Life & Times - Transcript

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Life & Times Transcript

12/28/07

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

Familiar faces, favorite stories --

Toni Guinyard>> I got him to sing to me on camera.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> And the people we'll never forget.

Ross>> "I didn't expect to really be accepted coming out into society, but I didn't feel to be completely alienated either."

Val Zavala>> We look back at the life of Life and Times, sixteen years of covering southern California.

It's all straight ahead on the final edition of 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>> Hello, I'm Val Zavala. Welcome to this final broadcast of Life and Times. After sixteen years, we're wrapping it up, turning off the lights, coming to a close. Now for the past couple of nights, we've taken a look at how it all began.

It started in 1992 as a forum for political sparring between three bright people who always put civility and fun before their differences. Then six years later, we reinvented ourselves and became a news program, tapping the talents of award-winning anchors Warren Olney and Jess Marlow.

Then in the summer of 2003, we left the studio behind, put our cameras in the news vans and headed down the Los Angeles freeways. Now I estimate that, over those years, we've produced almost fourteen hundred stories, interviews or features. So when it comes to picking our favorite, oh, boy, that's a tough task, but we gave it our best shot.

Toni Guinyard>> The stories that I like the best are the ones that I think a lot of people perceive as being extremely boring. I love the ins and outs of politics. I enjoyed sitting down and talking to former California governor Gray Davis on the day that our current governor's initiatives, his whole string of them, were voted on and Arnold Schwarzenegger really beat up Gray Davis in the polls.

Toni Guinyard>> "He is now our new governor. This is his plan. He's putting it before the people. The people speak and say, "That's not what we want." It gave Gray Davis a chance to say, "I told you so", but he didn't."

Gray Davis: "It certainly was a bad day for Arnold. I mean, he called the special election, he put his ideas on the ballot and the people rejected them big time."

Toni Guinyard>> "At any point during the night, did you think, "I told you so"?"

Gray Davis: "Well, I thought for a long time that these initiatives didn't warrant a special election."

Toni Guinyard>> I love stories dealing with either real young people or older people -- I have to be politically correct and say older people -- because these two groups tell the truth.

Toni Guinyard>> "It's just what kids do when they don't care that you're there, so I'm getting knocked about by all these preschoolers. It was like, "Hey, lady, get out of the way. You're interfering with our job, our day." Their job is being in preschool, so it's kind of cute watching them there. You want to go, Natalie? Go ahead, go ahead, careful, careful, careful. Don't walk on this little one. Okay, I know, Ariel. I'm sending you a bill."

Toni Guinyard>> All of my stories dealing with older people or younger people are the ones I think I enjoy the most because you never knew what was going to come at you. They didn't tell you what they thought you wanted to hear. They said what they felt and that's the best kind of interview. The story with Music Man Murray, I got him to sing to me on camera. I can't sing, so it was really cool when he started singing to me.

Murray Gershenz>> "The first thing I do when I wake up is I start singing (laughter)."

Toni Guinyard>> "Sing for me, sing for me, please."

Murray Gershenz>> "Well, what do you want to hear?"

Toni Guinyard>> "What do you want to sing?"

Murray Gershenz>> "I don't want to sing anything, but I will."

Toni Guinyard>> "Come on, sing. Make me happy."

[Film Clip]

Toni Guinyard>> "Murray once dreamed of being an opera singer, but it simply didn't work out. It wasn't until 1962 that he found his calling. He opened a record store in Hollywood and named it Music Man Murray. The name stuck on the store and on the man."

Toni Guinyard>> Sam Maloof, the woodworker, incredible man.

Sam Maloof>> "I have hundreds of things in my mind that I want to do and just designs I make them."

Toni Guinyard>> "His medium is wood, his art is pieces of furniture. Sam Maloof describes himself simply as a woodworker, but even to the untrained eye and the unskilled hand, one glance and somehow you just know calling Maloof a simple woodworker is an understatement."

