Southern California is known for its nice weather, but almost as popular as the sunshine is the man who delivers the forecasts. Katherine Davis had a chance to sit down with ABC7 meteorologist Dallas Raines. She learned he’s loved weather since childhood, he has some extreme hobbies, and there’s a purpose behind his flashy outfits and elaborate “moves.”
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California is home to more veterans than any other state, about 2 million. Many of those veterans receive government assistance. But with the federal government in its 10th day of shutdown, some are concerned veterans may lose aid. VA Secretary Eric Shinseki warned lawmakers in Washington D.C. Wednesday that over 5 million veterans are at risk of missing their disability checks if the shutdown does not end soon.
In Downtown Los Angeles Thursday, Goodwill Industries hosted an event for veterans. The event offered education programs, free meals, and health services. But the event had intended to offer more. Because of the shutdown, some government agencies were not able to participate in the event. Hear what some veterans at the event had to say about the situation.
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Classical music doesn’t just mean old music, and it doesn’t just have to be for opera houses, concert halls, or quiet church services. Classical Revolution: Los Angeles is a group that thinks classical music can be updated and mixed in with modern nightlife. The group brings classically trained musicians to the dive bars and rock music venues of L.A. Hear a sampling from their latest show at the Sliver Lake Lounge.
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October 1 marks the beginning of open enrollment for the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as “Obamacare.” In South Los Angeles, an estimated 300,000 people who were previously uninsured will become eligible for health care benefits under the Affordable Care Act. South LA sees high rates of several health problems such as diabetes, coronary heart disease, and obesity. And life expectancy in the neighborhood is eight years shorter than in West LA But even while many people in South Los Angeles are eager to gain access to health care through the law, many find it confusing and some think it is too expensive. And even with hugely expanded coverage, thousands of Los Angeles residents will still be uninsured.
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The city of Grahamstown, South Africa is the the longtime home of the country’s National Arts Festival. Over 11 days, the festival brings together musicians, dancers, visual artists, actors and comedians, from South Africa and around the globe. See photos from the 2013 festival.
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President Barack Obama delivered a speech to a packed crowd in Jameson Hall at the University of Cape Town on June 30. See photos from event.
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See photos from the original South African cast of ‘Jersey Boys.’ The Tony award-winning musical opened at the Artscape in Cape Town on June 19 after a successful run in Johannesburg.
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On a Tuesday night in late April, the five members of the creative team behind Watts Village Theater Company’s upcoming “Meet Me @Metro” program gathered for their first round of auditions. Sitting at the end of the table was Lynn Manning, who started as the company’s new artistic director early this year.
“I was hesitant [to take over as artistic director] because I was enjoying being out of the game for the few months that I had been out of it,” Manning said in an interview. “I had been able to focus on my own personal career.”
But for Manning, taking on the role of artistic director is something of a homecoming. One of the company’s original founders, he is returning after a brief hiatus from the company.
Manning, 58, is a seasoned performer, playwright and poet, but his path to show business has hardly been traditional. For one thing, he happens to be blind. He lost his eyesight after being shot in the face 35 years ago. It’s just one piece of a rocky history he has had with his hometown of Los Angeles.
Home has proven to be such a complicated subject for Manning that he chose to explore it as the theme of the first show that he will lead as artistic director of the Watts Village Theater Company.
During auditions Manning, the show’s two directors, and the show’s curator Gamal Palmer looked for actors who could write, play music, and who could creatively approach the subject of home.
“What does home mean to you?” Palmer asked one actress who came to audition.
“It’s more of a feeling,” the young woman said, speaking of heart, family, and warmth.
For many people, home does bring warm feelings. For Manning, it’s not so simple.
“Home isn’t always a positive place to go,” Manning said. “In fact, sometimes home is a place you need to get away from.”
One of nine children, Manning was born to a single mother in South Los Angeles.
“She eventually crawled into a bottle and neglected us,” Manning said.
