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Life & Times Transcript

11/07/07

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

When it comes to getting clean and sober, does paying top dollar increase the odds?

Chris Prentiss>> We heal it and then they magically stop. The addiction just disappears and, when they leave here, they don't go to meetings and they just continue on having a wonderful, happy life.

Val Zavala>> And then, one photograph by Julius Shulman can turn a house into an icon.

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>> There's that old saying that you get what you pay for, but is that true when it comes to drug rehabilitation programs? Now Los Angeles is home to some of the most luxurious and expensive rehab centers in the world, but does paying sixty-five thousand dollars to detox actually increase your chances of staying clean and sober? As Sam Louie found out, even the most luxurious centers have some dissatisfied customers.

Sam Louie>> Just off the coast of Malibu sits some of the most lavish and expensive drug and alcohol recovery centers in the world. Equipped with posh surroundings, quality cooks and a serene view overlooking the Pacific Ocean, these high-end rehabilitation centers offer amenities that cater to some of Hollywood's rich and famous.

Chris Prentiss>> The people who can afford to do that don't want to be in a place that isn't a nice surrounding. This peaceful surrounding adds greatly to the healing environment.

Sam Louie>> But does it? Will paying tens of thousands of dollars a month mean you're more likely to kick the habit? And how expensive are these places? With twenty-four hour care, Passages and other places like it charge up to sixty-five thousand dollars a month.

Chris Prentiss>> At Passages, we offer more one-on-one treatments than any facility in the world.

Sam Louie>> Chris Prentiss is the co-founder of Passages. He opened it in 2001 as a response to his own son's addiction to heroine, cocaine and alcohol.

Chris Prentiss>> I didn't know what to do for him. So for ten years, we searched. We went to different programs and sober living houses and every kind of doctor imaginable. In the end, I said, "Pax, we have to create our own program because nothing out here is working."

Sam Louie>> His son, Pax, hit rock bottom several years back. He now shares his story in the company's promotional video.

Pax Prentiss>> "Back then, I was a hundred twenty pounds, tracks up and down my arms, homeless, begging for money, trying to sell my shoes, willing to go to any lengths to get the drug."

Sam Louie>> After ten years of addiction, Pax hit rock bottom. It was a day he'll never forget. He was almost murdered.

Pax Prentiss>> That was a very hard day. I got caught by some dealers that I had stole drugs from and they took me out to the desert to kill me. I started digging my own grave. I talked my way out of it, but it was a very difficult thing. I was inches away from being dead for having stole drugs from dealers.

Sam Louie>> Eventually, Pax discovered why he was using drugs and alcohol. All his life, he felt he had not measured up to his father's achievements. Finally, they talked.

Chris Prentiss>> I said, "Pax, come on, you're twenty-six years old. When I was twenty-six years old, I hadn't done any of those things. I was just like you." You know, we talked about it for a couple of weeks and he got it. He just got it. That night was the last day he ever did drugs.

Sam Louie>> So they started Passages and justified the high price, saying their approach is more effective than traditional rehab centers.

Chris Prentiss>> What we do at the Passages Addiction Cure Center here in Malibu is to treat the underlying condition and we heal it. Then they magically stop. The addiction just disappears and, when they leave here, they don't go to meetings. They just continue on having a wonderful, happy life.

Sam Louie>> Even more impressive is their success rate. They claim that it's eighty-four percent. But skeptics say that a success rate that high is virtually impossible, that the average recovery rate is closer to thirty percent.

Tucky Masterson>> If they have an eighty-four percent success rate, then they're phenomenal and they should be in the Guinness Book of World Records because that's, you know, unheard of in the business.

Sam Louie>> Tucky Masterson is a recovering drug and alcohol addict herself. When did you realize that you needed to get help?

Tucky Masterson>> When I got tired of shooting heroine and cocaine in my neck (laughter).

