

Grace Yoo>> Even with the four to seven p.m. no parking which has impacted businesses on some of the major streets going east-west, if you turn it into a one-way where people don't really stop and it's just a thoroughfare, then once again the business will also suffer.

Allyn Rifkin>> All the research that I've done on the economic impact of one-way streets have indicated that there is no validity to those concerns. It's the congestion that chases people away from the businesses rather than the one-way streets.

Hena Cuevas>> But it's not just businesses that are concerned. A lot of the pockets between Pico and Olympic look like this neighborhood and some residents are worried about what kind of an impact these changes will have as people cut through these residential streets to make it from one thoroughfare to the other.

Another problem, says Jeff, is the distance between the one-ways. Unlike downtown, where one-way streets are only a block from each other, some areas along the Pico-Olympic corridor are almost half a mile apart.

Gloria Jeff>> You end up increasing the volume of traffic that will probably go through residential streets. Human nature being what it is, they're not going to wait until the next light. They're going to go to the next corner they can make a turn at.

Grace Yoo>> We're talking about traffic flow that's going to go into the residential areas. This is one of the most concentrated areas and, if you have a lot of dense population where you're going to have cars going on side streets, going at thirty-five miles per hour, you're asking for, again, accidents. So, again, it still is safety that's our number one issue.

Hena Cuevas>> How valid is the concern from the residents that there might be an increase of through traffic through the residential streets?

Allyn Rifkin>> There may be traffic coming from this proposal through the residential streets, but there is a lot of traffic going through the residential streets today because of the capacity problems on the main streets. I think the strategy is to try and make Olympic and Pico run freely so no one will think about going through the residential streets.

Hena Cuevas>> But restaurant owner, Handal, points out that cut-throughs are already a problem.

Jay Handal>> I go back and ask everybody, "How many four-way stop signs and how many speed bumps are in your neighborhood today and how many were in your neighborhood ten years ago?" These cut-throughs are already in our neighborhoods. The only way we're going to get them out is to wipe this slate clean and start all over again.

Hena Cuevas>> There's also the issue of public transportation and emergency vehicles. Under Rifkin's plan, two of the seven lanes would be reserved for buses and ambulances during peak hours. So far, there's no estimate as to how much it's going to cost. Rifkin will continue to hold community meetings to explain his plan.

Allyn Rifkin>> I think what I'm trying to do with the study is to get the cities to talk together about how to improve the traffic flow in this corridor.

Hena Cuevas>> However, Yoo says that this only solves part of the problem.

Grace Yoo>> We're talking about trying to ease traffic in the city of Los Angeles. Why are we only looking at two streets? Why are we looking at only connecting downtown to the west side? What happened to the Valley? What happened to every other part of the city?

Hena Cuevas>> The DOT will complete its evaluation in the next few months. The plan will then be up for consideration by the City Council.

Jay Handal>> It's not just west side. It's city-wide. Will it benefit me? Absolutely. People will start to come to the west side and feel like they have an opportunity to drive here and not be stuck in traffic for forty-five minutes.

Hena Cuevas>> I'm Hena Cuevas for Life and Times.

Val Zavala>> So what do you think of one-way boulevards? You can post your opinion on our blog. Just go to kcet.org and click on the Life and Times Blog.

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>> He's a teacher who makes an extraordinary claim. He says that he can turn around any troubled school no matter how bad the kids, no matter how bad the neighborhood, and he can set it straight within thirty days. How does he do it? By enforcing ten basic rules.

Paul White is a maverick. He doesn't have much faith in traditional public schools, so he got permission to start his own school in an office building in Canoga Park.

Paul White>> So we get the kids who would be considered Los Angeles's worst of the worst.

Val Zavala>> He doesn't mince words. The students here, he says, were rejects. So how does he turn them around? With ten rules which he's put in a book called "White's Rules". They don't have much to do with educational strategies or class size or teacher training. It's all about personal integrity and behavior.

