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Skid Row culture: an embedded journalist's exploration of art and community in the nation's homeless capital

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Skid Row culture: an embedded journalist's exploration of art and community in the nation's homeless capital

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Content SKID ROW CULTURE: AN EMBEDDED JOURNALIST’S EXPLORATION OF ART AND COMMUNITY IN
THE NATION’S HOMELESS CAPITAL
By Danielle Charbonneau
____________________________________________________________________________________
A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(SPECIALIZED JOURNALISM: THE ARTS)
August 2015
Copyright 2015 Danielle Charbonneau
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS!
!
Thank you to John Malpede, Henriëtte Brouwers and the entire Los Angeles Poverty Department
cast for allowing me to become a temporary member of the LAPD family. You introduced me to
an incredible community of people, helped me understand Skid Row, its history, complexity and
culture, inspired me to become an activist, supported me in my own personal growth and
challenged me to examine my own ideas and biases. A special thanks to Suzette Shaw, Anthony
Williams, Walter Fears, Officer Rich, Flo, Lynn Rossi, Sylvie Hernandez and Kevin Michael Key
for allowing me to interview and profile you. I greatly appreciate your willingness to be
vulnerable and let me in to your lives. Lastly, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Sasha Anawalt,
Brent Blair and Tim Page for helping me through this process. You encouraged me when I was
doubtful, challenged me when you knew I could do better and had a tremendous amount of
patience.
ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS!
!
!
Acknowledgements!! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ii!
!
Abstract !! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! iv!
!
Skid Row Culture: !
An Embedded Journalist’s Exploration of Art and Community in the Nation’s Homeless Capital !
!!
1) Welcome to the Homeless Capital of the World!! ! ! ! ! 1!
!
2) The Grassroots Domino Effect on Skid Row 10
3) Making a Case for Skid Row Culture 16
4) The 2014 Festival for All Skid Row Artists 19
4.1 Myka Moon 20
4.2 Walter Fears & The Skid Ro Playz 25
4.3 Flo Hawkins & Officer Rich 29
5) “Red Beard, Red Beard” & LAPD’s Performance Community 30
5.1 Anthony Williams 37
5.2 Sylvie Hernandez 38
5.3 Suzette Shaw 42
5.4 Kevin Michael Key 45
6) Reflections on the Practice of Embedded Journalism !! ! ! ! ! 47!
!
6.1 Drive-By Journalists 47
6.2 Embedded or “Inbedded": The Debate 50
! 6.3 Embedded Journalism, By Another Name !! ! ! ! ! 56!
!
!
References !! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 62!
!
Addendum A!! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 66
iii
ABSTRACT!
!
!
Los Angeles Poverty Department (LAPD) is a nonprofit performance group made up of primarily
homeless and formerly homeless actors in the Skid Row community of downtown Los Angeles.
For this thesis, the author became an embedded reporter in the Skid Row neighborhood,
shadowing LAPD and its members for eight months. This thesis re-tells, examines and analyzes
the author’s experiences with LAPD and several of its individual members through a series of
vignettes and essays, each examining Skid Row culture, the role art plays in the community and
the role of the journalist. In reflection, the author explores the advantages and disadvantages of
embedded journalism in producing work that fairly and tactfully portrays the complexities of
misunderstood and oppressed communities.!
iv
1) Welcome to the Homeless Capital of the World
!
Strolling down Bunker Hill on a sunny August afternoon in 2005, I saw a man jump from the
roof of a skyscraper near 4th and Spring Street. I stopped in my tracks, cupped my hand to my
mouth and gasped audibly as I witnessed his body suspended in air, as if time itself suspended.
My heart leaped, palpitating, as his body fell. I held my breath and clenched my eyes. Seconds
later, as I cautiously released the tension from my face and eased my eyes open, I noticed a crane
towering by the building, stationed among silver movie trailers in the parking lot below. The
falling man was a stunt actor, filming a Hollywood blockbuster (Spiderman, I think). Inside the
lot were luxury cars, sleek and shiny. Production assistants buzzed about with clipboards and
walkie-talkies. Around the perimeter of the lot, separated by a chain link fence, a crowd of
homeless people camped out on cardboard boxes, their heads tilted back, watching the action
above.
!
“You’re not in Colorado anymore, Toto,” I remember thinking, channeling Dorothy as she
dropped into Oz. I had officially arrived in downtown Los Angeles from the liberal hippie town
of Boulder. I will never forget the stark juxtaposition between wealth on one side of the fence,
and destitution and poverty on the other.
!
I have replayed this scene in my mind many times over the six years I have lived in Los Angeles,
intermittently between 2005 and 2015. It stands out in my mind as iconic imagery for Los of 6 1 1
Angeles. I realize now that day marked me. I have not been able to shake a curiosity about how
how and why an affluent urban society can produce, right next to it, such poverty. I charged
myself from that day forward to investigate. As a journalism student at the University of
Southern California, first as an undergraduate and then as a graduate, I would find the facts and
tell the stories. !
Los Angeles ranks as the 10th worst city in the nation for income inequality between the richest
five, and poorest 20 percent . The city also has a strange ability to make what is not real (a man
1
jumping from a skyscraper) appear real, and what is real (the homeless encampments below),
seem insignificant. !
LA Times Journalist Steve Lopez recently commented on this phenomenon in one of his columns,
saying Los Angeles has “lost its sense of shame” when it comes to the homeless. What would
shock other cities — a homeless population that “roughly equals the total populations of
Calabasas and South Pasadena” combined — is commonplace in Los Angeles.
2
!
of 2 66
According the the 2014 US Census report’s graph showing US Cities with the worst wealth inequality,
1
Los Angeles ranked 10th in the nation. In Los Angeles, the bottom 20 percent of individuals earned an
average annual income of $11,700 while the top 5 percent earned an annual average income of $413,000.
https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2014/demo/p60-249.pdf
According to the 2015 Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority report, there are 44, 359 homeless
2
individuals countywide. Steve Lopez’s column from the LA Times on May 12, 2015, “No excuse for
L.A.’s surging homeless population,” commented on that report.
“Forty-five thousand homeless people have become such a familiar part of the landscape that we
barely notice them,” Lopez wrote in his column May 12, 2015.
3
!
As an L.A. outsider in 2005, however, I did notice. At the time, the homeless count was
staggering above 88,000 (over 65,000 of whom slept on the streets or in shelters). I had
4
volunteered for years at homeless shelters in downtown Denver, but had never witnessed the
level of destitution I saw in the area known as Skid Row, the homeless capital of the nation.
5
!
I started reading about Skid Row and found a series of articles in the Los Angeles Times written
by Lopez that sickened me and further fueled my commitment to exploring the neighborhood.
Each article detailed a different view of Skid Row through the eyes of paramedics, non-profit
workers, fire fighters and the homeless. For one of the pieces, Lopez brought then-mayor
Antonio Villaraigosa down to Skid Row to witness the conditions first hand.
!
“The mayor didn't get a sanitized version either,” wrote Lopez in his October 23, 2005 column.
“I watched as a man injected heroin and another smoked crack in his honor's presence. ”
6
of 3 66
Ibid
3
Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority - http://documents.lahsa.org/planning/homelesscount/2013/HC13-
4
Results-LACounty-COC-Nov2013.pdf
Skid Row is a social construct of homeless shelters, low-income-housing and services for the poor comprised of
5
roughly 50 city blocks (0.4 square miles) of the greater downtown area. It has been defined as being bounded by 3rd
Street on the north, 7th Street on the south, Main Street on the west and Alameda Street on the east. — http://
www.lachamber.com/clientuploads/LUCH_committee/102208_Homeless_brochure.pdf
Steve Lopez, LA Times: http://articles.latimes.com/2005/oct/23/local/me-lopez23
6
!
Shortly after his Skid Row visit, Villaraigosa held a press conference and labeled Los Angeles
the “Capital of Homelessness. ” In November of 2006, he publicly announced that he would allot
7
$50 million for the city’s Housing Trust Fund for permanent supportive housing and pledged his
support for a $1 billion bond measure to develop more affordable housing citywide.
!
At the time, I saw it as a victory — a demonstration of how journalism can affect social change. I
declared print journalism my major at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and
Journalism and launched into an internship at a Skid Row non-profit called the Downtown
Women’s Center (DWC). I was, however, still naïve about Skid Row politics. I later discovered
8
how Villaraigosa’s funds were not what they seemed. My course, however, had already been
charted.
!
My first day at the DWC, I rode the bus and walked a few blocks to the shelter (at the time, no
public transportation actually serviced Skid Row directly, which some said was a deliberate
attempt to isolate the area). Approaching the Downtown Women’s Center in the bustling toy
district, I noticed a pile of worn out suitcases stacked about six feet high, crammed with folded
tarps and flattened cardboard boxes. The grimy stack looked odd in comparison to the vibrant,
of 4 66
! Troy Anderson, Daily News: http://www.dailynews.com/general-news/20060113/mayor-la-capital-of- 7
homelessness
! In 2005, the Downtown Women’s Center lived between 3rd and 4th Streets on Los Angeles St. (right on 8
the edge of Skid Row). It housed 47 women in semi-permanent housing, had a day shelter, served meals
and had various other services like career training courses. While the DWC has expanded since 2005, it is
still the only women’s shelter in Skid Row.
toy-filled storefronts. Then I noticed a similar stack one block down, then another across the
street.
!
“What are all those suitcases,” I wondered. Perplexed, I asked my supervisor. She informed me
that the police creatively enforced a city ordinance during business hours that required the
homeless to pack up their belongings and stack them on the street corners during the day to clear
the sidewalk. After the sun goes down, she said, “the area transforms.”
!
I witnessed that first hand: As I exited the shelter at sundown, I rounded the corner of 4th and
Los Angeles to find the suitcases gone, but the sidewalk lined, wall-to-wall, with makeshift
housing. A new, wild world revealed itself. Tarps now hung from the parking lot fence, secured
to the gutter with leather belts and tattered rope; bearded men now lounged on damp, odorous
sleeping bags atop flattened cardboard boxes. Old crates served as camping chairs; newspaper as
blankets and empty Steel Reserve 40s as latrines. Shopping carts rattled down the asphalt,
packed to the brim with garbage bags of assorted recyclables. Coins jangled in styrofoam cups as
panhandlers sought dinner. A stench of stale urine, concrete and cigarette smoke now wafted in
the air, seemingly more potent than before. As I walked west toward Bunker Hill, I saw a frail
homeless woman with stringy hair inserting a syringe in her jugular, the city skyline and sunset
behind her. I cried. It wasn’t so much the drug use as it was how alone and forgotten she seemed,
huddled in the alley.
!
of 5 66
The imagery of the stacks of suitcases and the woman hiding behind garbage bins have come to
represent, in my mind, the problem with Los Angeles’ Skid Row tactics. Many politicians have
seemingly been more concerned with making Skid Row appear better, than be better; to hide and
isolate, rather than fix. Villaraigosa’s response to Lopez’s 2005 Skid Row series (the promised
$50 million) is a perfect example: The $50 million did not go to housing. Rather, it went to
instituting the Safer Cities Initiative (SCI) in September of 2006.
!
The initiative hired 50 new police officers to patrol the 0.85 square miles of Skid Row. The SCI
officers strictly enforced a “broken windows” policy, citing and/or arresting people for small
9
crimes including jay-walking, blocking the sidewalk, littering and smalltime drug possessions.
An average of 750 arrests were made every month in the first year and 12,000 citations were
written, the “vast majority of which were for pedestrian violations. ” On a proportional
10
geographic area and population basis, that’s between 48 and 69 times the rate at which such
citations are issued citywide in Los Angeles. Those citations frequently resulted in arrests as the
individuals could not afford the $159 penalty (general relief recipients only receive $221 total
monthly). The initiative did contain a housing element called “Streets or Services” that claimed
of 6 66
! The “Broken Windows” policy was instituted by then Mayor Antonio Villraigosa and police chief Baca. 9
The main idea of the “Broken Windows” policy is that by arresting of citing individuals for petty crimes,
such as jay-walking, loitering and littering, the police force will create an atmosphere of order and
lawfulness, thereby preventing more serious crimes.
! “Policing Our Way Out of Homelessness: The First Year of the Safer Cities Initiative on Skid Row” 10
was a study conducted by the UCLA School of Law using public records to quantify the results of the
Safer Cities Initiative in its first year of existence. (http://www.ced.berkeley.edu/downloads/pubs/faculty/
wolch_2007_report-card-policing-homelessness.pdf)
to provide shelter for up to 21 days, but in the first 10 months of SCI, only 34 people were
housed (compared to 7,528 arrests).
!
Now, less than ten years after SCI was introduced, Los Angeles is seeing the effects of an overly-
active police force in Skid Row: According to a 21-page report issued by City Administrative
Officer Miguel A. Santana released in April 2015, Los Angeles spends $100 million a year
coping with homelessness; $87 million of that goes to arrests, skid row patrols and mental health
interventions. The city’s affordable housing fund dropped from $108 million in 2008 to $26
11
million in 2014. Essentially the city spends almost three and a half times as much money on
arrests, patrols and mental health interventions than it does on affordable housing.