Around age 10, Manning, along with his eight siblings, began a migratory journey around Los Angeles, moving from foster care to group homes. Even with an unstable upbringing, Manning had begun to find his path by his early 20s. He finished high school and had even started working as a counselor at the group home in the Mid Wilshire District where he had spent his teenage years. Then, at the age of 23, Manning went out to a bar in Hollywood where he got into a fight with a stranger. Later that night, the stranger returned with a gun and shot Manning in the head. Manning was spared his life, but lost his vision.
“There was a need to redefine my dreams after that,” Manning said.
He had had an interest in pursuing painting, but with visual art no longer an option, he began studying at the Braille Institute and taking English classes at LACC. Poetry became his creative outlet. Manning said he was surprised to find poetry and performing arts came so naturally to him.
“None of this stuff was a part of my life as a kid growing up. My South Central life didn’t involve theater; it didn’t involve poetry beyond greeting card stuff,” Manning said. “I didn’t know this stuff could speak to me.”
The support of the artistic community gave Manning a feeling of encouragement.
“The audience response to my poetry recitals got me interested in the performer-audience dynamic,” Manning said. “I needed some more of that immediate gratification, so I got into acting.”
A televised production of David Rabe’s 1976 play “Streamers” was the first piece of theater to inspire him, Manning said.
“At the time I saw it I was living in a group home where homophobia and fear of cohabiting with different races of people was an issue,” Manning said. “When I saw that play I saw people I knew. I saw circumstances that I was familiar with. I wanted to be able to tell stories like that.”
When Manning began to study acting he felt even more need to share his experiences onstage.
“In my scene work I played characters that weren’t [visually impaired],” Manning said. “That was good, but I thought there were stories to be told about living blind in a sighted world.”
His first play, a one-act called “Shoot!” about a blind man trying to buy a gun, caught the attention of the Mark Taper Forum’s writing workshop and was later published in the anthology “Beyond Victims and Villains: Contemporary Plays by Disabled Writers.” He also won a Drama-Logue Critics Award for his trilogy of plays, “Beyond the Blink.” But while his fictional works were successful, it was his own story that gained him international recognition. His autobiographical solo show “Weights,” took him from Los Angeles to the Kennedy Center earning him an NAACP award, and praise in the L.A. Times and New York Times along the way. Since 2001, he has performed his life story at a festival for blind actors in Croatia, the world famous Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland, and The Adelaide Fringe Festival in Australia. Just this April, he performed the play for an international high school in France. Manning’s solo career was taking him around the world, but his personal and creative roots remained in South L.A.
He had founded the Watts Village Theater Company in 1996 with fellow actor, Quentin Drew. Their mission had been to bring professional quality theater into the underserved South L.A. community of Watts. Before Drew died of cancer in 2005, Manning said they had discussed the possibility of him taking over as artistic director of the company. But Manning declined because he did not feel right for the role. He was enjoying a solo career, he knew the amount of work required to run a community theater, and his creative endeavors were already becoming a burden on his marriage, which ended in 2011. When Drew’s successor, Guillermo Aviles-Rodriguez resigned as artistic director at the end of 2012, Manning was asked a second time if he would take on the responsibility of leading the company.
“They could have done a citywide search and put the word out,” said John Freeland Jr., a longtime friend of Manning’s and stage manager for “Meet Me @Metro,” “but to bring a whole other energy in who doesn’t understand what the condition of the company is—it could be daunting for someone. Lynn knows the ins and outs, so it was just natural.”
Manning had a strong personal connection with the Watts Village Theater Company, but he had not envisioned himself as the company’s creative leader. Now that he has been in the role for a few months, Manning said he is “enjoying being able to map out future productions for the company.”
But the first production Manning was called upon to lead was the company’s most well known. “Meet Me @Metro” is a project that the Watts Village Theater Company has produced annually for the past three years. It invites playgoers to ride the Metro line—a different route every year—hop off, then watch performances near the stops. Last year, the production grew to include several Metro stops and dozens of performers.
“It was a long thing and it got longer,” Manning said, with a quiet laugh. “[Last year’s production] was fairly interminable.”
In addition to its length, Manning worried the production was losing its artistic value and its connection to Watts. Under Manning’s direction, “Meet Me @Metro” which will take place on Memorial Day weekend, will be much simpler. He has chosen to limit the show to the two Metro stops in Watts.