Paul White>> You have to show up. You have to show up every day. You have to show up on time, which seems pretty common until you talk to an employer. You have to be honest. You have to work hard.

Val Zavala>> Be respectful.

Paul White>> Be respectful. You have to get along with each other which, again, are pretty common rules. But in a society where we don't show up, we don't tell the truth, we don't get along with each other, when lying is a problem not just with poor urban kids, but highly-educated corporate executives. These become huge things. So what we do is create a learning environment, a context that's founded on moral values and, when you lock in that environment, you couldn't keep them from learning if you wanted to.

Val Zavala>> The school is called the West Valley Leadership Academy. Most of us would call it a continuation school.

Paul White>> Schools like this are set up for kids who have exhausted every other possibility. They've been thrown out of every other place. They come here looking for a new chance and we provide it for them.

Val Zavala>> Other rules include living clean and sober, living with courage, caring about others and learning from everything.

Paul White>> I went to get a sandwich after school and ran into a heroine addict who'd been doing IV drugs for thirty years. I offered him twenty dollars if he'd come and tell his story to our kids. He not only did, but he was a handyman at the school for a while and, with the kids' encouragement, we got him in a clean and sober house.

Val Zavala>> The two-story school is without frills. No football or track fields, no auditorium, just a combined rec room and eating area and some classrooms.

Paul White>> "Who was the fellow, the attorney, who went out and fired him? What was his last name? You remember?"

Student>> "Gonzalez?"

Paul White>> "Gonzalez, yeah."

Val Zavala>> Everywhere you look, there are inspiring quotes and Paul is full of them too.

Paul White>> John Kennedy had a quote during his presidency when he said, "We have guided missiles and misguided men." What we've done is develop a society where our children know how to stay alive, but they don't have a clue what they're living for and this is what we give them.

We have a young lady who came to us who almost killed herself on her meth habit. You hear that it's very difficult to beat. A year clean and sober, straight "A's", a job, college classes, will graduate early.

Val Zavala>> So this is a special room for the young women in the program?

Paul White>> This is where a lot of activities for our girls are planned. When they have problems in schools, girls suffer the most. They're usually the ones with the babies. They're usually the minority in a school where the boys are not supervised and are often lewd and take advantage of them.

We really focus on our girls. We've had great success with taking our teen pregnancy rate almost to zero, getting them to stay away from abusive relationships or get out of ones they're in. Statistically, the two best kinds of birth control most effective are a job and success in school and our girls have both.

So we kind of tell this kind of tongue-in-check, "No Tinkerbell", that we want our girls to know that their future doesn't have to rely on a fantasy of a girl that has to fit a certain stereotype and never really say anything, that we want our girls to be full women and to be leaders and that, when they grow up, we don't want them to look for a boss or a dad. We want them to find a partner. This board here helps us keep track of what they're doing.

Val Zavala>> All students must have a part-time job. They must be taking at least one college or vocational course at the local community college and they must be part of a charitable cause. Some of the girls here cut their hair and donate it to cancer patients. But some people would say, "Yeah, right. These are tough kids. Love and discipline and all that stuff sounds great, but these kids are nasty and mean and carry guns. Good luck."

Paul White>> Well, let's see how it works. In eight years, the number of fights we've had in school? None. Number of racial incidents? None. Amount of vandalism we've had? Zero.

Val Zavala>> But you've had to kick some kids out too because they just would not even succeed in this environment.

Paul White>> If you look real quickly at the problems in education, our attendance average is a hundred percent. No parent participation? One hundred percent come once a month to parent programs. Drugs and alcohol? Ours all voluntarily drug test and test clean.

Val Zavala>> And parents must attend meetings. Jose Gutierrez says his son was in an overcrowded high school, drifting into drugs. He never knew what was wrong until his son got into trouble.

Son>> I got in trouble mainly because I didn't do my work. There were also times where I would just ditch school, you know. I would go and then I would just leave.

Val Zavala>> Why?