!
As Lopez puts it: “It’s as if a tsunami crashed ashore from Seal Beach to Pacific Palisades
forcing thousands of our neighbors to live on the streets, some of them so sick they are dying as
we walk past them, and all we know how to do is shoo them, cite them and arrest them. ”
12
!
Statistics like these have inspired me at various times over the past ten years to engage with the
Skid Row community: I did an eight hour, overnight police ride-a-long with Safer Cities
Initiative police officers in 2008 hoping to gain perspective, spent the night on the roof of the
Union Rescue Mission (which overlooks San Julian Park — the gritty heart of Skid Row),
of 7 66
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1906452-losangeleshomelessnessreport.html
11
http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-lopez-homeless-count-20150513-column.html
12
shadowed Kevin Michael Key, the unofficial “mayor of Skid Row” and volunteered at a handful
of non-profits.
!
Most recently, I had the opportunity to become an embedded reporter for eight months at the Los
Angeles Poverty Department (LAPD), a performance, arts and social activism group that has
been serving the Skid Row community for 30 years. LAPD is made up of “primarily homeless
and formerly homeless actors.” The company uses art and theater to tell the real stories of Skid
13
Row. LAPD’s Founder and Director, John Malpede, has been instrumental in introducing art as a
tool for social advocacy and community building in the Skid Row neighborhood. LAPD was the
first theater company of its kind in the nation and paved the way for other grassroots arts and
advocacy organizations. A domino effect has occurred since LAPD started, and the grassroots
frontier (in particular arts and activism) has grown substantially. For Malpede, theater is as much
about activism as it is about art. As he says, “you can’t have change without exchange.” !
During my time with LAPD, two of my professors, Sasha Anawalt, director of the Master’s
program in Arts Journalism at USC, and Brent Blair, director of MA Applied Theatre Arts, were
working with LAPD to co-produce a production of “Red Beard/Red Beard,” a play by Malpede,
based on Akira Kurosawa’s film about the cyclical nature of poverty and suffering. The process
of producing the play, which included rehearsals, workshops and panel discussions, revealed a
lot about the recovery culture that exists in Skid Row, the importance of community and the
healing power of self-sacrifice.
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LAPD defines itself this way in their public media and marketing.
13
!
I also had the opportunity to serve as a volunteer videographer at LAPD’s Festival for All Skid
Row Artists, an annual festival in Gladys Park. As the videographer, I got to interview over 50
Skid Row community members (most of them artists, musicians and actors), who shed light on
the importance of arts and culture to the fabric of the Skid Row neighborhood. I saw firsthand
how art is extremely potent when it comes to social activism, how it has the power to win over
hearts, not just minds. It spurs conversation and critical dialogue. Art rehumanizes people who
have been dehumanized and breaks through the veils of stereotypes. It serves as a cathartic outlet
for individuals, and connective tissue between community members.
!
Lastly, participating with LAPD as an embedded reporter opened my eyes to a new kind of
journalism: one that is personal, participatory and long term. I fear that without this type of
invested journalism, media could do more harm to Skid Row and communities like it than good.
Without deep, layered, time-consuming investigation, media can stereotype, oversimplify, de-
sensitize and dehumanize. Embracing a new form of embedded journalism could help avoid
these pitfalls.
!
This thesis re-tells, examines and analyzes my experiences with LAPD and several of its
individual members through a series of vignettes and essays, each examining the nature of Skid
Row, the role art plays in the community and the role of the journalist. This thesis also explores
the advantages of embedded journalism in producing work that fairly and tactfully portrays the
complexities of misunderstood and oppressed communities.
of 9 66
2) The Grassroots Domino Effect on Skid Row
!
When dawn breaks on downtown Los Angeles, a homeless man named A.J. Martin stirs from his
spot on the sidewalk at the corner of 4th and Crocker in Skid Row. He tiredly staggers a few
short blocks to 6th and Gladys where he unlocks the gate to the humble Gladys Park. Inside the
green fence is a small rectangle of asphalt that serves as a basketball court, a concrete platform
stage, a couple patches of grass and a few palm trees. A painted mural adds some much needed
color to the otherwise concrete space. Elderly men meander across the park throughout the day to
rest their canes and play chess at one of the built-in concrete tables. As the sun sets, Martin lugs a
10-gallon jug of coffee to one of the picnic tables and lines the court with rows of plastic folding
chairs for the park’s nightly Alcoholics Anonymous meeting (there is one every day, 365 days a
year). The meeting is only one of 80 recovery meetings that takes place in the community every
week. After the meeting is over, Martin locks up the park and walks back to his spot on the
sidewalk to sleep. Outside the fence is the usual sidewalk scenery: tents, cardboard boxes,
littered gutters and empty bottles. The park is an oasis.
!
Martin took over the operation of Gladys Park when it faced imminent closure two years ago
when Governor Jerry Brown dissolved community redevelopment agencies to help address the
state’s budget crisis. Funding for Gladys and neighboring San Julian Park was on the chopping
block. While the city of L.A. eventually stepped in to provide funding to keep the park
14
of 10 66
! Ryan Vaillancourt, “Two Skid Row Parks at Risk of Closing,” LA Downtown News, web, http:// 14
www.ladowntownnews.com/news/two-skid-row-parks-at-risk-of-closing/
article_7185ecf8-6683-11e2-999b-001a4bcf887a.html
physically maintained, it cut funding to keep the parks operational. Martin offered to be a
volunteer manager for the park.
!
Gladys Park enlivens during Skid Row’s 3-on-3 basketball games. The tournament-style games
are organized by a group called OGs in Service. The OGs (Original Gangsters) organize several
of Skid Row’s anticipated community events: Jazz in the Park and a Father’s Day celebration.
The OGs also stepped in to provide trash cans for the Skid Row neighborhood when the city
failed to provide them. The OGs painted colorful cans are bright spots throughout the
neighborhood. The organization was started by Manuel “OG Man” Compito, a visual artist who
went through Lamp’s art program .
15
!
When the 3-on-3 basketball games are in full swing, photographer Lynn Rossi is usually on the
perimeter of the court, ducking behind her camera with its burrito-sized lens and squatting to get
interesting angles of the tournament competitors. Rossi has never been homeless, but fully
considers herself a member of the Skid Row community. In 2009, she joined Michael Blaze’s
16
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! Lamp is a non-profit shelter and services organization that primarily serves Skid Row’s mentally ill. 15
Lamp achieves one of the highest success rates in the nation for ending homelessness: more than 95
percent of the people Lamp houses stay housed for one year or more. Lamp offers access to affordable,
safe and permanent housing without requiring sobriety or participation in treatment. Once settled,
individuals receive mental health treatment, addiction recovery support and healthcare. Lamp also offers
budgeting courses, visual and performing arts and job placement support. The Lamp arts programs are
offered to the entire Skid Row community, including individuals without mental illness. Lamp was one of
the first organizations to offer arts and culture programming alongside LAPD in the late 1980s.
! Michael Blaze is a 64-year-old, African American photographer. In 2008, he started the Skid Row 16
Photography Club, a free club for individuals living or interested in the Skid Row community. The club
has periodically received funding from the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council, which helped
Blaze to buy cameras, lighting and equipment. In 2012, Blaze gave away more than 100 Nikon D 40
cameras.
Skid Row photography club at The United Coalition East Prevention Project (UCEPP). She’s
17
felt at home in the community ever since and now gives back by doing pro-bono, activist-
oriented, photography projects in the neighborhood.
!
“Skid Row has been a healing place for me—it helped me recover with many obstacles in my
own life and it has been a holy ground for me in terms of being able to express myself,” she said.
“Its the first time I've every really felt acceptance of myself from a whole community, so it really
changed my life in a lot of ways.”
!
Inside Gladys Park, a grey-haired, tall and lanky man with a quirky, outgoing personality can
often be found socializing, passing out plastic Solo cups and filling them with filtered water. This
man, Michael “Waterman” Hubman, said that in 2006 he “walked up to a group of homeless
people with a gallon of water in one hand and some cups in the other, said ‘Hi -- thirsty? Like a
drink?’” That single action, he said, started eight years of service. His non-profit organization is
18
called Water Core.
!
I spotted Hubman amidst a busy crowd on a hot day, filling up a cup of water for Franc Foster at
the Festival for All Skid Row Artists. Foster had just finished tuning his electric guitar and
warming up his Skid Row jam band, The Melting Pot, to perform on the platform in the center of
of 12 66
The United Coalition East Prevention Project (UCEPP) is an activist and social service organization
17
that mobilizes resources to prevent drug- and alcohol- related problems in Skid Row.
Michael Hubman, interviewed by Danielle Charbonneau, Gladys Park, October 18, 2015
18
Gladys Park. Foster helps run the Lamp Music & Arts Recovery Program. The program, Foster
said, “puts instruments in the hands of those disenfranchised that haven't played in awhile and
gets them back up on their chomps, then puts ‘em in bands and puts them in positions to play.”
19
!
Foster was once homeless, as was his Melting Pot bandmate,“KO Base” (as he goes by). Foster
put one of Lamp’s guitars in Base’s hands when Base was homeless, living on Skid Row. Now
Base plays bass in The Melting Pot.
!
Ray Rodriguez, a second guitarist in the band has a similar story.
!
“I used to be on these streets with the drug addiction and sleeping on the streets, but through my
music I've realized my impact,” said Rodriguez. “A lot of these people want to see someone who
they know lead the way to help them, help themselves. ”
20
!
Compito, Hubman, Rossi, Foster, Base, Rodriguez and Martin are just a handful of individuals I
met who are active participants in the community, connected by what Malpede calls Skid Row’s
“culture of compassion” and “spirit of service.” They demonstrate how service-oriented,
21
grassroots activities grow authentically from the soil of Skid Row and spread. Malpede says this
of 13 66
Franc Foster, interviewed by Danielle Charbonneau, Gladys Park, October 18, 2015
19
Ray Rodriguez, interviewed by Danielle Charbonneau, Gladys Park, October 18, 2015
20
John Malpede, interviewed by Danielle Charbonneau, Annenberg Radio News studio, January 2015
21
“domino effect” applies to individuals, and to organizations. Positive action, he says, grows
“exponentially and organically“ on Skid Row.
22
!
LAPD is another example: LAPD was born out of Inner City Law ; Inner City Law was born
23
from the Catholic Worker . LAPD served as the inspiration for Dramastage Qumran , another
24 25
activist-oriented theater group developed by one of LAPD’s former actors, Melvin Ishmael
Johnson. Johnson and Dramastage Qumran then partnered with USC and an organization called
the Compassionate Response to Poverty and Homelessness Group to present a performance
called “Nail Heads.” For that performance, the group collected 80,000 nails to symbolize the
number of homeless in the county of Los Angeles before donating the nails to Habitat for
26
Humanity.
!
of 14 66
! John Malpede, interviewed by Danielle Charbonneau, LAPD Administrative Office in Echo Park, 22
December 2015
! Inner City Law is “he only provider of legal services on Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles.” The 23
organization helps combat slum housing while developing strategies to end homelessness. The center is
recognized for its expertise in housing issues, veterans’ benefits, and homelessness prevention. When
Malpede first moved to Los Angeles from New York 30 years ago, he volunteered at The Catholic
Worker’s free legal clinic, which later became Inner City Law. (http://www.innercitylaw.org/about_u/)
! “Founded in 1970, the Los Angeles Catholic Worker is a lay Catholic community of women and men 24
that operates a free soup kitchen, hospitality house for the homeless, hospice care for the dying, a bi-
monthly newspaper, and regularly offers prophetic witness in opposition to war-making and systemic
injustice.” (http://lacatholicworker.org/about-the-lacw)
! Dramastage Qumran is a nonprofit theater company comprised of members of the Skid Row 25
community. It was started by a former member of LAPD, Melvin Ishmael Johnson. http://dramastage-
qumran.org
! 88, 000 was the approximated number of homeless individuals in Los Angeles county in 2005 based 26
on the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority annual report.
“Its a dynamic situation,” said Malpede. “People who used to live in a box, who have recovered
from their homelessness, a lot of them have stayed in the community and are working in the
community. Their work is both healing for them—just like my work is healing for me—and also
for the people.”
27
!
If there is one overarching observation I made about Skid Row, it is that the community has a
striking level of active participation in arts, activism and social work to a degree that far exceeds
any other place I’ve ever encountered. Malpede sums it up nicely:
!
“The neighborhood—it’s been a neighborhood where people do remain and they do help
one another. A number of grassroots initiatives have been started by people living in the
neighborhood that advocate on behalf of the neighborhood in a lot of different ways—
whether it’s cleaning up the trash when the city doesn't do it, keeping the park open
when the city doesn't do it, preventing police abuse when they do do it, like
unreasonable searches and seizures, or taking people's stuff when they go to eat at one of
the missions, or um, the fact that 65 percent of the Jay Walking tickets written in the city
of Los Angeles are written in the 50 square blocks of Skid Row, so that's not equitable
policing. All these things and more are continually being dealt with by people who live
there. There are 80 recovery meetings that take place in the community each week by
people who live in the community.”