Depicting Los Angeles is important to Manning. He describes his main mission as telling South L.A. stories that don’t usually appear onstage.
But Manning acknowledges that his Los Angeles, heavy with the memories of a childhood in foster care, is not the only version of the city. In fact, Manning has surrounded himself with a creative team with a variety of backgrounds. He is the only L.A. native among them. He hopes the diversity of perspectives will make show’s theme will work.
As Ryan Anderson, one of the directors on the production explained, “the theme of home is just such a universal one that no matter what we do, there’s going to be a relationship. There’s going to be something somebody can connect with wherever they live.”
Manning’s goal is not so much to explain and depict his experience of home to theatergoers—that’s what he has already done with his solo play around the world. Instead, for his first big production after his return to the Watts Village Theater Company, he is inviting audiences and artists from around Los Angeles to converge in his home, South L.A., and share their ideas with him.
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The May 21 elections in Los Angeles will bring a new mayor to the city, and new representatives to four of the city’s 15 City Council seats.
In South L.A., this will mean definite changes. Councilwoman Jan Perry has represented the city’s 9th district for the past 12 years, but because of term limits, she can’t run again.
“We live in this time of term limits and it takes a long time to get things built, get things funded…You have to work under enormous time pressure,” Perry said.
Perry had hoped to have more time in L.A. city politics. She ran for mayor in the primary. She received wide support in her own district and among African American voters. But citywide, Perry came in with just about 58,000 votes, putting her in fourth place–not enough to make the May runoffs.
Now, Perry has endorsed her fellow City Councilmember, and former mayoral opponent, Eric Garcetti.
“His story is similar to mine,” Perry said. “For me it was a fairly easy choice, once I was out of the race, to turn to the person whose agenda most closely resembled my agenda for moving communities forward.”
Perry prides herself on helping to create some 5,000 units of affordable housing, championing the Central Avenue Jazz Festival, promoting the creation of public parks and wetlands in South L.A., and supporting large development projects like the proposed University Village shopping complex near USC, during her time in office.
But some feel Perry has been too focused on large development.
“That’s the lingering issue–how do you leverage the power of downtown, especially with AEG building in that part of the district,” said Qwanchaize Edwards, from South L.A. Democrats, “how do you leverage that power to help the entire council district?”
Perry defends herself against charges that she is too soft on developers, saying that standing up for development projects has been her method for boosting her district’s economy.
Perry has tended to seek the support of businesses over unions, and that’s something that sets her apart. While her mayoral opponents Garcetti and Wendy Greuel sought union endorsements, Perry vowed to reform city employee pension plans.
Perry is known for being fiscally conservative but socially liberal and that sometimes puts her in a political balancing act.
Kokayi Kwa Jitahidi, chair of the South L.A. Power Coalition, said Perry has become known for sticking to her opinions, even when they’re unpopular. “Her legacy was that she was willing to be a staunch advocate for those issues that she really believed in. Whether you agreed with her or not, you were going to know where she stood,” Kwa Jitahidi said.
One tough position Perry took came in 2006 when 350 families were evicted from their 14-acre community farm in South L.A. The land’s owner, developer Ralph Horowitz, had promised to open factories and bring jobs to the area.
Perry’s role in the closing of the South Central farm was criticized in the 2008 documentary “The Garden.”
But Perry says she has made amends with the families involved.
“I have some pretty amazing experiences with the gardeners or the farmers,” Perry said, “We’ve become friends, they’re all down at the the new farm down further south off of Avalon.”
A more recent challenge for Perry came last year when redistricting interfered with her vision for community and economic development. When District 9 was redrawn, it lost affluent parts of Downtown. It was left with South Central L.A. and it gained other impoverished neighborhoods like Watts.
“It’s a district that was separated by redistricting,” Perry said, “It’s economic engine–which was Downtown–has been separated from southern part of the district.”
Perry lives Downtown and got cut out of her own district when the boundaries moved. Perry has been criticized for putting too much focus on her own neighborhood.