Son>> Well, if I wasn't going to be paying attention, then what was my point in being there? It'd be like a total waste of time.

Jose Gutierrez>> A friend of ours told us about this school and we came and he got enrolled. You know, ever since then, it was just a total U-turn for my son and he even graduated a year earlier than he would have if he would have stayed in high school.

Val Zavala>> When Paul first opened the school in 2000, the rules were more relaxed. Then five years ago, something terrible happened that made him toughen up enforcement. A student, Michael, was shot by gang members who mistook him for someone else. He was shot pointblank in front of the school. He stumbled upstairs to find Paul.

Paul White>> He said, "I've been shot" and sat in a chair right there and you could tell he was kind of starting to fade. I said, "Come here, Michael. Why don't you lay down here?" I got a paper towel and we wiped the blood off of him a little bit and then he passed shortly after that.

Val Zavala>> So he literally did.

Paul White>> Oh, yeah. Right in my arms. Yeah, right in my arms.

Paul White>> "It seems like everyone's afraid and doesn't know what to do. We're not, we do, we're the E-Team."

Val Zavala>> Paul White and his ten rules have caught the attention of a Hollywood director who would like to produce a reality makeover show featuring Paul and his team. Here's a clip from the demo reel.

Paul White>> "You're done here and then there's nothing left but the same prison cells your brothers are sitting in."

Val Zavala>> Paul and his team of counselors, a probation officer, a science teacher, art teacher and physical ed teacher would love to take on the challenge.

Paul White>> My premise, Val, is that I can take any school and make it like this in thirty days with these rules and that Los Angeles, in doing this, could be gang-free in less than three years. It's not a matter of imposing a force from the outside in. We've seen in the last ten years in Los Angeles how ineffective that's been.

You have to look at the kids and, whether we see them as the brotherhood of man or whether we see them as all of God's children, however we explain it, we have to care for them and love them and discipline them and help them as if they were our own. When you do that, miracles happen.

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>> We used to call it poetry. Now they call it "spoken word" or "poetry slams" and they're attracting hundreds of young and not so young poets to open mike clubs across the country. But what are these urban poets saying? Vicki Curry talked with Ratpack Slim who introduces us to a new generation of very vocal artists.

Vicki Curry>> Ratpack, you're a poet here in Los Angeles, but not necessarily a poet in the traditional sense that some of us might have grown up studying.

Ratpack Slim>> Sure.

Vicki Curry>> How would you define the kind of work that you do?

Ratpack Slim>> Well, for better or worse, I would call myself a slam poet and that's a pretty encompassing term. Basically what that means, quite literally, the term "slam poet" comes from the slam which is a competition. A poetry slam is a competition. What that kind of has done for the community is it kind of raises the energy level up of the performance of the poets and it also kind of gives focus to what they're saying.

Steve Connell>> "Words are like actions. They define you. And if your words don't define you, then why are you talking? You should sit down and shut up and you have that right. But I'm a poet and an American. My pencil sparks light with each word that I write and I will stand there and fight 'til the dawn's early light as the bombs burst in air and I will stand right there and I will speak my mind. I have that right."

Vicki Curry>> But is there more to it than just the competitive component? Are there other characteristics of this type of poetry?

Ratpack Slim>> Oh, yeah, absolutely. I feel there's a lot of it in the roots in the hip-hop scene, in the underground hip-hop scene. You'll see elements of beat poetry in it too. There's elements of theater, elements of improv. A lot of the slam performers really kind of come from a lot of really different artistic backgrounds and kind of combine those things together to create this kind of hybrid form of poetry.

[Film Clip]

Ratpack Slim>> It's probably more theater and music-related than just your traditional poetry. To that end, you know, it's pretty exciting for an audience to see a lot of poets get up there and do something that's a little more, you know, that they can connect with immediately because of the performance aspect of it.

So you see a lot of these poets who used to be or still incorporating elements of MCing, of the rhyming, and keeping things kind of taut and relevant within a kind of very rhythmic structure. That kind of element is still very prominent in a lot of slam poetry. Again, I think it helps the younger generation to connect with what's going on.