Sam Louie>> So several years ago, Tucky turned to Promises. Promises is another exclusive rehab center in Malibu. When she was admitted, they had her sign a contract. The cost? Thirty-five thousand dollars for one month's stay.

Tucky Masterson>> The condition that I was in when I signed, my God, you know, you could tell in the court papers that it's not even legible. You know, I had to sign it or they wouldn't let me go to bed.

Sam Louie>> But after a few days, Tucky realized that she was not able to use her own doctor at the facility, so she asked to leave. They allowed her to go, but she was shocked when they would not refund her any of the thirty-five thousand dollars.

Tucky Masterson>> I don't care if it's for profit or not. I think you should be billed for the time that you spend there and refunded the difference.

Sam Louie>> Promises refused to comment for this story. Tucky took them to court and was able to get fifteen thousand dollars back. Now clean and sober, she founded and runs The Ellis House, an affordable sober living home in Huntington Beach for women recovering from drugs or alcohol. It's not as comprehensive as a rehab center or nearly as expensive.

Tucky Masterson>> It really doesn't matter whether you go to a ten thousand dollar a week place or a hundred dollar a week place. Recovery is about relationships and it's going to be all about the relationships that you forge.

Sam Louie>> Tucky wants to make it clear that she believes there may still be value in the high-end treatment centers. What she objects to is their nonrefundable billing policies.

Tucky Masterson>> It's a good way to make money, I'd say, making fistfuls of dollars like that.

Sam Louie>> But Chris Prentiss of Passages defends the no-refund policy of his facility and those others in the area.

Chris Prentiss>> You know, when someone comes in, we schedule them, we keep a bed for them, we turn other people away. We have their schedule made out for the whole week that they're coming here. The first week is already made out. Those therapists are hired and they're here. Then if they decide they want to leave, well, all those things have to be disrupted.

Sam Louie>> But some people say that the high price tag is worth it. Tracy Magnus recently paid the full sixty-five thousand dollars for treatment at Passages. She has been battling alcoholism for more than twenty years.

Tracy Magnus>> Either I was going to lose my life, either take my life, or had to get help.

Sam Louie>> Her family in Texas decided on Passages and were willing to pay the sixty-five thousand a month. Tracy finished the thirty-day program and is planning on moving to a sober living home in Ojai. She believes that this was the best thing she's ever done for herself.

Tracy Magnus>> I think what I like about this treatment facility is that they do treat the body, mind and soul.

Sam Louie>> Despite criticisms about refund policies and high prices, Tracy feels that the cost was worth it.

Tracy Magnus>> When it comes to health and when it comes to well-being, I think that's priceless. Maybe they don't charge enough.

Chris Prentiss>> A person at Passages is in treatment five or six hours a day. That's a lot of treatment. You know, these are the finest therapists on the planet and, when you start to hire that kind of people, they cost a lot of money.

Sam Louie>> Whether you pay sixty-five thousand dollars for one month of detox or a program much cheaper, experts say that the key to recovery is in consistent follow-up. But the true test of success is whether a person is clean and sober years after their stay at a place like this is over. I'm Sam Louie for Life and Times.

Val Zavala>> So what do you think of those rehab centers? You can post your opinion. Just go to kcet.org/lifeandtimes/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>> The holiday gift-giving season is coming up, but before you go out and buy a new computer for someone, how about getting rid of the old one? Did you know, though, that only eleven percent of all obsolete computers are recycled? Maybe that's because people don't know where to recycle them. Well, we have the answer. Just take a look.

This is SoCal Computer Recyclers in Harbor City. It was started six years ago and, in terms of square footage, it's grown twelve-fold since then. Randy Lewis is the founder and owner and he's excited about a new law that also benefits consumers. It makes the recycling of computer monitors free and easy.

Randy Lewis>> You can drop off your stuff for free at a place like my warehouse or at any of these mobile recycling events or from a lot of other places. However, it's not really, truly free. When you buy a new television or you buy a new monitor, you have to pay something up front to cover that cost.