Kwa Jitahidi says that all of Perry’s District 9 predecessors have paid more attention to Downtown than South L.A. “There has been a continued reliance on what they call ‘trickle down economics,’” he said. “Losing Downtown is actually a blessing in disguise. Downtown does not exist in the way it did once to overshadow South L.A. This district is now overwhelmingly South L.A.”
Whether Downtown siphoned political attention from neighboring communities or not, cutting it out of the district did change things. Without Downtown, the median household income in District 9 dropped dramatically. Perry says her successor’s biggest challenge will be to work around those economic disadvantages.
“It’s going to be really critical to have somebody who already knows what they’re doing and can walk in the door and understand how to get federal funds and how to get grants and push a project through a development process,” Perry said.
That someone, Perry says, is California State Senator Curren Price Jr., whom she has endorsed for the position.
Price says he will be able to continue the work Perry has done in District 9.
“We have a similar style,” Price said, “we certainly believe in inclusive leadership, we both have experience representing multicultural, multiethnic areas.”
He’s right–the 9th district is ethnically diverse. But some voters, like Jose Gonzalez, say Perry and Price, who are both African American, don’t represent the ethnic makeup of District 9, which is about three-quarters Latino.
“A lot of this precinct is mostly Latino and there hasn’t been Latino in the [9th district seat in] City Council for over 20 years, so that in itself is a pretty good reason,” Gonzalez said. “The population isn’t being represented by the overall culture, so I think that’s very important.”
Gonzalez is supporting Price’s opponent, former Council aide Ana Cubas. Cubas has said she can do better than Perry did at focusing on District 9’s poor areas. Cubas says she will unite the diverse communities of the district–specifically blacks and Latinos–on common goals and issues. But Cubas also says she thinks there is a need for more diversity in city government.
“I really hope that the voters on May 21st choose to have not just racial diversity of city council, but gender diversity as well,” Cubas said.
Perry is currently the only woman on LA’s City Council. If Price takes over her seat the next City Council could be all male. Perry says diversity was a consideration that made endorsing a successor a difficult choice.
“Sure it worries me,” Perry said. “I think diversity is important, but you can’t just elect someone based on their race or their ethnicity or their gender and I think you have to be analytical about it.”
The most important thing, Perry says, will be finding someone who can get work done in a district with limited resources before their term is up.
Now that Perry’s term is over and her mayoral run has come to an end, she says she is not sure what she’ll do next. But she says she will stay in politics.
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There’s not a lot of merchandise on the shelves at Oak’s Jr. Market these days. The refrigerators along the wall keep some beers and sodas cool. A shelf stores canned chili and Aunt Jemima syrup. But the shelves below the sign that reads “Fresh Produce” sit vacant, waiting to be filled with fruits and vegetables.
Gus Harris Jr., the store’s owner, has been slimming down his merchandise in preparation for big changes. Within the next few months, this modest shop on the corner of Jefferson and Fifth Avenue in Jefferson Park will begin a transformation into a healthier version of its current self. Harris keeps a copy of the plans for the store’s redesign right behind the counter.
“They’ll open this up all the way to the back wall,” he says, pointing to the sketched shelving units on the well-worn pages.
Harris gestures to the row of soda vending machines in front of the store saying, “There’ll be tables and chairs outside where people can drink coffee.”
Harris’ will be one of the first stores to be converted by the Community Redevelopment Agency and the Los Angeles Food Policy Council as part of the organizations’ Community Market Conversion program. The program is attempting to promote healthy eating around the city, especially in South L.A., an area often classified as a “food desert” for its lack of full-service grocery stores and its high density of fast food restaurants.
Unhealthy food has health consequences
“This community needs better food, more nutritional food,” said Reverend Eugene Marzette of the Trinity Baptist Church, just five blocks away from Oak’s Jr. Market. “There are a lot of people who won’t go to the big grocery stores because they just don’t have transportation.” Marzette added that he has witnessed nutrition-related health issues “running rampant” among his parishioners.
Rates of obesity and related illnesses, such as coronary heart disease and diabetes, are consistently higher in South L.A. than in most of L.A. County, according to the county Department of Public Health. Research by Community Health Councils Inc. found that life expectancy in South L.A. is eight years shorter than in West L.A. and cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of premature death in the area. The Food Policy Council hopes that freshening up stores like Oak’s Jr. Market will improve those issues.