Sam Maloof>> "I think that a little part of me goes with everything that I make. I wouldn't let it go if I didn't like it. I really wouldn't."

Toni Guinyard>> A neat fellow, incredibly talented. For me, it makes you realize that there are a lot of people who are up there in age who have so much to give us if we only took time to listen and I think the Life and Times stories allowed us to take time and listen. "I'm Toni Guinyard for Life and Times."

Sam Louie>> Well, one of the most memorable stories was when I went to the prison in Carona. The story was interesting because, when you think of inmates, you just think of men and what have you, especially lifers. These were women who were going to spend the rest of their lives in prison and you just never think about that.

These women are in their sixties and seventies, they have health issues and they're going to be there for the rest of their life. The state is spending a lot of money housing them, their medication, hospitalization. These costs are really taking a toll on the state.

Myrtle Green>> "I asked my doctor why I had to take so many pills and she said, "You want to stay alive, don't you?"

Sam Louie>> "Myrtle Green is seventy-four years old. Her health has deteriorated rapidly during her sixteen year stay in prison."

Myrtle Green>> "I've had ten operations, three heart attacks, one stroke, I'm hard of hearing."

Sam Louie>> "The state spends an average of ninety thousand dollars a year to incarcerate an older inmate. Costs are even higher for those with significant health problems like Myrtle Green."

Myrtle Green>> "They've spent over two million five hundred thousand dollars in medical care for me alone."

Sam Louie>> One interesting story that I covered dealt with [technical difficulty]. I talked to some psychologists that mentioned that there are some real issues within the Asian American culture when it comes to gambling.

>> "We're essentially a gambling nation kind of like the way we're a fast food nation. So in a way, Americans' appetite for gambling is just growing and growing and, as the demand grows, the supply grows, and more and more folks are certainly participating in gambling."

Sam Louie>> "But no group loves to gamble more than Asian Americans and that has led to a serious problem: gambling addiction. Casinos often target Asian communities with flyers, mailings, phone calls and cheap shuttle services to and from the casinos.

Experts say that Asians are one of the most vulnerable groups to develop a gambling addiction. That's because culturally gambling is often seen as an acceptable form of socialization. In addition, the themes of luck, chance and superstition play a major role in Asian tradition."

Sam Louie>> One memorable experience was having the opportunity to interview a man who had more than twenty years of his life just go to waste because he was wrongfully convicted and to see the impact of his life and the loss that had happened while being wrongfully convicted had a real powerful impact on me.

>> "It's hard to look back at this. You know, I expected to be married. I expected to have kids and I wanted them and I wanted a career, you know. I was going to college to better myself. I lost from my thirties to fifties. You know, those are the main years of work and productivity and family. You know, I was denied all that."

Sam Louie>> "He's making the transition back to society, but he still takes time to share his prison experience with others in hopes of improving the judicial system."

>> "I get a lot of gratification out of that because it gives meaning to my years that were stolen from me."

>> "It's great that he's been able to walk the streets, but it shouldn't have had to happen after twenty-four years. It never should have happened to begin with."

Sam Louie>> "I'm Sam Louie for Life and Times."

Roger Cooper>> People ask me what it's like to work at Life and Times and I say it's one of those jobs where you get to meet people, you get to see things you just wouldn't do in any other type of work. That's true of television, but particularly true of Life and Times.

I got to follow a concert hall being built from scratch and follow it for an entire, the Segerstrom Hall in Orange County, and get to hear almost its first notes go through the air and hear them decay off the back of the hall. That was quite a thing to be there.

Roger Cooper>> "It's been more than three years since the Orange County Performing Arts Center broke ground on its new concert hall. That night, heavy equipment operators in tuxedos directed by the conductor of the Pacific Symphony danced in the spotlight. On what had once been a Costa Mesa bean field, a world-class, two hundred million dollar hall for great music began to rise.

The debut of the Segerstrom Concert Hall marks a cultural milestone for Orange County. It joins other major cities that have built impressive new homes for their orchestras. Patrons are convinced that the investment they've made is a sound one, a beautiful sound."