Val Zavala>> I think it's between six and ten dollars.

Randy Lewis>> Between six and ten dollars, depending on the size. Once that happens, that money, that fee, goes into a fund and then the state administers the fund and pays recyclers and collectors like myself to safely and properly recycle it.

Val Zavala>> You used to have to pay ten dollars to have a computer monitor or anything with a video screen recycled. But as of January 1, 2005, it's free. No fee required.

Randy Lewis>> So this new law enables us to not have to charge the clients, which again is a good thing for us. So every step of the way, I think what the state has done and the decisions they've made have been very good not just for my industry, but for all the consumers in California.

Val Zavala>> On the average, three thousand pounds of electronics come through these doors every day. It may sound like a lot, but consider this: America produces a hundred fifty million pounds of electronic waste every year. How much is that?

Randy Lewis>> If you were to pile all that up and make a giant pyramid out of it, not only would you be able to see it from space, but it would be bigger than the entire city of Las Vegas.

Val Zavala>> And who does all the dismantling? Some very special folks.

Randy Lewis>> We're very fortunate that we've got the Vocational Rehabilitation Center right down the street from us, so we're able to offer job training to these vocational rehabilitation people and they do great work for us.

Val Zavala>> I hear you're one of the fastest.

Basil Hayden>> Yes, ma'am, because Mike and Chad trained me to become a professional employee here. I caught on after six days and then I got good in three months, six months, and then I got bonuses here and gifts from the bosses for being a good and faithful employee and I really enjoy working here. I keep things clean, being organized for Randy and the staff and I just love it.

Randy Lewis>> We have things separated out by the power supplies, different cables, plastics and metal, and each of those components gets recycled separately because there are chemicals in there that definitely don't belong in the landfill.

Val Zavala>> Heavy metals are bad news for our landfills and it's estimated that electronic waste is responsible for seventy percent of all the heavy metals found in our dump sites.

Randy Lewis>> Monitors have between five and seven pounds of lead per unit and, if you throw that in the trash, it could leak into the groundwater and contaminate the soil. We don't need that stuff going in there.

Val Zavala>> SoCal Recyclers doesn't just take in computer monitors. It takes in almost every electronic gadget you could think of at no charge. What is all this?

Randy Lewis>> Our rule is that we'll take anything with a circuit board and a plug, so at every event, we count on the fact that we're going to get some sort of oscilloscope or test equipment. We also are positive that, at any one time, we're going to get a vacuum cleaner, we're going to get a coffee machine, we're going to get a copy machine. We get lots of fax machines and it's things that we've grown to expect. All of this stuff can be recycled. None of it belongs in the landfill, so we'll take anything and this is proof.

A lot of this stuff can be used by collectors. A lot of collectors come by. They'll see this stuff. They can't live without it. Stuff is really cheap because it doesn't really cost us anything to obtain it. People are getting rid of it and our main mantra is "Keep it in use". It's the same amount of work to keep it in use as opposed to breaking it down, so if we can keep it in use, we know it's not going to go in the landfill.

Val Zavala>> We have large screen televisions, tons of VCRs, computers. Where did all this stuff come from?

Randy Lewis>> All this stuff came from Hollywood Park. This represents two pickups over one day.

Val Zavala>> Does this stuff work?

Randy Lewis>> Most of the time, we get things for one of two reasons. Either it's too old or because it's broken. So if it looks really, really nice, we already know that it's probably broken. If it doesn't look so good, then it's worth testing and we'll try to keep it in use and we'll clean it up.

Val Zavala>> Now this will look familiar. It's a cell phone mass grave. Look at this. Look at that old one. Do you get a lot of these?

Randy Lewis>> We do get a lot of these. Especially at events, people always throw in, along with everything else, at the last minute they'll remember that old cell phone in the closet and throw these along.

Val Zavala>> Now, are cell phones in general very recyclable or not?