[Film Clip]

Ratpack Slim>> Most of the time, what the poets are talking about are just things that are recalled directly from their lives and it's very raw, very honest and very truthful about anything from their personal lives to politics and everything in between. You know, it's a three-minute window into someone's life that they're willing to share with you. That's really one of the most unique aspects of it, I think.

Shihan>> "Life as a poet is harder than it looks. My babysitter see my baby more than I do and it's hard, right? Picture two weeks gone, come home to relief through hugs and kisses, then come painful things like questions with even harder to explain answers like, "Daddy, do you still love me?" I thought I'd die when she asked me that. My heart fell like -- there's no metaphor for that. So I try and keep composure and explain to her everything she needs to hear, to let her know her daddy will always be here, and tears form on the eyelashes pregnant with guilt and she says, "Daddy, don't cry."

Vicki Curry>> You mentioned that the subject matter ranges from the personal to the political, but I've seen an awful lot of political work by the local poets.

Ratpack Slim>> Sure. Well, I think a couple of platforms that have been really amazing for them to launch their political views that are talked about in this series as well, Norman Lear, the producer, had an amazing tour called "Declare Yourself" where he bought a copy of the Constitution and took it around the United States and assembled a group of spoken word artists.

Ostensibly, they wrote a show based around the right to vote and getting in people to vote. They ended up getting a million young voters registered to vote during the last campaign, which is pretty amazing, just through the power of their spoken word performances.

>> "I believe Parenting 101 should be a required course in every high school and Frederick Douglass should be on the dollar bill and I will get on the mike and say that because I am an American. My voice speaks loud graffiti gems, hieroglyphic mathematics etched in the air, spitting soul songs set from somewhere holy and honest. I rock this for you and you and you because I am an American and I can."

Vicki Curry>> I assume these poets consider themselves artists, but yet they're probably also just as interested in having this become kind of a part of the popular culture?

Ratpack Slim>> In the past ten years or so, there have been a number of television programs. Russell Simmons has put on "Def Poetry Jam" which I believe is in its seventh or eighth season now. Yeah, it's been probably the biggest showcase for spoken word artists from the slam community and out of the slam community to be able to have a national platform.

Gina Loring>> "Like the time I met Mr. T. Flinging myself into his arms like a little girl at twenty-two, overcome with an emotion I did not realize I had. You see, we of the fatherless tribe love men differently. Like I love Mr. T. Sherman Hensley, Bill Cosby and Arsenio. Yes, Arsenio. Because they were constants for at least a period of time, present in my home, in my living room, in my adolescence as no other men were, so I loved them."

Ratpack Slim>> Beyond that, I've seen poets in international commercials, doing radio spots. I think what's happening in "mainstream America" is I think people are starting to recognize that these voices can be used in, you know, ways that can reach out just beyond a coffeehouse or a poetry lounge type of situation, that they're saying that these are just as viable voices as your musicians or your actors or your pop stars or what have you. So they're starting to reach out as this continues to happen.

I feel like the early days of hip-hop when it was still underground. As soon as the mainstream America started kind of realizing that there were elements of it that could translate into larger audiences and could be used for other purposes, that's when you kind of see the underground names rising up and people starting to, you know, get these amazing opportunities which are great.

We're still a very kind of a baby of an art form, but in the past ten or twenty years, it's definitely risen up. We're in the process of growing up. It's exciting to see it happen.

Vicki Curry>> Ratpack Slim, local artist and the person who put together the web stories on kcet.org, "Children of Slam", thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us.

Ratpack Slim>> Thank you.

Val Zavala>> All five poets you saw in that story are performing tonight at The Poetry Lounge at the Greenway Theater on Fairfax Avenue, or you can see them on our website. Just go to kcet.org and scroll down to "Children of Slam". And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. 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.

With additional support for Life and Times from The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation.

Sponsored in part by:


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