Roger Cooper>> Another story in Orange County that I followed for more than a year was the restoration of the Bolsa Chica Wetlands and I got to be there the very day after a hundred years that the Pacific Ocean was reintroduced for those birds and fish and all those things that depended on it. It was something to see.

Roger Cooper>> "This site is what this restoration project was all about. For the first time in a hundred seven years, the ocean's waves washing into this inlet carrying with them the ocean's amazing ability to sustain life. But after all this work, a key question remains unanswered. How soon would the wildlife return?

The answer came almost immediately. Within minutes, living things began to discover the four hundred acres of restored wetlands. If developers had their way, Bolsa Chica would have been the site of thousands of houses and a marina. That's when environmentalists stepped in and waged a thirty-year battle to block the project. They won."

Roger Cooper>> Every story is not what you expect when you head out. We were actually sent out on one story and, on the way back, they asked us to -- traditional in television -- "Stop and get a few shots of this." Well, there happened to be some kids playing in a mud puddle, we were told.

We got there and it's a place where the city of Huntington Beach has a city-sponsored giant mud puddle for kids to play in. We thought, hey, there'd be a few kids. There were kids having the time of their lives. We just decided to shut up and roll the camera and let our Life and Times viewers remember what it was like to be a kid.

[Film Clip]

Roger Cooper>> "Being here is like entering Mark Twain's mind, to watch Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn and Becky at play."

>> "We have a pond with rafts in it. They push themselves around kind of like Tom Sawyer. We have a rope bridge going over the pond. We have a building area where the kids can check out hammers and saws. Then we also have a mudslide. They slide down the hill and we squirt them with a hose as they go down and they land in a hole of muddy water."

Roger Cooper>> "It's the old swimming hole that most of us had or would loved to have had when we were kids and it's alive and well in Huntington Beach. In Orange County, I'm Roger Cooper for Life and Times."

Vicki Curry>> One of my favorite stories was about the Walt Disney Concert Hall organ. That's because the organ builder was a really fun and interesting guy to talk to and he took me inside the organ, a place that most people never get to see.

I saw it twice, the first time when the hall opened and the organ was just beginning to be installed and then a year later once the whole process was complete. It was one of the most fun stories I've done at Life and Times.

Manuel Rosales>> "People always ask me, "Do the pipes that are here in the front play or are they just here for show?" These are all real organ pipes and they each are waiting to play their note."

Vicki Curry>> "That's six thousand one hundred thirty-four pipes at last count ranging in size from a quarter of an inch to thirty-two feet. I first met Rosales when Disney Hall opened. At that time, most of the pipes were still in storage."

Manuel Rosales>> "So we have a pipe here that's waiting to play C-Sharp."

Vicki Curry>> "For Manuel Rosales, the pipe organ at the Walt Disney Concert Hall has been over a decade in the making and one of the most rewarding projects of his career."

Manuel Rosales>> "Working in your hometown on something this fabulous just happens once in a lifetime, and to be able to be the one to put in your dream organ in a dream hall is just a fantastic feeling."

Vicki Curry>> One of the great things about doing stories for Life and Times is doing very unusual things. I did a story about the murals in Los Angeles, but the interesting thing about it is my photographer and I had to climb down scaffolding alongside the 101 Freeway to get up close to see these murals while they were being worked on. Definitely quite an adventure.

Vicki Curry>> "For the moment, they are a slice of the Los Angeles landscape that's in dire need of help. That work is usually done by an art conservator, but conservation is very different from restoration. Conserving means saving as much of the original painting and materials as possible. Restoring can be done with just a fresh coat of paint, which is why many artists are actively involved in restorations. Willie Herron has previously worked on his own to maintain his murals."

Willie Herron>> "I just became very knowledgeable on how to do it and still preserve my natural brush stroke from, let's say, the late sixties and the early seventies. I kind of share the conservator's perspective that it's a more important work of art to preserve it and conserve it the way it was originally painted. It is my own work of art and it's nice to see the layers come off and to see that my piece is still underneath it all. It's a great feeling."