Randy Lewis>> Some parts of them are. For example, the circuit board inside a cell phone is very recyclable. The batteries inside it? Not very recyclable, something you definitely don't want to have in a landfill. Nickel metal hydrate, lithium ion, you really don�t want to have those going into a landfill where they can contaminate everything. So it's better to bring them to us and let us safely recycle the batteries at the same time.

Val Zavala>> How about plastics?

Randy Lewis>> Plastics are actually a problem within the industry. They're getting better these days, but originally a computer could have up to four different kinds of plastic. Recently there's been a trend from manufacturers to try to make things easier. They want to use one type of plastic, maybe two. They want to make sure the plastic they have is recyclable and easy to take apart.

Val Zavala>> Check this out. DVD player, probably broken.

Randy Lewis>> If not, you can break it if it'll make you feel better (laughter).

Val Zavala>> E-therapy.

Randy Lewis>> That's one of the best things about this job. On a really bad day, I can take a crow bar out here and go nuts. What am I going to do? Break it? It can't get any more broken. We're going to do it anyway.

Val Zavala>> About half their revenues come from refurbishing computers and reselling them pretty cheap, about two hundred to fifty dollars apiece, but they also give plenty of computers away.

Randy Lewis>> We get letters all the time from people saying they need a computer for their school or for their church. We're very happy to be able to help out.

Val Zavala>> Now, another big concern is that companies who have all sorts of sensitive data on their computers may be reluctant to drop them off because they don't know what's going to happen to those hard drives.

Randy Lewis>> And that's one of the cornerstones that made me find this company was start by removing all the data. We do asset management, we do hard drive declassification, we run a special program that writes seven layers of ones and zeroes over the drive, starting at the first sector, ending at the last, burying it over seven layers of data, then we erase it all.

Val Zavala>> Of the millions of personal computers that become obsolete each year, only about eleven percent are recycled. Randy Lewis is determined to get that number up and, as their slogan says, they're "saving the world one computer at a time."

This Saturday, the 10th, Socal Recyclers is holding a pre-holiday electronic recycling event. It's at Mira Costa High School in Manhattan Beach. But if that's not close to you, you can go to their website for more recycling information. They're at socalrecyclers.com.

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>> Every now and then, an artist comes along who defines a particular art form. Well, when it comes to architectural photography, that artist is Julius Shulman. His images of modern architecture made Los Angeles famous around the world and now, at age ninety-seven, he's still taking pictures. Vicki Curry sat down with Julius Shulman for a conversation at his home in the Hollywood Hills.

[Film Clip]

Vicki Curry>> He can turn a building into an icon and boost the career of an architect. His images have chronicled the growth of the twentieth century. It's hard to believe that Julius Shulman became a photographer by accident.

Julius Shulman>> I never had any interest in photography or architecture, but I had this little Kodak camera, so I wandered around taking pictures. Apparently, I was blessed with the ability to make good compositions.

[Film Clip]

Vicki Curry>> Julius Shulman helped create the field of architectural photography. His revolutionary technique involved capturing not just the building, but also the natural environment that surrounds it.

Julius Shulman>> It tells you the story of where the house is. I wasn't satisfied with just showing the architecture alone, which surprised many of the architects at the beginning. When I showed them the view of the house with the environment, yet still showed real important architectural pictures, they began to realize they needed both.

[Film Clip]

Vicki Curry>> Shulman can trace his interest in nature back to his childhood. His family moved from Brooklyn to a farm in Connecticut a few years after his birth.

Julius Shulman>> My mother used to delight in telling the family that she had to go look for Julius because I was out somewhere running around. She found me, she said, by the side of this little pond and there was a little water snake nearby there and I was talking to the snake (laughter). Apparently, I was imbued with a love for nature somewhere even at three years old.

We stayed there until 1920. At that time, I was ten years old and we moved to California. My father had a friend who had moved to California. He persuaded my father. He said the streets were paved with gold.

Vicki Curry>> Shulman attended Roosevelt High School in Boyle Heights and it was there in an eleventh grade class that he learned about photography.