28
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! John Malpede, interviewed by Danielle Charbonneau, Annenberg Radio News studio, January 2015 27
! Ibid 28
!
These exhaustive examples defy the stereotypes of the homeless as merely lazy, indigent,
transient or addicted. These examples show a sub-section of people who are active, longterm
residents dedicated to making positive contributions to a community committed to recovery.
!
!
3) Making a Case for Skid Row Culture
!
As demonstrated in several of the already mentioned examples, the arts community (including
LAPD, Lamp and Dramastage Qumran) is often intrinsically linked to forms of social advocacy
in the Skid Row neighborhood. In 2008, Malpede set out to examine Skid Row’s cultural
landscape in more depth and draft a plan for the future. He partnered with Maria Rosario Jackson
at the Urban Institute to create the study, “Making a Case for Skid Row Culture: Findings from a
Collaborative Inquiry by the Los Angeles Poverty Department and the Urban Institute. ”
29
!
Jackson had studied the role of arts and cultural participation in communities across the nation
(from an urban planning and public policy perspective) for over 20 years. Both Malpede and
Jackson share the common belief that cultural participation in communities is valuable, if not
vital: it “strengthens social networks in the community that potentially lead to increased social
of 16 66
! “Making a Case for Skid Row Culture: Findings from a Collaborative Inquiry by the Los Angeles 29
Poverty Department and the Urban Institute” was a study co-conduced by John Malpede, founder of
LAPD, and Maria Rosario Jackson, a senior research associate in the Metropolitan Housing and
Communities Policy Center at the Urban Institute, as part of Animating Democracy, a program developed
by Americans for the Arts. The study was essentially an investigation of Skid Row’s cultural vitality.
capital and collective advocacy;” it “provides residents with a range of emotional, intellectual
and social experiences important for personal development;” and is “essential in helping create a
healthy environment and normative neighborhood.”
!
The study first conducted interviews with five community organizations: the Los Angeles
Community Action Network (LACAN) ; the United Coalition East Prevention Project
30
(UCEPP); the Lamp Community; OGs in Service; and Ocean Park Community Center
31 32 33
(OPCC). Respondents were asked to agree or disagree with the premise that cultural activity in
34
Skid Row is imperative. While some of the organizations have little or no cultural programming,
every interviewee agreed upon its importance. Next, the study collected data from focus groups
consisting of Skid Row residents, and various leaders from other Skid Row agencies. The results
were similar:
!
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! The Los Angeles Community Action Network (LACAN) is an activist organization dealing with a 30
wide range of community concerns, including civil and human rights, housing and tenants rights, the
poverty/wealth gap, women’s issues, violence and food access.
! The United Coalition East Prevention Project (UCEPP) is an activist and social service organization 31
that mobilizes resources to prevent drug- and alcohol- related problems in Skid Row.
! Lamp is a non-profit shelter and services organization that primarily works with the mentally ill. Lamp 32
also offers an arts program to anyone in the Skid Row community, including those without mental
challenges. It was one of the first organizations to offer arts and culture programming alongside LAPD in
the late 1980s.
! OGs in Service organizes activities in the Skid Row community such as a Father’s Day celebration, 3 33
on 3 basketball league, Jazz in the Park and a painted trash can project.
! The Ocean Park Community Center (OPCC) is a network of shelters and services for low-income and 34
homeless people in Santa Monica that collaborates with agencies in Skid Row.
“The focus group discussions proved to be insightful and passionate. All involved agreed that
even in the face of often extreme hardship (and, to some extent, because of it) arts and cultural
activity is vitally important to the neighborhood.”
35
!
Based on the study, Malpede and Jackson made several recommendations: The first was that the
community should create an artists registry and cultural inventory to better document the
neighborhood’s assets (which legitimize the neighborhood and protect it from destructive
interests). Secondly, that organizations should embrace opportunities to change the public
narrative concerning Skid Row and promote the neighborhood as a recovery community. The
study also revealed a need for more creative collaboration between Skid Row organizations.
!
Based on these findings, LAPD partnered with Lamp to create The Festival for All Skid Row
Artists. The annual festival, as planned, would hit many of the study’s recommendations: it
would double as a venue to create an artist’s registry and cultural inventory; would be a place for
creative collaboration; and would paint a vivid picture of Skid Row’s recovery culture.
!
The first Festival for All Skid Row Artists happened in October of 2010 and was a one-day
festival. Since then, the number of participants interested in performing and presenting at the
festival has grown too large for a one day event. The festival expanded in 2012 to two days. This
year’s 2014 festival was the event’s largest yet, showcasing close to 100 artists and performers.
Every performance slot for both days of the festival was booked two weeks in advance. The
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Jackson & Malpede, Making a Case for Skid Row Culture, Page 10
35
festival’s growth is a testament to the vitality and importance of an active arts and culture
community.
!
4) The 2014 Festival for All Skid Row Artists
!
On October 18 and 19, 2014, over 200 people convened in Gladys Park for the 5th Annual
Festival for All Skid Row Artists. The festival is a celebration of the many creative, talented and
musical members of the Skid Row community. Everything from Elvis impersonators to stand-up
comics, musicians, rappers, cabaret singers, theater groups, street artists, painters and Caribbean
drummers participated in the two day festival. Most of them were homeless, living in SROs
(single residence occupancies), staying in shelters or were previously homeless (but still active in
the community). There was a sense of joy and celebration in Gladys Park that weekend. Crowds
danced around the stage, cheered their fellow creatives and congregated in groups of friends.
Sounds of bongo drums, electric guitars and chatter reverberated through the park, attracting
curious bystanders outside the gates. Los Angelenos from outside the Skid Row community were
able to see a new, more positive image of the neighborhood.
!
After the festival participants performed or presented their work, they were instructed to come to
an interview booth for the purpose of building the Skid Row Artists Registry. It was there that I
had the opportunity to interview over 50 individuals with a wide spectrum of talents, from a
variety of organizations. I challenged each person, asking them about the value of arts and
culture in Skid Row, both for the individual and for the community as a whole. The following
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vignettes tell stories of a select few of those whom I interviewed. I also wrote a number of other
short artist profiles for LAPD’s 2014 festival newsletter (see Addendum A).
!
!
4.1 Myka Moon
!
Myka Moon is a large young man with a nasally, girlish voice and feminine facial features: rosy
pink lips, perky-round cheeks, a wide button nose and neatly curved eyebrows. He has midnight
black hair in an army buzz-cut and his rectangular glasses are daintily-rimmed. He arrives at the
interview booth with his furry-haired companion, Lady Bird, a black, white and brown spotted
puppy. Lady Bird is Moon’s ESA (emotional support animal) and Lamp art project’s “newest
mascot. ”
36
!
“She is living art, ” says Moon, petting the dog’s head and stroking her floppy brown ears. Lady
37
Bird is wearing a neon pink sport vest with black pockets and silver zippers. Moon says he’s
training her to become a full service dog.
!
“Everywhere I go, she goes,” he says .
38
!
of 20 66
Myka Moon, interviewed by Danielle Charbonneau, Gladys Park, October 18, 2015
36
ibid
37
ibid
38
Moon has a positive childlike energy. Along with Lady Bird, he’s toting a display board (the kind
kids have for the science fair) with his paintings and drawings tacked to it. The drawings are
made with what appears to be crayon and Tempera paint. One canvas is of colorful, block-style
plus signs, stacked like a game of Tetris. Another has bright pink and purple clouds. Above that
one, abstract pine trees resting on a patch of grass.
!
“My favorite is actually this one, ‘Nightime Suffering,’” Moon says, pointing to a paper with
grey, nebulous swirls atop a black background. “I did that at about 11:30 at night, staring at the
sky. I love the clouds and I really wanted to showcase it, but didn't have the techniques to do it,
so I did it in my own way.”
39
!
It makes sense that Moon’s artwork is youthful; depicting clouds, forests and fantasy. In a certain
sense, he is reliving his childhood dream. Moon knew he wanted to be an artist by the time he
was nine-years-old, but says his parents were adamantly opposed.
!
“My family told me that artists are burdens on society and that I would never make it in life.They
proceeded to trash my art supplies,” says Moon. “At that point it was always pencils and paper
and anything that was small enough to hide in a binder. ”
40
!
of 21 66
ibid
39
ibid
40
Moon never pursued art as a career, working odd jobs with no real direction. He wound up
homeless anyway. When he found Lamp, he wrote his parents a letter.
!
“I said: ‘You told me this is what an artist was. I managed to accomplish it with no art in my life,
so sorry, but I am going to be an artist.’ I’ve been happier ever since,” says Moon.
41
!
While Moon’s work may be elementary, he talks about it with sophistication. His eyes drift
toward the sky when describing the process of making art, as if it is a spiritual experience.
!
“Art is not a way of healing,” he said. “It is healing.”
42
!
Moon was homeless for about two and half years. He suffers from mental illness (from exactly
what diagnosis, he did not say). He was living in a tent on Skid Row when he got involved with
Lamp’s art community.
!
“The art project at Lamp kept me sane,” said Moon. “I had a point when everything was stolen
out of my tent and I went crazy. I was actually forced by my case worker to continue an art
project and before I knew it I was in poetry classes, photo classes, art classes. I found myself
calming down.”
43
of 22 66
ibid
41
ibid
42
ibid
43
!
Moon has PTSD and had extreme social anxiety when he first showed up at Lamp.
!
“One year ago you wouldn't have caught me here [at the festival], and if you would have, I
wouldn't have said much,” he says. “Now look at me.”
44
!
For Moon the quality of his artwork is not what’s most important. Rather it is the process of
creating where the healing happens.
!
Hayk Makhmuryan, the program coordinator for Lamp’s art program, says putting too much
value on the end product while devaluing the process of creating is a common and harmful
mistake.
!
“That [attitude] keeps a lot of people from discovering how much visual arts can help them—
help them, not just in general, but help them come out of a place, a very dark place sometimes,”
explains Makhmuryan. “Our society looks at art and centers around skills and technique.
Someone says I'm not good at visual arts and really what they're saying is that I haven't had
formal training in certain techniques, because everyone can make marks on a surface. We do that
from childhood. ”
45
!
of 23 66
ibid
44
! Hayk Makhmuryan, interviewed by Danielle Charbonneau, Lamp Community, December 2015 45
Makhmuryan says convincing people of the value of creating, regardless of the outcome is “a
battle day in and day out.”
46
!
“I talk about it with artists one on one,” he says. “The more people that relay that message, the
more there is a chance that another person will have a better feel for that use of visual arts, and
have a better appreciation of the process.”
47
!
In the face of hunger, homelessness, unemployment, poverty and staggering statistics in Los
Angeles county, particularly on Skid Row, art programs could seem frivolous to skeptics, but
Makhmuryan says that “arts and creativity do wonders for the social health of an individual and
their confidence to interact with the world around them.”
48
!
“That’s a direct line of a greater probability to keep a job or an apartment,” says Makhmuryan .
49
!
It seems to be working for Moon. He has lived in Lamp’s apartment complex since October of
2014 and volunteers regularly in the art studio. He says he enjoys the camaraderie between the
participants who all mentor each other.
!
of 24 66
ibid
46
ibid
47
ibid
48
ibid
49
Moon’s story, for me, raises a few questions: what happens when our soul-driven impulse to
create is hindered in childhood? And what happens in adulthood when we deprive ourselves of
the healing powers of creativity, because we fear not measuring up to some invisible social
standard?
!
James Hillman, a psychologist who studied under Carl Jung in the 1950s, wrote in his best-
selling1997 book, The Soul’ s Code, that many of society’s ails are caused by individuals not
fulfilling their soul’s function. He proposed that our calling in life is innate, and that our mission
in life is to realize its imperatives. Hillman named it the "acorn theory”: the idea being that just
as the oak's destiny is contained in the tiny acorn, so, too, are our lives encoded to accomplish
some destiny. Essentially, if we don’t follow that calling, we make ourselves sick. Sick
individuals contribute to a sick society.
!
While the idea of having a calling is certainly not a new one, it seems wildly appropriate for
people on Skid Row who are seeking meaning in their lives and a purpose for pushing through
their struggles. Perhaps, as it has been in Moon’s life, art is at least healing, if not imperative.
!
!
4.2 Walter Fears & The Skid Ro Playz
!
The Skid Ro Playz, a group of about ten drummers, percussionists and a flute player, are
somewhat of a Skid Row and Gladys Park house band. The group has jammed at the Festival for
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All Skid Row Artists every year since it began in 2010, providing a steady backbeat for the
celebration.
!
The Playz formed casually in 2009 when the men were all homeless. They started playing in a
drum circle on the sidewalks of Skid Row. It was just for fun at first, but when the group met
police opposition, they banded together and bonded through the adversity.