Vicki Curry>> One of my most interesting adventures for Life and Times was covering the buffalo on Catalina Island. It was a really interesting story. Logistically, it was tough for us to get over to Catalina to do it, but I really fought to make it happen because I thought it was a great story for Life and Times.

[Film Clip]

Vicki Curry>> "It's like a scene from an old western complete with a Native American ceremony, but this isn't a Hollywood movie or the Great Plains. This is Catalina Island, the remote interior that tourists seldom explore. For eighty years, it's been home to hundreds of buffalo, but today their island stay is coming to an end. They are returning to their original home on the Great Plains. A Tongva indian spiritual leader, Jimmy Castillo, is blessing their trip."

Jimmy Castillo>> "The ceremony was to send them on their way on their journey, you know, a good way and that they arrive safely."

Vicki Curry>> "The seventeen hundred mile journey for these buffalo will deliver them to their natural habitat, ease the burden on Catalina's ecology, and give the South Dakota herd new blood.

>> "There's plenty of land for them to graze and plenty of grass for them to eat and a lot of tender care that's given to them based merely on the fact that they're sacred beings to us."

Vicki Curry>> "And for that reason, the Rosebud Lakota have vowed that these buffalo who once lived on a resort island off the coast of southern California will live out their natural lives here in their ancestral home. I'm Vicki Curry for Life and Times."

Val Zavala>> For reporter Hena Cuevas, the most memorable story was about a Ventura County man, a sex offender who was so ostracized by society that the only place he could find to live was in a tent.

Hena Cuevas>> "Ross sleeps in a tent because no one will rent to him. Hotels won't take him in. Even homeless shelters shut their doors. Ross is a registered sex offender and convicted serial rapist. He was released from prison last August. By then, voters had overwhelmingly passed a new law called Jessica's Law. It severely limits where Ross and five thousand other paroled sex offenders can live."

Ross>> "I didn't expect to really be accepted coming out into society, but I didn't feel to be completely alienated either."

Hena Cuevas>> "Voters passed Jessica's Law last November. It forbids parolees from living near playgrounds, schools or parks where children gather, and they must wear a tracking device twenty-four hours a day."

Ross>> "If I go by any parks or schools or designated locations that I'm not supposed to be around, it'll sound an alarm and give me a warning to make sure that I leave that area immediately. That's happened several times just driving by."

Hena Cuevas>> "Ross also has an ankle bracelet that monitors his alcohol intake and a security guard paid for by the state is always by his side. But it's the residency restriction that's causing him and government officials the biggest problem."

Val Zavala>> And one of Hena's favorite people was Al Shelton, the eighty-eight year old leather craftsman in Studio City.

Hena Cuevas>> "Walking into Al Shelton's studio is like stepping into the past, back to a time when land was plenty and horses ran wild."

Al Shelton>> "I was about twelve years old and I made up my mind I wanted to be a cowboy and a horse breaker."

Hena Cuevas>> "He eventually became a cowboy, but not for long. In 1943, Shelton began the career of a lifetime working as a high-end leather carver."

Al Shelton>> "Not many artists lived to enjoy their work. You know, they have to sell out before now at any price. You know, they just had to sell out. Yet I was lucky that I'm still paying the rent (laughter). The years have gone by and I think it's time I retire, but I'll tell you, I still wanted to stay here. I don't want to go anyplace."

Hena Cuevas>> "A true urban cowboy that's keeping the west alive one leather piece at a time. I'm Hena Cuevas for Life and Times."

Val Zavala>> And then there was our comical commentator, Cris Franco, who never let personal dignity get in the way of having fun.

Cris Franco>> "Dogs greet each other by sniffing, so in my efforts to get in touch with my inner dog, I asked a couple of people to do the same, to see if we couldn't tell something about each other. Go right ahead. Tell me what you, oh, oh. Sniff me. Oh, she's good at it. Anything?"

>> "Just a nice person, that's all."