At Oak’s Jr. Market, the remodel will be the first major overhaul the store has had since Harris became the store’s owner about 30 years ago. An L.A. native, Harris came across the store for sale when he worked as a delivery truck driver for a bread company. Since he took over, he has strived to make his store a fixture in the Jefferson Park community.
“I have parents that tell their children, ‘Go to Oak’s and I’ll get you when I get there,’” Harris said. “I’ve been here long enough that the children have grown up and they bring their children. And so you become part of the family.”
When not busy with the store, Harris has sought out other ways to connect with his community as well. He serves as a member of his Neighborhood Council and on the Jefferson Park Improvement Project.
Project slowed by CRA demise
It was this neighborhood involvement that caught the attention of the Community Redevelopment Agency. The agency, which created the Community Market Conversion program, drew up plans to revitalize Oak’s Jr. Market along with three other South L.A. stores: Mama’s Chicken on Slauson Avenue, Las Palmas Carniceria on Central Avenue, and Money Saver Meats on Florence Avenue.
Clare Fox, strategic initiatives coordinator for the Los Angeles Food Policy Council, said that the Community Redevelopment Agency promised to invest about $75,000 in each of the four stores. But when the agency was dissolved in a State Supreme Court decision in 2011, the plans for the stores started seeing long delays while the Community Redevelopment Agency began to finish its open projects and the Food Policy Council prepared to take over the next phase of the program. Harris has been waiting about two years to finally see his store transform.
“We’re all just trying to keep our spirits up,” Harris said of the storeowners, adding that he is excited to be moving forward. “It better happen soon. I’m running out of money,” he joked.
Harris downsized his merchandise and his staff in preparation for his store’s overhaul. He had two employees, but now he runs the store by himself. When the store gets its facelift and its first loads of healthier foods, Harris is confident business will pick up.The four stores undergoing renovation will serve as a test run for future store conversions. Fox said that at this point, the evidence that transforming a neighborhood liquor store into a healthy purveyor of produce actually translates to better business and healthier communities is, for the most part, anecdotal. She said she hopes the future success of Oak’s Jr. Market and the other three stores undergoing conversions will provide the Council with the hard numbers they need to attract other market owners to the program.
When the Food Policy Council took on the Community Market Conversion program from the Community Redevelopment Agency, the Council changed its strategy for encouraging market transformations. The Food Policy Council is working on developing a future program that will offer small grants to market owners. But in its current incarnation, the Council is offering loans of about $20,000 to $40,000 to small business owners looking to get healthy on their own.
Harris will still receive grant-funded money from the Community Redevelopment Agency for his store’s makeover, but he supports the Food Policy Council’s new loan program.
“Mom and pop stores never would have been able to get a loan before,” he said.
Financial risks in healthy grocery business
Starting a healthy grocery business can be financially risky. A storeowner can buy bags of potato chips cheaply in bulk and keep them on the shelf for a long time. A bag of salad greens, on the other hand, requires refrigeration and if it doesn’t sell, it will go bad at the expense of the vendor.
Fox said that’s the reason the Community Market Conversion program includes not just financial assistance but business advice.
“We don’t want anyone to lose money,” Fox said. “We want them to think, ‘Ah! This is a new and thriving part of my business.’”
Her organization has started holding small conferences for mom and pop market owners with workshops covering how to obtain food permits, design a floor plan that appeals to customers, and store produce in a way that keeps it fresh longer.
Though South L.A. has about half the number of full-service grocery stores per capita than West L.A., according to Community Health Councils Inc., Fox said the idea is not just to bring big retailers to the neighborhood.
“It’s basically investing in the [area’s] existing food retail landscape,” she said.
Harris knows his small store might never compete with the big names, but hopes converting his store will make him a convenient, healthy resource to his neighbors.
“[Customers] will come in and they will buy a candy bar or they will buy a bag of chips,” Harris said, “We would like to replace those candy bars and bags of chips with a fresh apple or a fresh orange.”
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