!
LAPD police officers initially viewed the group as “just noise” and attempted to stop the drum
circles by enforcing a municipal decibel law. On one occasion, officers illegally seized the
players’ drums. The drummers filed a lawsuit and planned to go to court. It was then that some
neighbors in the Skid Row community started advocating for the band.
!
“The community kind of came behind us to say, ‘these guys are good for the community, they're
not selling drugs, they're not drinking, they're not doing the things that everybody else is doing.
This is one thing that we have that's positive and we'd like you to stop harassing them,”
remembers Walter Fears, one of the group’s bongo drummers.
!
Having the community backing made the Skid Ro Playz take themselves more seriously. The
band began to see themselves as a real cultural asset.
!
"It proved a lot. It really made us, as a group, look at the community more as a family,” said
Fears.
of 26 66
!
Since then, Fears says, the majority of the guys “are now inside” (not homeless anymore). The
group itself has grown too.
!
“We have a rehearsal space now, we have several gigs throughout the year, and we’re in the
process of doing some studio work,” says Fears.
!
Fears has also been a member of LAPD for eight years and is an aspiring actor. Fears comes
across as shy. He seems like more of an observer. Yet, acting allows him to come out of his shell.
He recently performed a monologue based on his life’s story.
!
Fears says the the variety of artistic outlets available to him in the Skid Row neighborhood, and
the sense of community camaraderie, are two of the main draws of the area. Fears has chosen to
live in Skid Row for a decade, even when he’s had opportunities to leave.
!
About fifteen years ago, Fears had been a successful businessman. He’s handsome and
athletically built, lived in a ritzy neighborhood on the west side, had veteran’s benefits, a
beautiful girlfriend and an active social life, which generally included alcohol and cocaine. His
partying lifestyle eventually took its toll, both financially and on his relationship.
!
Yet, it was an unrelated accident that demolished his life as he knew it. He was critically injured
when a pool collapsed at an apartment complex he was visiting. The consequences were
of 27 66
devastating. His hospital bills were six figures. His parents took out a second mortgage on their
home to help, but it wasn’t enough. He ventured to Skid Row for the free meals and stayed,
sleeping on the streets, which only exacerbated his injuries.
!
It would have been unsurprising if Fears had turned to his familiar friend, drugs and alcohol, to
cope; but that’s not what happened. Skid Row, he says, encouraged him to stay sober.
!
“Seeing what drugs do to people every day — how it destroys people, turns them into shells —
was motivation,” says Fears.
When his injuries worsened, Fears was transferred to a room at the V A in upscale Brentwood,
which saved him physically from the torture of sidewalk dwelling. Fears thought about using the
opportunity to restart his life again on the west side, yet Fears found himself missing the Skid
Row community. He moved back to Skid Row when his health returned. He says that had he
stayed in Brentwood, he suspects he would have repeated his earlier mistakes, overvaluing
materialism, partying and using drugs. Instead, he said, he rented a small apartment adjacent to
San Julian Park in the gritty heart of Skid Row and has lived there ever since.
Fears says art and music have played an integral part in his recovery.
“I got into the arts, painting, drumming…I just started those simple things and eventually they
become a part of you and it gradually helps fill that void or that hole that was there in your life,”
explains Fears. “It is still healing today. You know when I have a hard day, listening to music, or
strumming a guitar or beating a drum can really help dissolve away all the worries.”
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4.3 Flo Hawkins & Officer Rich
!
Officer Rich looks more like a retired basketball player than a retired cop. He is over six feet tall,
dressed in a shiny, ivory-white track suit with royal blue seams, has a smile as white as his outfit
and a hearty laugh. The crowd is treating him more like a superstar than a cop, too. As he
smoothly strolls into Gladys Park, he receives gentlemanly slaps on the back, handshakes and
hugs accompanied by comments like: “This guy’s the man” and “Ooo, I just love officer Rich.”
!
Officer Rich was an LAPD police officer for 38 years and patrolled Skid Row for all 38. He was
given many opportunities to transfer divisions, but never did. He’s one of the few LAPD cops
well-loved by the homeless community. He’s known for an uncanny ability to settle issues with
the county welfare office (retrieving people their checks when they need them), and for truly
caring about the people: he gets to know them at a personal level.
!
This was particularly evident at the Festival for All Skid Row Artists through his adoring
friendship with a formerly homeless artist named Flo Hawkins. Officer Rich introduced Flo to
the crowd on stage at the festival, holding up one of her paintings of Al Pacino. Flo makes pastel
portraits that are reminiscent of a less vibrant David Hockney. They are flat, with angular facial
edges and wide, accented eyes. Yet, they carry a sense of personality.
!
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“I love to look at the people’s faces — how their eyes light up. I can do an old, old man, or an
old woman or a very young baby. God has blessed me,” Hawkins said, glancing at officer Rich,
who nodded in agreement next to her.
!
Officer Rich has known Flo for over 30 years—since she was sleeping on the streets and
addicted to crack cocaine. Even when she was homeless, however, making art was Flo’s refuge.
Officer Rich used to watch her climb up on a billboard to paint her canvases above the chaos of
the street.
!
Officer Rich says he’s convinced that art is an important part of Skid Row.
!
“Art gives you insight with the people that are homeless. Law enforcement don't deal with
people unless they are on their level. Since the artists have been around, they can get closer to the
community—closer to the people… They've got such strong hidden talent that they had, but
during addiction, couldn't use,” said Officer Rich. “Now they’re giving back. They draw people
in… They inspire,”
!
!
5) “Red Beard, Red Beard” & LAPD’s Performance Community
!
Down on 6th Street, just East of San Pedro and west of Gladys Park, is a beige-bricked building
with a worn burgundy awning. On the corner of its first floor is a small community room, about
of 30 66
the size of a corporate conference room. From outside, you can recognize it only by its windows,
which are lined with candy-apple-red, thickly glossed tiles.
!
Inside, the community room is sparse and outdated: it has a few long tables, some 80s-style
swivel chairs upholstered with beige tweed fabric, and grey industrial carpet that’s hardened with
time. An old television and VCR are mounted high on one wall and a few construction-paper
craft projects with recovery slogans like “One Day at a Time” adorn the others.
!
Like Gladys Park, the community room is a humble space, but one with heart. On Tuesday and
Thursday nights, and Saturday afternoons, the room serves as a rehearsal space for LAPD. Upon
arriving, LAPD co-directors John Malpede and Henriëtte Brouwers push the tables to the back of
the room, line the walls with the office chairs and set up the stage in the center (a simple row of
10 chairs for “Red Beard, Red Beard”).
!
As the LAPD members stroll in, the chatter grows. Sometimes the greetings are cheerful, marked
by jokes and laughter. Other times people enter, head down, heavy-hearted, frustrated or wearied
by life. In those moments, there are shoulder pats, hugs, and words of encouragement. There is a
sense of supportiveness, even when personalities clash: as one member put it, “we love each
other, even when we don’t like each other.”
50
!
of 31 66
! LAPD actor in conversation, UCEPP Rehearsal Space, December 2015 50
The rehearsal offers individuals an outlet through which to funnel their emotions. Frequently the
energy shifts in the room as the cast warms up, or after someone delivers their lines with
emotional fervor.
!
Every so often, someone who hasn’t been around for awhile will show up mid-rehearsal and
peek through the locked glass door. The nature of Skid Row as a recovery community means that
sometimes people fall off-the-wagon and disappear for awhile. When they return, the rehearsal
halts as the cast lets the person through the front door, gives their welcome-back hugs and says
hello. LAPD tries to practice a 100 percent tolerance policy, meaning all are welcome, no matter
their present condition.
!
When I think of the camaraderie I felt in LAPD’s rehearsals, I am reminded of a passage written
by Bill Wilson, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). He describes the “fellowship” that
51
exists in the 12-step recovery community. While LAPD is not a 12-step program, many of its
participants have overcome struggles and are in the process of transforming their lives. Wilson’s
words could easily apply to the LAPD and Skid Row community:
!
“We are average Americans. All sections of this country and many of its occupations are
represented, as well as many political, economic, social, and religious backgrounds. We
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Alcoholics Anonymous is an international community of people recovering from addiction through the
51
twelve steps. The book, Alcoholics Anonymous is the main text that most twelve step recovery
programs work from. The book describes how the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous started, what the
12 steps are, and how the program operates. It was written primarily by the founder of Alcoholics
Anonymous, Bill Wilson, in 1935 along with a committee of other members of the AA program.
are people who normally would not mix. But there exists among us a fellowship, a
friendliness, and an understanding which is indescribably wonderful. We are like the
passengers of a great liner the moment after rescue from shipwreck when camaraderie,
joyousness and democracy pervade the vessel from steerage to Captain’s table. Unlike the
feelings of the ship’s passengers, however, our joy in escape from disaster does not
subside as we go our individual ways. The feeling of having shared in a common peril is
one element in the powerful cement which binds us.”
52
!
This imagery, of shipwrecked passengers bonding over their shared journey and common
triumph, beautifully depicts the sense of brother and sisterhood I felt in LAPD (and in Skid Row
as a whole). They are “people who would normally not mix.” They come from a myriad of
circumstances (some are addicts and alcoholics, others have mental illness, some have suffered
trauma and violence, while others were just down on their luck when they landed in Skid Row).
Yet, they have found a friendship and deep bond, connected by their common goals of recovery
and transformation. The LAPD group has become like a loving family-of-choice for its
members; a family who also shares a love for art, activism, performance and creativity.
!
LAPD was the first performance group of its kind in the nation and has been serving the Skid
Row community since 1985. LAPD generally creates performances based on the real-life
experiences of its members (LAPD’s tagline is “Bringing the Real Deal to Normalville”). In
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Bill Willson, Alcoholics Anonymous, Page 17, 4th Edition
52
celebration of the group’s 30th anniversary, however, Malpede decided to do something a little
different: a scripted play, adapted from the film, “Red Beard, Red Beard,” by Akira Kurosawa.
!
“Red Beard, Red Beard” takes place in feudal era Japan at a clinic for the indigent and poor. The
head doctor, nicknamed Red Beard, mentors an arrogant and entitled young doctor, Yasumoto.
Yasumoto had gone to a prestigious Dutch medical school and is not happy to be placed at the
clinic; he feels he is above serving the poor. As he warms up to the experience, Yasumoto learns
about humility and service. Each patient in Red Beard’s clinic has a tale of great hardship.
Malpede knew his actors would relate.
!
“I immediately knew that LAPD would understand the story,” said Malpede. “The stories within
the story were really deep and profound and convoluted, about people living in poverty and
dealing with their own death. I knew LAPD would have a profound understanding of the
material.”
53
!
For the performances, Kurosawa’s film “Red Beard” played on a small television, center stage,
in Japanese with no subtitles. The actors synchronized their lines with their Japanese
counterparts, and for two shows, performed back-to-back with a second cast. The actors mostly
mirrored the film, but at certain parts deliberately contradicted the movie in order to emphasize
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John Malpede, interviewed by Danielle Charbonneau, LAPD administrative offices in Echo Park,
53
December 2014
the message. The synchronization was profoundly challenging and required teamwork between
the the two casts.
!
“I think this is the most difficult performance LAPD has ever done,” said Brouwers. “You have
to give up your ego and become part of this whole and synchronize with your performer on the
other side, and with your Japanese partner on the television. You have to take the focus away
from yourself and just be with the emotion.”
54
!
This process—of letting go of ego, sitting with emotion and becoming one among a chorus—is
representative of the recovery process. Suffering humbles people, which allows them to let go of
ego and become a part of a community. This is symbolic of what happens on Skid Row. “Red
Beard, Red Beard” also carried the message that one helps himself or herself, through helping
others.
!
“The play showed that there’s a very circular situation, that basically you heal yourself by getting
outside your own pain and caring for others, which of course is really hard to do,” said Malpede.
“It’s also the principle of twelve step programs, for example. And so that is sort of central to the
profundity of the movie and the relationship between it, and why it’s meaningful for us.”
55
!
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Henri tte Brouwers, interviewed by Danielle Charbonneau, Annenberg Radio News studio at the
54
University of Southern California, January 2015
John Malpede, interviewed by Danielle Charbonneau, Annenberg Radio News studio at the University
55
of Southern California, January 2015
“Red Beard, Red Beard,” as a theater production, was symbolic of Skid Row’s culture. Skid Row
is a place where healing happens by individuals helping each other transcend their suffering and
find meaning in their lives. Suffering, it turns out, can be a great gift: it equalizes, connects and
transforms.
!
“There's real wisdom on Skid Row,” said Malpede, “It is available to the rest of the world, but
they don't necessarily take it in.”
56
!
In addition to the lessons taught by the play, I also had the opportunity to learn from many of the
individual cast members in “Red Beard, Red Beard.” Each of them revealed different attributes
of Skid Row culture. The following are a few select profiles of some of the “Red Beard, Red
Beard” cast members.