Cris Franco>> "Then it dawned on me. My commentary should be on these amazing little messengers that you can stick anywhere, on someone's computer -- "Oops, I accidentally erased your hard drive" -- on your front door -- "Please steal my unhousebroken dog" -- on the fridge -- "Eat my yogurt and you die". And am I the only guy in the world who does this? "Hi, I'm Carol Channing and welcome to Broadway Legends Part 209".

Val Zavala>> Now I'm often asked what famous people have I interviewed over the years and, since I'm celebrity impaired and can't remember, I've actually written them down on this well-worn note that I carry around in my wallet just to remind myself and here are a few of them.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> But the people I really fell in love were just the regular folks who manage to find joy in the simple things in life and that usually meant helping others. Like the one-armed man who teaches disabled kids to ride horses; the senior swimmers who give Esther Williams a run for her money; the runner who doesn't let a few disadvantages get in his way; the dancer who was stepping and smiling up to his last days; the man who turns lawn chairs into wheelchairs for the world; and the reporter who's making Lou Gehrig's Disease his last story.

But if I had to choose just one person I remember most fondly, it's this man.

Val Zavala>> "He's an artist, a kite builder and a kite flyer. His name is Tyrus Wong and, when I first met him, he was ninety-four. How did you get interested in kite building?"

Tyrus Wong>> "Well, because I retired from the studio and I had to find something to do. I used to do a lot of painting, but not any more, so I just build kites. The first kite I built was a swallow. I take it way up on the hill, see nobody around and try it out. It didn't fly."

Val Zavala>> "He taught himself the art of kite-making through his favorite technique: trial and error."

Tyrus Wong>> "This is a crane. I don't know a darn thing about them, but I knew to spell the word. Anyway, I did trial and error. This one is fiberglass and it's a very hard thing to work with because you can't bend them. Crane is represented in Japan as Japanese Airlines and the crane is a symbol, right? So the crane is also considered good luck and so forth. That's the symbol."

Val Zavala>> "Today at age ninety-seven, he still makes it out to Santa Monica Beach once a month. You've been an artist all your life, all different kinds of art. How does this compare to -- "

Tyrus Wong>> -- "Well, to me, a kite is another art form, you know. It's still using a brush. It's still imagination."

Val Zavala>> "So you just feel that it's an extension of your art work?"

Tyrus Wong>> "Yeah, yeah. I still paint, you're still using your hands. It's like sculpture almost, you know."

Val Zavala>> He doesn't care about power or fame or fortune, just enjoying life to the fullest.

Val Zavala>> "Did you have to learn a lot about aerodynamics?"

Tyrus Wong>> "I don't know what the word means. Trial and error."

Val Zavala>> "Trial and error."

Tyrus Wong>> "Yeah, trial and error."

Val Zavala>> "The time has come to launch the centipede."

Tyrus Wong>> "I hope it flies. Keep your fingers crossed (laughter)."

>> "Oh, yeah, we will."

Val Zavala>> "After some careful adjustments, Tyrus takes hold of the handle and waits for the wind to feel right. Then with a firm grip and a good yank, it's up."

Val Zavala>> We hope we've made your life a little more enjoyable. I know you've made ours a lot fuller. Just take a look at all the mail we've gotten and this doesn't even count emails. Now granted, some of you are captive audiences. But there are those who have sent us presents like this one to help us cover car chases. And I'm even told there's a cat out there named Val.

So thanks to you, our many, many viewers, who have made all the frustrations and challenges worth it. On behalf of the entire Life and Times team, I'm Val Zavala. Goodnight.

Vicki Curry>> Congratulations, Life and Times, for sixteen years of covering southern California like nobody else.

Sam Louie>> Congratulations to Life and Times for being on the air for sixteen years, which is an incredible run.

Roger Cooper>> Sixteen years in television is an eternity and doing it well is amazing. Congratulations, Life and Times.

Toni Guinyard>> Congratulations to Life and Times, the past, the present and the future.

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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