Julius Shulman>> The teacher gave the class an assignment. Go out and photograph the annual high school track meet. The customary thing for a sports photographer is to get a close-up view of the hurdlers coming to the finish line, neck and neck kind of thing.

I walked in there and I quickly found a place to photograph because I sensed that would make a good picture. So, in other words, in that one photograph, I tell the story of the whole event and the teacher gave me an "A" in the class. Then after that, I didn't do anything with photography.

Vicki Curry>> Why not?

Julius Shulman>> I wasn't interested in photography.

Vicki Curry>> Shulman attended UCLA for several years and audited a variety of classes, but he couldn't find a subject to focus on. He then tried Berkeley, but continued to drift until he got a camera as a gift.

Julius Shulman>> My sister gave it to me for my twenty-third birthday. It's a little Kodak camera. I still have it in my drawer. I started taking snapshots.

Vicki Curry>> Shulman headed back to Los Angeles still not sure what to do. Then he met someone who worked for the architect, Richard Neutra, and tagged along to visit one of Neutra's houses.

Julius Shulman>> I'd never been an architect. I had never seen a modern house before. I took six photographs before, different points of view, all different angles. I made some eight by ten prints that week and gave them to the fellow who showed them to Neutra. On March 5, 1936 after Neutra requested me to do some more work for him, I became a photographer.

Vicki Curry>> Neutra introduced Shulman to other modern architects including Rudolph Schindler, Pierre Koenig and Rafael Soriano who designed the house Shulman has lived in since 1949.

Julius Shulman>> And before I knew it, I was a very well advertised photographer of architecture and the magazines began to publish my work. There weren't many architectural photographers in those early years, four or five I could name throughout the country who were specializing in architecture, and I was the only one here in this part of the country. Everything was made to order for me.

[Film Clip]

Vicki Curry>> Julius Shulman's career took off. The images that became his signature showed not just the building's environment, but also people in it.

Julius Shulman>> It came naturally to make the building appear as being used. You make them doing something which applied to how the building was used. This is the bedroom. Without them in it, what do you get? This, this, this and this. But all of a sudden, it comes alive.

[Film Clip]

Vicki Curry>> Shulman is probably best known for his mid-century pictures of southern California. His photograph of Case Study House #22 is reportedly the most published architectural photograph in the world. But over the years, he's worked in forty-five states and on every continent.

Julius Shulman>> As much as I admire modern architecture as a place for it in our lives, on the other hand, the Bradbury Building downtown was in 1893. Just because the building is that old doesn't mean it's not a good building. The early architects sometimes were just as capable of doing good architecture as architecture today.

[Film Clip]

Vicki Curry>> Shulman's eighty-plus years of photographing Los Angeles provide a visual record of the city's growth.

Julius Shulman>> So I started photographing downtown Los Angeles whenever streetcars were still running. I was there. I am there. It didn't change so much as it evolved. There's a big difference. It grew and I grew with it because I was photographing so many of the new buildings.

Vicki Curry>> And he still is. In recent years, he's taken pictures of Los Angeles's newest buildings or of renovations on older buildings that he photographed when they first opened, like the Getty Villa and the Griffith Observatory. Regardless of the building, its age or style, Julius Shulman is always looking to share his interest in architecture.

Julius Shulman>> There's a means of communicating with the public the value of good architecture, good design, in all walks of life. Then you show the photograph of the building so the public is introduced to the backdoor kind of thing, to what architecture is all about, to show where and how it becomes important in our everyday life.

Vicki Curry>> And that just may be the legacy of Julius Shulman. Photographs that show more than architecture and design, they embody a style of living.

Val Zavala>> You can see Julius Shulman's work at two local venues. His more recent work is at the Craig Krull Gallery in Santa Monica, and some rarely seen archival photographs are on display at the Central Library in downtown Los Angeles. For details, go to their website at lapl.org.

And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. 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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