!
Malpede, Brouwers and Anthony Williams, who played Red Beard in one of the two LAPD
casts, also appeared as guests on a podcast I hosted in relationship to this thesis. (See Addendum
B).
!
!
!
!
!
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Ibid
56
5.1 Anthony Williams/Red Beard (in cast one)
!
Anthony Williams is like a classy godfather: He occasionally wears fedoras, has a deep, Barry
White voice and gives hearty bear hugs. He is one of the newest actors in the LAPD company
and found the performance group by accident (or as he calls it, by “divine intervention.”)
!
Williams was in a dark place at the time he met LAPD — spiraling into depression. As a
recovering addict and “ex-gangster-turned-square” (as he calls himself), he knew he couldn’t
descend much further without going back to old habits. He decided he needed a creative outlet.
He was looking for a different theater company when he found LAPD. He had trekked across the
city to find the other company, but found it disbanded. Disappointed and frustrated, he wandered
home towards his artist’s loft near Skid Row. On his way, he accidentally stumbled upon UCEPP
and an LAPD rehearsal.
!
Within a few weeks of starting rehearsals, Williams landed the leading role of Red Beard. On
Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays, he walks a few blocks to UCEPP from his artist’s loft. His
place feels surreal to him. It has exposed brick walls, a lofted bedroom and an aquarium the
length of a VW Bug. It is a far cry from where he’s been: Williams was a crack and heroin
dealer, a gangster, and has done stints in “almost every jail and prison in the state of
of 37 66
California.” Williams said he was “ran out of Venice and told never to come back.” His life
57 58
now, sometimes still feels “unrecognizable.”
59
!
Williams is now a documentary film maker and radio talk show host. He credits the Skid Row
recovery community for helping him stay on track. On the closing night of the “Red Beard, Red
Beard” performance, William’s high-school-aged grandson was among the proud, packed house.
!
5.2 Sylvie Hernandez/ “The Mantis”
!
Sylvie Hernandez is a tremendously talented actress. In “Red Beard, Red Beard,” she took on the
role of “The Mantis,” a young girl struggling with PTSD and homicidal tendencies after having
been sexually abused by multiple men in her childhood. Hernandez’s portrayal of the troubled
young girl produced an emotional tension in the audience that was palpable. It was as if the
crowd stopped breathing at certain moments when Hernandez was center stage.
!
While Hernandez hasn’t been through exactly the same circumstances as “The Mantis,” she says
she has her own emotional bank of experiences to channel in order to relate to her characters.
!
of 38 66
! Anthony Williams, interviewed by Danielle Charbonneau, in vehicle in Los Angeles, January 2015 57
! Ibid 58
! Anthony Williams, interviewed by Danielle Charbonneau, Tony’s loft off Central & 6th St., Los 59
Angeles, February 2015
“I’ve had to perform some other peer’s life and experiences—it connects me. In the end, all
human beings are connected,” she said. “We are in different circumstances, but the emotions and
feelings—they are the same.”
!
Hernandez has been a performer since she was a child. She grew up in Mexico as a spirited
youngster, always involved in theater, with a penchant for activism.
!
“I think I've been a rebel since I was little,” she said. “That fire -- of a rebel solider that I have --
it’s in my blood. ”
60
!
At the age of eight, Sylvie boycotted church. At twelve, she helped start a protest at her
elementary school to remove an unjust principal who she said was “violating their civil and
human rights.” She and her fellow young protesters slept in the school for over two weeks
61
before receiving national and federal attention and getting the principal removed. At age 21,
Sylvie’s younger brother died during a routine tonsillectomy, which she said fanned the flames of
her anger toward injustice. That fire grew even hotter when she landed on Skid Row and was
appalled by some of her early experiences at some of the Skid Row facilities.
!
Hernandez came to Skid Row a little over three years ago. At the time, she didn’t speak English.
She had struggled with mental health issues since young adulthood (exactly what diagnosis, she
of 39 66
! Sylvie Hernandez, interviewed by Danielle Charbonneau, November 2015 60
! Ibid 61
did not say). The condition contributed to various challenges, including sporadic unhealthy
spending and gambling behaviors. It was a physical injury, however, that finally forced her out of
work. Hernandez is a hair-dresser by trade, which requires her to be on her feet. When she
couldn’t make rent, she was evicted from her apartment and came to Skid Row for its services.
That’s when her activist spirit was re-awoken.
!
“I said, hell no. I cannot allow this to happen to people. Come on, we are human beings,” she
said. “They treated us worse than jail prisoners. The way they talked to us, like we were nothing.
I said, I have to do something.”
62
!
The Downtown Women’s Center helped her prepare “to do something.” It provided Sylvie with
some recovery resources (mental, emotional and physical), connected her with an English tutor,
and helped her enroll in a University program for social advocacy. She became a member of the
DWC Advisory Board, got involved with a protest theater, LACAN and LAPD.
!
“I started getting more involved with the leaders on Skid Row -- learning from them and learning
from the people on the streets,” she said. “I was trying to get involved in anything that could
involve the community. I had a close approach to the people and I started learning about the
stories of Skid Row.”
!
of 40 66
! Ibid 62
Now, Sylvie sees her journey to Skid Row as a blessing. The community has given her a place to
funnel her rebel spirit — to put her talents, passions and abilities to good use and to master
English. She is also thankful to be able to relate to people living in Skid Row.
!
“In order to understand what Skid Row is about you need to have some relationship with it,”
Hernandez said. “I relate with a lot of people because I was in the shelters, I was living on the
streets with my wet stinky shoes, without sometimes taking a shower for almost a month, living
in a car, so many things that connects you so you understand. We understand certain things that a
lot of people cannot relate to.”
!
LAPD has been a great fit for Hernandez. The company is as much about activism as it is about
the arts.
!
“Performing the arts is a great vehicle to make change without being aggressive or hateful,”
Hernandez said. “You are just putting the truth out there the way it is. The truth, it hurts, but it
doesn’t kill anyone. When you are sharing a story you are not criticizing anything. You are just
telling people this is what it is. Its raw, its real, its true. Change has to start somewhere. Why not
with theater?”
!
!
!
!
of 41 66
5.3 Suzette Shaw
!
Suzette Shaw is proud to be black and proud to be a woman. She recently published a poem
called “I Am a Black Queen.” Shaw knows, however, that being a voluptuous African American
woman on Skid Row makes her vulnerable to certain predators and abusers. She is hyper
sensitive to this, having been a victim of both sexual and racial abuses in her teenage and young
adult years.
!
This racial and sexual sensitivity is both a blessing and a curse: on the one hand, it can make her
short-fused, hot-tempered and defensive (with the tendency to take things personally). On the
other, it fuels her drive as a feminist and civil rights activist. She runs a women’s empowerment
group at a downtown non-profit called Share, writes an opinion column for the LACAN Skid
Row Newspaper (about women’s issues on Skid Row) and hosts a radio talk show about social
issues.
!
Shaw also organizes activist activities in the community. Most recently, she was the Skid Row
point person for organizing a peaceful protest against police brutality on the 46th anniversary of
Martin Luther King’s assassination: she scurried around the crowds, passing out press releases
from her clip board, leading chants from a megaphone, and riding on the trucked that led the
march.
!
of 42 66
Shaw wore a black tee-shirt that said, “I am Trishawn Carey.” Carey was a woman on Skid Row
who witnessed the alleged murder of an unarmed homeless man on March 1, 2015 named Charly
"Africa" Leundeu Keunang who was fatally shot by an LAPD officer. Carey was allegedly
beaten by police and arrested for assault on an officer in the chaos of “Africa’s” death. She was
held on an exorbitant $1,084,000 bond. When Shaw wasn’t shouting “You can’t kill Africa. You
can’t kill Africa” from the megaphone, she was telling Carey’s story to anyone who would listen
and encouraging them to sign up for a Facebook group Shaw created.
!
Shaw talks a mile a minute — sometimes with exuberance, sometimes with rage, sometimes in
joy — but always speedily. One can’t help but get worked up alongside her. I joke with her that
she adds more “pep to my step.” When I converse with her, I catch myself lifting up on my tippy
toes.
!
Shaw lives in a tiny SRO studio off 6th Street, right across the street from where LAPD
rehearses. Shaw once owned a considerable sized home before she was forced to seek refuge on
Skid Row, escaping a bad home situation and a financial pitfall. Having downsized to the
approximately 10-by-10 SRO studio, her space is packed to the brim. A neon purple shag rug
decorates the small patch of tile floor that isn’t covered in crates of stuff.
!
On her CD player, Shaw blasts Christian rap music by Pastor Cue, Skid Row’s most recognizable
pastor. Pastor Cue is a Carribbean rapper who hosts the neighborhood’s open-air church every
Friday night. The “church without walls” is set up on the corner of Wall and Winston Streets,
of 43 66
right across the street from Union Rescue Mission. A small group of about 20 people set up
folding chairs in front of the closed garage door of the Giant Trading shop. Pastor Cue competes
with the sounds of sirens, street cacklers and Motown music, which is projected from a ghetto-
blaster that’s set up on a cardboard box next to a tent encampment. An eerie orange-yellow hue
permeates the street, making a sad scene feel even sadder. Homeless men wander aimlessly and
cop-lights bounce off the dilapidated brick walls of buildings. The atmosphere gives Pastor Cue’s
words even more dramatic weight as he preaches about redemption and overcoming sin.
!
Shaw has a crush on Pastor Cue. She thinks God might bring them together one day. They would
make a fiery couple. Pastor Cue was also stationed on the truck bed with Shaw during the
protest. He gave several rousing motivational speeches and performed some of his original raps.
!
When Shaw talks about her life, she talks mostly about the present. Her life, she says, has gotten
tremendously full since moving to Skid Row. In addition to everything else she’s involved in,
Shaw is an active member of LAPD’s theater company.
!
“Were a community of people who are healing and these venues, like Henriette [Brouwers] and
John [Malpede] have created, are great healing venues for those of us, like myself,” said Shaw,“I
found my voice through LAPD, as well as other venues on Skid Row. It’s helped me to heal.”
!
!
!
of 44 66
5.4 Kevin Michael Key/ Red Beard (in second cast)
!
When strolling the Skid Row neighborhood with Kevin Michael Key, the areas “unofficial
mayor,” one better leave extra time. Key struts confidently, shaking hands, patting backs and
saying hello to the majority of people he passes in the community. He knows just about
everyone. He’s lived in Skid Row for about 14 years now; 13 of which Key has been clean, sober
and active in the area’s recovery community. Key credits his ability to get sober, and stay sober,
on living and working in the neighborhood.
!
Before he found sobriety, Key had been a criminal attorney for underserved populations. He
would lecture his clients on breaking their drug addictions, meanwhile was in the thick of his
own. After multiple failed attempts to get sober through various treatment programs, Key found
and completed a free rehabilitation program at Skid Row’s V olunteers of America. He gravitated
towards Skid Row’s sense of community and the plethora of individuals who were active in
twelve step programs.
!
In 2005, Key started working for the United Coalition East Prevention Project (UCEPP), an
organization that helps establish and manage efforts to prevent addiction, abuse and violence in
downtown and East LA. Those efforts include keeping a watchful eye on stores that sell alcohol,
making recommendations to the city when it comes to liquor licenses and educating teens about
addiction.
!
of 45 66
Key says recovery is often misunderstood as an individual person’s effort—a pull-up your boot
straps, just-do-it mentality—when really recovery requires community. Key’s made it his life’s
mission to promote Skid Row as a hub for recovery and coined the term “Biggest Recovery
Community Anywhere” after a sour experience he had with the press.
!
“He was interviewed by the LA Times and sort of showcased as this person who made it through
recovery and was this wonderful person, as if it was his doing,” explained Brouwers. “Kevin was
very upset by that interview because he said, it’s not just me, it’s the community, it’s the people
that work the recovery programs, it’s the people that give back to the community and it’s because
I live there [in Skid Row] and I continue living there that I was able to recover and do the work I
do now.”
!
After coining the phrase “Biggest Recovery Community Anywhere,” Key helped LAPD craft a
performance piece by the same name. Since then, Brouwers says many community members
have caught on to the term and are describing Skid Row with a renewed sense of pride.
!
This spirit of pride—in living in the Skid Row neighborhood, being a survivor, transforming
one’s liabilities into assets by channeling them in a positive direction—is something that Skid
Row insiders like Key, Shaw, Fears and Hernandez all understand wholeheartedly. For each of
them, their darkest days have now become a bedrock on which to build purposeful lives.
!
!
of 46 66
6) Reflections on the Practice of Embedded Journalism
!
6.1 Drive-By Journalists
As I sat nervously swiveling in my chair at my first LAPD rehearsal waiting for warm-up to
begin, I overheard LAPD co-director Henriëtte Brouwers grousing about an article that had
appeared in the LA Times on October 3, 2014. The piece headlined, “Artists find inspiration
among homeless in L.A.'s Skid Row,” profiled a Dutch photographer, Desiree van Hoefor, who
had spent her past five summer vacations capturing “the beauty and humor beneath the grit and
misery of the 50-block downtown homeless enclave.”
63
!
“I'm a little bit hooked on Skid Row right now," Van Hoefor said in the article.
64
!
Photographers like van Hoefor concern Brouwers because they shoot only what the eye can see.
She calls these types of artists “drive-by artists.” Images like van Hoefor’s present no context or
understanding for the community. The images, she said, reinforce stereotypes of Skid Row as
being “just a bunch of addicts and transients.”
65
!
of 47 66
! Gale Holland, “Artists find inspiration among homeless in L.A.'s skid row,” Los Angeles Times, 63
October 4, 2014
! Ibid 64
! Henriëtte Brouwers, Interviewed by Danielle Charbonneau, United Coalition East Prevention Project, 65
October 2015
Ann-Sophie Morrissette, director of Communications and Policy for the Downtown Women's
Center, shared a viewpoint similar to Brouwers in the same article, calling such photography,
“poverty porn.”
66
!
Journalists can also be accused of doing “drive by” reporting without really understanding the
culture on which they are reporting. Key’s experience is a perfect example. The journalist missed
an opportunity to show how Skid Row’s recovery community works collectively. She re-affirmed
the misconception that recovery is an individual effort, a pull-up-your-bootstraps and do it
mentality.
!
In many articles, homeless are dehumanized. They are quantified with numbers and dollar signs.
They are a crisis to be fixed. Individuals are not named, not quoted or given a sense of character.
Common phrases are like these, taken from a few recent articles: “Over 44,000 homeless in the
county of Los Angeles,” or “L.A. spends $100 million on the homeless,” or “Mayor fails to
address homeless crisis.”
!
The LA Times quoted City Administrative Officer Miguel A. Santana on May 12, 2015 saying,
“Nobody wants formerly homeless people living next to them.” This type of NIMBY (not in
67
my backyard) attitude illustrates how dehumanized the homeless can be, as if they are
of 48 66
! Gale Holland, quoting Ann-Sophie Morrissette, “Artists find inspiration among homeless in L.A.'s skid 66
row,” Los Angeles Times, October 4, 2014
! Soumya Karlamangla, “As homelessness climbs in L.A., a search for solutions,” Los Angeles Times, 67
May 12, 2015
permanently marked with a scarlet-H and to be avoided. This of course is not always the case,
but it is common.
!
Throughout my time shadowing LAPD, I was consistently challenged to examine my own
perspective, misconceptions and motives, cautions of dehumanizing the community I wanted to
understand. One night in particular I was confronted with my own perhaps skewed fascination
with LAPD. It was during a panel discussion after LAPD’s performance of “Red Beard, Red
Beard” at USC. An audience member commented that people should be careful when referring to
LAPD as a company made up of “homeless and formerly homeless actors.” I had used the
phrase on a handful of occasions in my work.
!
Her comment, at first, seemed odd, as LAPD is a company “made up of homeless and formerly
homeless individuals,” and the phrase is how the company defines itself. I understood, however,
what the audience member was getting at: a tendency for the LAPD company to become
spectacle. I was forced to ask myself if my fascination with LAPD was pure, or if I was only
interested in the artists because of their often dramatic and gritty stories. Would “Red Beard, Red
Beard,” for example, have been such a draw on its own artistic merits if the actors were not
formerly homeless? Could the actors be recognized for their talents alone, beyond their
intriguing stories of redemption? For most of the LAPD actors, having overcome homelessness
and personal struggles is a source of pride, not shame. Ultimately I concluded that the phrase was
acceptable in the spirit of pride. I was, however, acutely aware from that day forward of the
of 49 66
possibility of treating the company as spectacle, producing “poverty porn,” or bolstering the
Scarlet H and phenomenon.
!
Brent Blair, director of MA Applied Theatre Arts at USC’s School of Theater and a practitioner
of Theater of the Oppressed (a type of theater that uses performance to help individuals rehearse
for revolution, heal from private traumas and empower oppressed communities) added to the
discourse.
!
“The trap I believe our country, and the world largely, is suffering from, is a poverty of
imagination that prevents us from seeing others as human beings or seeing difference,” he said.
“For me the great gifts of arts like LAPD and Theater of the Oppressed and other art forms is to
re-humanize what has been dehumanized.”
68
!
The question is, how best can journalism do that?
!
6.2 Embedded or “Inbedded": The Debate
!
During my ten months as a graduate student at USC’s Annenberg School for Journalism, I kept
hearing about a “new” model for arts and cultural journalism called “embedded journalism” — a
form of reporting where journalists spend long periods of time embedded in an organization or
of 50 66
! Brent Blair, interviewed by Sasha Anawalt during panel discussion, University of Southern California, 68
January 13, 2015
culture in order to investigate and report from the inside. The term sometimes refers to
journalists who produce content for traditional, or third party, media organizations. Other times it
refers to journalists who are hired by an organization to write about itself or its related interests.
For example, Human Rights Watch, an international organization that conducts research for the
purposes of advocacy, hired journalists to cover topics related to human rights. The journalists,
the organization claims, have full editorial freedom and are not required to write about the
organization itself.
!
The Washington Post published an article in October of 2014 about arts organizations, like the
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the New Jersey
Performing Arts Center, that have recently hired “embedded journalists” to write for their
organizations. The lede for the article called the trend a “dramatic shift in the way cultural
institutions communicate with their audiences.”
69
!
Outside the realm of arts and culture, the term “embedded journalist” was both popularized and
criticized during the Iraq war. At that time, it referred to reporters who traveled within military
units. The Bush Administration and the military announced in 2004 that they would allow
reporters to "embed" with soldiers in the field. More than 700 journalists signed up and were
embedded. Those journalists were vetted by the military before given clearance to report from
70
of 51 66
! Peggy McGloan, “Arts Organizations are hiring pros to tell their stories,” Washington Post, October 69
31, 2014
! Jeffery Kahn, “Postmortem: Iraq war media coverage dazzled but it also obscured,” News Center, 70
March 18, 2004
the inside. The practice garnered a tidal wave of public criticism, saying the media had
abandoned freedom of the press. Freedom from outside agencies has long been viewed as critical
for journalists to remain objective, unhinged to any particular agenda. Critics dubbed these inside
reporters “inbedded journalists” and opposed the level of oversight the military had over the
reporters inside their units.
!
In a disturbing panel interview during the Media at War Conference at UC Berkeley, Col. Rick
Long of the U.S. Marine Corps who managed a media training camp in Quantico, Virginia,
commented on the military’s decision to embed journalists:
!
”Frankly, our job is to win the war. Part of that is information warfare. So we are going to
attempt to dominate the information environment,” he said.
71
!
In a New York Times opinion piece on June 14, 2014, Chelsea Manning, the former U.S. Army
intelligence analyst, criticized the practice of embedded journalism during both the U.S. military
occupation of Iraq and the war in Afghanistan. Manning claimed that the vetting of reporters by
military officials was used "to screen out those judged likely to produce critical coverage," and
that once embedded, journalists tended "to avoid controversial reporting that could raise red
flags" out of fear of having their access terminated.
72
of 52 66
! Jeffery Kahn, “Postmortem: Iraq war media coverage dazzled but it also obscured,” News Center, 71
March 18, 2004
! Chelsea Manning, 72
!
The criticisms of embedded journalism in a military sense could easily still apply to journalists
like me, reporting on arts, culture and social issues.
!
In my time at LAPD, I grew close to its members and organizers. Finding a genuine voice—one
that could criticize the people I had come to love and respect—was difficult. At times my
obligation felt split: was it to the media outlet for which I was reporting? Or was it to LAPD?
The lines grew blurry at times. Ultimately, my obligation was, and is, to the truth. I have
concluded that if a journalist maintains their obligation to the truth, the advantages of embedded
journalism most often outweigh the pitfalls. This, I have found, is particularly true for a
community or culture like Skid Row that has been misunderstood, under-represented, oppressed
and oversimplified.
!
Although they haven’t always been called “embedded journalists,” there are a number of shining
examples, both old and new, of reporters who utilized immersion strategies to produce
meaningful works of journalism.
Nellie Bly, a journalist writing for New York World in 1887, famously feigned a mental illness to
get herself committed to a New York mental health facility, Blackwell’s Island. Her exposé
revealed the horrendous treatment of the clinically insane inside state mental health asylums.
73
of 53 66
! Nellie Bly. (2015). The Biography.com website. Retrieved 02:17, May 26, 2015, from http:// 73
www.biography.com/people/nellie-bly-9216680.
While her reporting was under cover and not exactly embedded, her work is an example of
immersion being used as a technique over 100 years ago.
!
Adrian Nicole LeBlanc’s book “Random Family” documents the lives of teenagers growing up
in the grittiest parts of the Bronx. LeBlanc spent 12 years following the lives of her subjects. She
formed a relationship with their families, recorded hundreds of hours of interviews with each
character, spoke to their neighbors, lovers, drug dealers, kids and acquaintances, and
exhaustively documented her observations. She gave some of the individuals recorders to tape
their own thoughts when she wasn’t around, had them read aloud love letters and even
exchanged notes with individuals who were behind bars. The novel became a detailed, non-
fictional portrait of what it was like to grow up in the Bronx where drugs, teen pregnancy and
gang violence is commonplace.
74
!
In the same vein, Hunter S. Thompson wrote “Hells Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga” and
“Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72.” For “Hells Angels,” Thompson spent over a
year as an honorary member of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang, partying with his subjects,
riding a motorcycle and traversing the country, tape-recorder in hand. For “Fear and Loathing on
the Campaign Trail of ’72,” he invested a year on the road following George McGovern as he
campaigned for the democratic primaries. Thompson recounted his adventures in voluminous
of 54 66
! Robert S. Boynton, “Adrian Nicole LeBlanc,” The New New Journalism [website], Retrieved May 26, 74
2015, http://www.newnewjournalism.com/bio.php?last_name=leblanc
detail and was as harsh as he was humorous. He popularized topics that may have never reached
his counterculture audience otherwise.
!
“G-Dog and the Homeboys: Father Greg Boyle and the Gangs of East Los Angeles,” written by
Celeste Fremon, is another example. Fremon, a Los Angeles Times journalist, spent three years
with Father Gregory Boyle, founder of Homeboy Industries, a rehabilitative non-profit that helps
ex-gang-bangers transform their lives. She immersed herself in the Boyle Height’s barrio to
understand gangland culture with its “Kill or Be Killed” credo.
!
Perhaps the example that most influenced me in my journey with LAPD is Steve Lopez’s “The
Soloist,” a book that grew out of his regular column for the Los Angeles Times. In April 2005, he
wrote about violinist, Nathaniel Anthony Ayers, who had been a music prodigy and Juilliard
School of Music student in New York before suffering a schizophrenic breakdown and landing in
Los Angeles on the streets of Skid Row. While getting to know Ayers, Lopez found himself
increasingly more emotionally invested. He helped Ayers secure permanent housing in the Lamp
Community and took him on a field trip to Walt Disney Concert Hall where he played with the
symphony.
!
As a reporter, Lopez had been taught to maintain objectivity and professional boundaries
between himself and his subjects, so while bonding with Ayers, he openly struggled with
journalistic ethics. He writes about those challenges in “The Soloist” and, at one point, even
questioned publishing the book at all. Ultimately, Lopez decided the story was important to tell.
of 55 66
Since then, he has written dozens upon dozens of columns about Skid Row for the Los Angeles
Times and, in my opinion, changed the nature and content of public discourse about Skid Row in
the press.
!
Hayk Makhmuryan says Lopez’s “The Soloist” is what allowed Lamp’s art program to grow. He
says Lamp saw a huge influx in both physical and monetary donations to the Music and Arts
recovery program at Lamp after Lopez published the book “The Soloist,” and again when the
book was made into a Disney film. The Lamp art program was able to expand its art studio and
build a small recording studio.
These are just a few examples of works written by journalists who immersed themselves in a
culture in order to do in-depth reporting. All of these books were partially published in
newspapers or magazines before becoming books. While the ethics of commodifying such stories
is debatable, the reach and impact of these works was substantial. The articles, books and films
assumably informed, engaged and expanded the public discourse.
!
6.3 Embedded Journalism, By Another Name
!
Robert S. Boynton, a scholar, former journalist and journalism professor at New York University,
believes there is space for a resurgence of immersion journalism. Although this type of narrative-
driven, nonfiction, long-form journalism seemed to disappear for a time, it isn’t new, he says.
75
of 56 66
Robert S. Boynton, The New New Journalism
75
!
In 1973, Tom Wolfe compiled “The New Journalism,” an anthology of works written by authors
who used these exact techniques. In spite of New Journalism’s popularity at the time, Mark
Weingarten, author of the book, “The Gang That Wouldn’t Write Straight” (a book about the
New Journalism revolution), wrote that “less than a decade after Tom Wolfe’s 1973 anthology,
the consensus was that New Journalism was dead.”
76
!
Weingarten blames the apparent 1980s death of New Journalism mainly on two factors: one, that
certain new journalists (primarily Thompson) took too many creative, non-factual liberties with
their reporting that wrecked its reputation as legitimate journalism; second, that magazines “were
beginning the long slide down toward ‘Top 10’ service features and puffy lifestyle stories.”
77
!
This slide is perhaps even more noticeable today with the explosion of the internet and social
media. Time magazine summarized a study by Chartbeat that determined that “one in every three
visitors spends less than 15 seconds reading articles they land on.” Finding a way to engage
78
audiences in important work is even more imperative in this modern landscape.
!
In spite of such statistics, Boynton, points out the recent increase of journalists (like LeBlanc,
Jon Krakauer, Michael Lewis, Eric Schlosser, William Finnegan, among others), who are using
of 57 66
! Robert S. Boynton, “Whatever happened to New Journalism,” Los Angeles Times, January 23, 2005 76
! Ibid 77
! Tony Haile, “What you think you know about the web is wrong,” Time, March 19, 2014 78
similar immersive strategies to their 1960s and 70s counterparts. He calls these writers “new,
new journalists.”
In his book “The New, New Journalism,” Boynton writes, “In the 30 years since Tom Wolfe
published his manifesto, “The New Journalism,” a group of writers has been quietly securing a
place for reportorially based, narrative-driven long form non-fiction. These New New Journalists
represent the continued maturation of American literary journalism. They use the license to
experiment with form earned by the New Journalists of the sixties to address the social and
political concerns of the 19th century.”
79
!
While there are some differences between the old new journalists and the new new journalists
(mainly that the new ones are more drawn to social advocacy) Boynton says that “what they do
share is a dedication to the craft of reporting, a conviction that by immersing themselves deeply
into their subject’s lives, often for prolonged periods of time, they can bridge the gap between
their subjective perspective and the reality they are observing, that they can render that reality in
a way that is both accurate and aesthetically pleasing.”
80
!
Whether one calls this type of reporting “embedded journalism” or “new new journalism,” I have
come to believe that the form has a legitimate, if not critical, place in today’s media sphere.
Reflecting on my time as an embedded reporter at LAPD, I feel the form is especially important
of 58 66
Robert S. Boynton, The New New Journalism
79
Ibid
80
for reporting on social issues that are layered, complex and frequently misunderstood. Cultures
in which people are afflicted, dehumanized or oppressed, need to be investigated and written
about in ways that don’t oversimplify, reinforce misconceptions or further dehumanize.
!
In her book, “Medicine Stories,” cultural activist Aurora Levins Morales writes about how to be
an effective social advocate. She defines a cultural activist as a warrior who does “battle in the
arena of culture, over the stories we tell ourselves and each other of why the world is as it is.” By
this definition, the journalist is a cultural activist.
!
“The reality is that when we are unable to mobilize people on their own behalf, the difficulty is
usually at the level of vision,” writes Morales. “Either we ourselves have been unable to see the
people with whom we are working as fully human, or we have failed to engage their
imaginations and spirits powerfully enough. Cultural work, the work of infusing people’s
imaginations with possibility, with the belief in a bigger future, is the essential fuel of
revolutionary fire.”
81
!
This “revolutionary fire” and new vision is exactly what is needed in Skid Row to overcome
what Lopez called our “lost sense of shame.”
!
Morales says cultural activists need to learn to “bring complexity into places where we are
offered simplistic and shallow explanations; strip artificial complication from the
of 59 66
Aurora Levins Morales, Medicine Stories 81
straightforward; and name and reclaim the connections we are taught to ignore” In order to do
82
this, she encourages cultural activists to tell untold or under-told histories, contradict
misinformation, “dismantle the idea of passive victimization, ”show complexity, embrace
83
ambiguity, personalize and show context (both globally and locally). Quick-fire, “drive-by”
journalism frequently falls short. Embedded journalists, on the other hand, have the time and
access to truly understand the complex communities and cultures from which they report and
seem to have a better chance of meeting Morales’ ideals.
!
Had I not been embedded in LAPD and in the Skid Row community, I would never have earned
the trust of such individuals as Walter Fears who only recounted his story for me after I had spent
seven months with LAPD; I would never have discovered the importance of arts and culture to
Skid Row, which I only really understood after conducting over 50 interviews during the Festival
for All Skid Row Artists and reading Malpede and Jackson’s study, “A Case for Skid Row
Culture.” I would never have uncovered the grassroots culture and “domino effect” Malpede
described, because the connections between organizations took time to see. I would never have
observed the amount of community activism there is in Skid Row or participated in the April
2015 protest with LAPD actors. I would have never discovered the recovery culture that exists in
Skid Row, which revealed itself slowly. I would never have understood how people see their
homelessness as a blessing in their lives, rather than a curse (like Suzette Shaw, Sylvie
of 60 66
! Ibid 82
! Morales expands this idea, saying passive victimization leaves people feeling ashamed and 83
undeserving of freedom. Even under the most brutal conditions, she says, people find ways to assert their
humanity.
Hernandez and Myka Moon who pursued their callings only after becoming homeless). I would
never have refuted the idea of Skid Row as a transient community or discovered how people stay
in Skid Row even when they have an opportunity to leave (like Fears). And I would have not
understood the many complex layers of issues (past and present) that have made Skid Row what
it is today (the containment policy, gentrification, the Safer Citifies Initiative, the “broken
windows” policy, the 1980 closing of state mental health facilities, the recertification process of
people on SSI benefits, the availability of affordable housing and others). In short, it takes time
and access to discover the “Real Deal. ”
84
!
—————
!
In May of 2015, ten years after my first encounter with Skid Row, I sat wearing a cap and gown
in the audience of USC’s Annenberg School for Journalism’s commencement ceremony. The
school’s dean, Ernst J. Willson, said that the real job of the journalist is to “afflict the
comfortable, and comfort the afflicted.” The graduation speaker, international journalist, Jorge
Ramos, echoed, saying, “really good journalists always take a stand with those who have no
voice and with those who have no rights.” I smiled and felt a wave of gratitude for the time I had
spent on Skid Row. As an aspiring “new new journalist,” drawn to immersion reporting and
longform nonfiction, I realized I was on the right track.
!
!
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Bringing the Real Deal to Normalville is the tagline for LAPD.
84
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!
!
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Foster, Franc. Interview by author Danielle Charbonneau. Gladys Park. October 18, 2015.
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102208_Homeless_brochure.pdf
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2015
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Malpede, John. Interview by author Danielle Charbonneau. LAPD Administrative Office in Echo
Park. December 2015.
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!
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c999beb6-53c0-11e4-809b-8cc0a295c773_story.html.
!
Moon, Myka. Interview by author Danielle Charbonneau. Gladys Park. October 18, 2015.
!
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!
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!
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!
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!
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p60-249.pdf.
!
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article_7185ecf8-6683-11e2-999b-001a4bcf887a.html.
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New Journalism Revolution. New York: Crown Publishers, 2006.
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Williams, Anthony. Interview by Danielle Charbonneau. Tony’s loft, Central Ave. & 6th St. Los
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October 18 & 19, 2014
1
LOS ANGELES POVERTY DEPARTMENT www.lapovertydept.org 213-413-1077
By Austin Hines --- Th e Festival for All Skid Row Artists is getting bigger and better every year. Th e community really came together for this two-day art
and music festival at Gladys Park that celebrates the artistry of Skid Row residents. Almost two weeks before the festival, the lineup was fully booked; bands were re-
hearsing for their performances, visual artists were choosing works to display and the crew of LA Poverty Department was ready to produce the 5th annual Festival.
On Saturday, Oct. 18th at 1:00pm, festival veteran Gary Brown, a talented artist and musician with Lamp Fine Arts Program, which partners with LAPD each year
to organize the event, welcomed the crowd with a serenade from his saxophone and the show began. Gary also performed with Skidroplayaz, a group of Skid Row
based percussionists that has acted as the festival’s house band for 5 years in a row.
Gary was the fi rst of over 90 performers who would take the stage that weekend, many who have performed year aft er year. Th e lineup included many dif-
ferent performance styles: poetry, gospel, hip-hop, rock, rap, reggae and folk to name a few. At times, the park even became a hotbed for drama. Dramastage Qum-
ran, a Skid Row based theater company, performed their work “Nailheads, ” a play about homelessness in LA. Th e playwright, Melvin Ishmael Johnson, also helped
to compile stories for another play that was being featured at the festival; “If Th e SHU Fits: Voices from Solitary Confi nement,” a reading of stories from survivors of
solitary confi nement, performed by Rev. Sidonie Smith, Craig Walter, Paula Brooks, Sherri Walker and the festival’s renowned MC, Kevin Michael Key.
Kevin Michael was especially excited to introduce fellow 12-stepper Abbey Williams an employee for the Weingart Center’s re-entry program. Abbey came
to the festival to perform her rap, Recovery Twitch. “I write drug-free raps, ” she said in an interview aft er her performance, “I write music about oppression, and
recidivism. ” Abbey combines her work and artistry into a powerful presentation of experience and skill.
In addition to the many performances, the park was fi lled with visual artists who were displaying their works. Myka Moon and Marvin Anderson, also with
Lamp Fine Arts Program, displayed their artworks and did live easel painting. Myka talked about his work onstage (a new aspect of the event that highlights the
visual artists). “I used to be miserable, ” he said, “painting makes me happy and that’s why I do it. ” He displayed a collage with paintings, drawings, and sketches made
at the previous year’s festival.
Flo Hawkins also took the stage to speak about her work. Formerly addicted to drugs, homeless and living on the streets of Skid Row, Flo painted part of the
mural that still exists on 5th and Crocker Streets. No longer homeless or addicted to drugs, Flo presented her pastel work, a stunningly precise portrait of Al Pacino,
aptly named, Al Pacino. Flo was introduced to the crowd by Offi cer Rich who is famous in the Skid Row community for his kindness and canny ability to calm dis-
turbances during his time working at the County Welfare Offi ce. Offi cer Rich expressed his appreciation for Flo, whom he has known for almost 30 years, and held
Al Pacino high up in his arms. Aft er her presentation she proclaimed, “I was able to get off of these streets and you can, too!” Flo spent the rest of the day drawing
portraits of people for free and Offi cer Rich volunteered, picking up whatever tasks needed to be done.
Both Flo Hawkins and Offi cer Rich have been honorees in Walk the Talk, LA Poverty Department’s biennial parade/performance that honors Skid Row vi-
sionaries and their initiatives. During the festival, an entire section of Gladys Park was dedicated to displaying Walk the Talk artwork. Portraits of the 44 honorees to
date, including eight quilted works by artist Brian Dick and a banner with portraits of the original 36 honorees created by LA artist Mr. Brainwash, hung on the back
wall of the park. Walk the Talk portraits were accompanied by short bios and festival attendees were able to, not only appreciate the current artistic vibrancy of Skid
Row, but also learn about the history of the area and the people who have made positive change on Skid Row, some of whom were right there among the festivities.
Other Walk the Talk honorees in attendance at the Festival for All Skid Row Artists included General Jeff , a Skid Row resident and activist responsible for the revi-
talization of Gladys Park; Manuel “OG” Compito, founder of OG’s ‘n Service, a grass roots organization that cleaned up the streets of Skid Row (since the city was
not doing it); the Founder of Skid Row Photography Club, Michael Blaze, was there taking pictures (unfortunately, his photo printer stopped working so he was not
able to print out pictures for people like he had done the year prior); and Charles Porter, poet and culture bearer and a longtime employee of United Coalition East
Prevention Project (UCEPP), an alcohol and drug prevention program in the neighborhood. Charles performed with Adelene Bertha and DC of the UCEPP Y outh
Group.
It was truly a community event, a hub for the artists and residents to reconnect and appreciate each other’s talents. Artists who performed were given a
t-shirt with the words “Skid Row Artists, ” positioned under a group photo from last year’s event. Th e t-shirts were designed and printed as a donation by the Los
Angeles based clothing company, Love Nail Tree. By Sunday evening, prior to the event closing, Gladys Park was packed with artists wearing those tees, a suitable
way to distinguish the artists from the spectators.
Th e festival concluded with a spectacular performance by the LA Playmakers. A group of eleven rhythm and blues musicians, LA Playmakers was formed
by lead singer Tommy Newman and keyboardist Joseph Warren with members from their church in Skid Row, Th e Church of the Nazarene. Th e LA Playmakers
took the stage and rocked a 30-minute set, playing a variety of tunes, including Pharell’s, “Because I’m Happy. ” During the fi nal minutes of the festival, attendees were
on their feet, dancing and cheering, an apropos way to celebrate the vibrancy of Skid Row artistry and to conclude the 5th annual Festival for All Skid Row Artists.
LA Playmakers
5th Festival For All Skid Row Artists
By KevinMichael Key --- Th e Festival has matured into a recurring community commemoration. It’s our day in the sun, the day when we can shout
out, “I live in Skid Row, and I know something you don’t. ” Perhaps the most refreshing aspect of our “Festival For All Skid Row Artists” is how oft en Skid
Row stakeholders use it as an opportunity to recast the mass media narrative about our lives and our community. Th e Festival has become a forum
for the articulation of the hopes, dreams and aspirations of this community’s collective imagination. When we tried speaking truth to power nobody
listened, at our Festival we live out a self-evident truth that provides its own authentication. For these 2 days, Skid Row gives more than receives, we’re
making this thing happen, showering out love for this place and for each other. Y ou won’t build family housing? Th is place ain’t fi t for children? We’ll
make spaces for families in our Festival. Alcohol over-saturation, lack of sanitation? We can hold each other accountable and clean up behind our-
selves. As Skid Row residents continue to coalesce in our creative space, for the changes they want and need, this Festival takes on added relevance.
JR has been making music for ten
years now. He started rapping in
the eighth grade.
“I sing, I rap, I produce. I make
music. -- I’m a rapper and a mu-
sician and an artist. I’m very cre-
ative and I love what I’m doing. --
I don’t have to be rich and wealthy
to be someone. -- You’ve got to do
something to be something. ”
Crushow: “I’m going to bring
some of my rap talents. I’m an
artist by trade. My whole thing is
fi guring out new ways to express
myself. I try to fi gure out many
ways to express my movement
and my purpose. Th e best way I’ve
fi gured out is through art. Art is a
bridge between lifestyles to bring
people together, and the more
we can come together, the more
conversation we have, the more
change we’ll have. ”
Th omas Green: “I’m a visual artist.
I’ve been drawing and painting.
I also was an entertainer. In my
youth I was a dancer, professional
dancer. -- Well today has been
really good. A lot of people have
gone through all of my pages of
paintings and drawings and a lot
of it is based on African men and
African workers. Th ey’ve been
really very receptive to them. In
fact I brought this pile of business
cards. Th ey are almost all gone. ”
Franc Foster:
“We’re Franc’s Melting Pot -- we’re
the ones that melted the rest of
these people. I run a program
called Music and Arts Recovery.
What we do is, we teach music.
We put instruments in the hands
of those disenfranchised that hav-
en’t played in a while so they can
get their chops back, then put em
in bands and put them in positions
to play. ”
5th Festival For All Skid Row Artists
2
www.lapovertydept.org info@lapovertydept.org LOS ANGELES POVERTY DEPARTMENT PO Box 26190 L.A., CA 90026 213-413-1077
Gary Brown
Brian Sonia-Wallace
Lynn Rossi
Suzette ‘Sassy ‘Shaw
Linda Harris
Jack D. Blesoe
Lee Shult
Earlean Anthony
Andrea Ross
Melvin Ishmael Johnson
Crushow & Artist
Flo Hawkins
Elzie Alexander
Paula Brooks
Rev. Sidonie Smith
Craig Ali / Craig Walter
Dir. Morna Martell
Sherri Walker
Abby Williams
Melzina Smith
Floyd Lofton
Unkal Bean
Elk Ring / Erin Picella
Silkii
Danny “Blacksheep” Singleton
Rodney (Mamo)
Lorraine
Stephanie Bell
Franc Foster
Rey Rodriguez
Kenneth Adams
Alana Marvin
Sage Selah
Randy
Yvonne Michelle Autry
Tight Grip
Donovan Johnson
King Melek Zacharia
Dru-Luv / Andrew Bennett
Paul McCarthy
Big Rob
Harry the Fox Richard
Walter Fears
William Mayo
Zary McDonald Brown
Elvis Mathews
DC - Derick
Adelene Bertha
Quantrell
Charles Wayne Porter
Patti Berman
Norman Curl
Jo Clark
Henriëtte Brouwers
John Malpede
Mark Phillips
Wylie Coyote
Carol Shelly
Rudy Pacheco
Alex Rodriguez
Kirth Martinez
Elvio Ditta
Pam Walls
JR
N’diko
Omar
Khalif
Chella Coleman
Tommy Newman
Bede Wilson
Joseph Warren
Stan Watson
J.D. Smith
Edwin Fountaine
Larry McCrae
Kenneth Christopher
Marlene Adderison
Cece Youngblood
Cynthia Williams
Myka Moon
Larry Cade
Anthony Johnson
Vivian Jackson
Brigitte Chambers
Marvin Anderson
Alex Schaefer
Byron Bradley
Rosa Miller
Matt Miyahara
Christian Najera
Larry -S. Brennan 2nd
Walter Pickett
J - Rizzo
Shakor
Keith L. Jackson
Michael Blaze
Manuel Compito - aka OG man
Larry “Dr. Of Art”
Thomas Green
Jack Bledsoe “Jako”
ALL ARISTS:
Dramastage-Qumran is a non-profi t recovery theater company based out of Skid Row whose
objective is to utilize community theater to reduce violence found in the individual, home,
school and community. Th e company operates both adult and young peoples workshops, as
well as a workshop for veterans at Th e Vortex. Th ey are based on the Community Th eater
Model and the NESONA Model, which is a non-violent confl ict resolution group. Melvin:
“I started off working with LAPD with John and Henriëtte -- started right here -- did our
fi rst workshop at UCEPP called Surviving the Nikel. We’ve been in existence about eight
years. ” “We try to amplify what’s really happening down here in the community, just like
LAPD. ” said Andrea Ross “We tell the stories that come up out of the community that are
relevant to the community, by the community, for the community. ”
At this year’s Festival, Dramastage-Qumran’s Melvin Johnson, Earlean Anthony, Lee Shult
and Andrea Ross presented Nail Heads. Th e script was written based on stories from a Skid
Row workshop. Nail Heads was originally performed at USC in partnership with the Com-
passionate Response to Poverty and Homelessness Group. Melvin: “Th ey collected 80,000
nails to symbolize the number of homeless in the county of Los Angeles. Th ey asked us to
write the script for the play and once they collected the nails they donated them to Habitat
for Humanity. ” Lee: “We had the chance to take Nail Heads to the Staples Center and per-
form aft er a Clippers Game -- I think that was 2010. ”
What is Qumran? Qumran is a plateau in the Middle East known as the hiding place of the
Dead Sea Scrolls. Just as those scrolls uncovered stories that had been buried, Dramastage
Qumran gives voice to the Skid Row community.
Earlean Anthony, Melvin Ishmael Johnson, Andrea Ross, Lee Shult
Myka Moon has lived in the Skid Row community for about two and a half years. He was
homeless, but managed to get housing last month with the help of Lamp. He is now an
active participant in the Lamp Arts Community where he spends much of his time painting,
learning and helping other artists as a volunteer. Moon says art has played a critical role in
helping him survive and recover.
“Th e art project at Lamp kept me sane, ” said Moon. “I had a point when everything was sto-
len out of my tent while I was in it and I went crazy. I was actually forced by my case-worker
to continue the art project. Before I knew it I was in poetry classes, photo classes, art classes.
I found myself calming down. I found myself more open to what was around me. I have
PTSD and anxiety, and I’m introverted. I didn’t like other people. Now look at me. ”
He wanted to be an artist by the time he was nine-years-old, but his parents weren’t sup-
portive. “My family told me that an artist is homeless, they’re burdens on society, and that I
would never make it in life…drugs, welfare, the whole nine yards. Th ey proceeded to trash
my art supplies, ” said Moon. “ At that point it was always pencils and paper and anything that
was small enough to hide in a binder. ” Moon never pursued art, but wound up homeless
anyways. When he found Lamp, he said he wrote his parents a letter. “I said: ‘Y ou told me
this is what an artist was. I managed to accomplish it with no art in my life, so sorry, but I
am going to be an artist. ’ I’ve been happier ever since. Art is healing. It gives you more room
within yourself so you don’t have to hold it all. ”
Two creativity stations were dedicated to re-imagening and
re-designing our Skid Row Community: architect with Skid
Row Housing Trust Th eresa Hwang, Saul and Areol’s station
Our Skid Row and visual artist Faith Purvey’s Build It Up!
Don suggested and sculpted a ‘green energy recharge station’ --->
to be put on many corners. Th ese stations will send wifi signals,
charge any devices with free, solar energy. He also suggested self
automated portable hydroponics. Th is idea is inspired by Tesla.
Unkal Bean:
“Hello world... broad castling live
from Gladys Park. -- I bring the
same thing I bring to the commu-
nity every day: love and respect. I
do everything -- I do music, I do
poetry, I’m a writer. I direct. I com-
pose music. My relationship with
the community is it’s like family. ”
Michael Hubman -- Water Core:
On June 16th, 2006, I drove up to
the corner of San Pedro and 6th
Street with a gallon of water in
one hand and some cups in the
other, walked up to some homeless
people, walked up to some people
that I didn’t even know and said hi
-- thirsty? Like a drink? And that
started eight years of service.
Danny Singleton loves playing fl ute with the SkidRoPlayaz. When he fi rst started playing 36
years ago, Danny didn’t even own a fl ute. He would borrow his sisters and go play alone in his
car in the streets of New Jersey. It wasn’t until his family took a trip to Germany (his father was
in the army), that Danny really fell in love with the idea of becoming a fl autist. “I heard some-
thing with my earphones on the plane — it was fl ute, like a jazz fl ute solo — and that’s when I
got my inspiration, ” said Singleton. “It sounded so good. Th at’s what got me. I swore I heard an-
gels outside the plane! A few months later, in 1979, I bought my fi rst fl ute ever. ” Danny has lived
in the Skid Row Community for 20 years. He is a part of the music ministry team at the Central
City Community Church of the Nazarene where he has been playing for the last seven years.
5th Festival For All Skid Row Artists 5th Festival For Al Skid Row Artists
3
LOS ANGELES POVERTY DEPARTMENT PO Box 26190 L.A., CA 90026 213-413-1077
Abbye Williams works at Weingart Center at their AB-109 re-entry program which started in
2012 for people coming out of the penal system. It’s a supervised, one-year probation that helps
individuals fi nd housing and employment. “It can be an uphill battle, ” said Williams. “I think
that the system is designed to keep people down. I think it’s hard for people coming out of pris-
on: we want them to get a job, but the system makes it very diffi cult to get employment. We want
them to be responsible, but we make it diffi cult for them to have responsibility. ”
“I write Drug-Free raps, music about oppression and recidivism. I came to the festival to share
one of my songs called the Recovery Twitch. I too am a recovering alcoholic and an addict. And
now I work in the fi eld. I am a fi rm believer that the arts can help rehabilitate people. We have a
society of people - a population of people - that are very artistic and very talented. A lot of talent
comes out of the people that stay with us [at Weingart]. So if they have an outlet -- something
like this festival where they can show their talents, I think it does help to rehabilitate them. ”
Jo Clark was a professional, internationally-touring dancer for 20 years with the Natasha Hall
dance company. Her home bases were in Las Vegas, San Francisco and New Y ork, but she’s been
around the world. Her second favorite place to perform is in the Cayman Islands. But the fi rst?
“Skid Row. ” “Th ese are real people -- they’re going to let you know exactly how you are, ” she
said. “It seems like I am getting better now than I was when I was a professional because these
are the critics -- these are the people. ”
While Clark has danced all sorts of styles, she is most well known as a Michael Jackson imper-
sonator. “I mimic him from head to toe, from inside out, ” she said. “I’m a big fan of his of course
-- he was my idol from day one. I remember seeing him in New Y ork at NASSAU Coliseum in
1979. I was so excited. We were in the 7th row and he came to a part of the stage where it was
just he and I -- he actually gave me eye contact. He actually closed his eyes and put his hands
on me -- and to me -- he gave me a part of himself. Ever since then I’ve followed him. Its like he
gave me a piece of him and it has never gone away. He’s more in me now that he’s gone than he
ever was before. His spirit lives on in me because I love him that much. ” Clark hopes her danc-
ing can inspire others. “If I can do something like this, maybe its an inspiration to somebody
else who might want to get up and do something diff erent and totally out of the ordinary, ” Clark
said. ” Everyday life inspires me -- you never know when you are going to get inspiration. ”
Rudy Pacheco sounds a little like Bob Dylan when he sings. He has played guitar at the
Festival for three years in a row. “I’m a soloist I play guitar, I make up my own songs. I
sang a song today related to a poem that I found 40 years ago that I used to sing over in
Venice Beach when it was really packed with a bunch of hippies. -- its kind of graphic
you might say, its called Miss Heroin. Its realistic, it’s truthful of what drugs or alcohol
can take you to. But there is one that is ready to call it if you’re ready to surrender. Doing
the twelve-step program helps me do all that. Th ings have really changed in my life and
I love it. -- I got my voucher to move out of here, but I’m not sure I even want to go
anywhere, or at least not that far, because you know Skid Row’s got a lot of good, loving
people, man, that are just in bondage. Th ey just need a whole lot of lovin’ . ”
Pacheco says he’s in awe of how many talented people live on Skid Row. “Who knows
where they could have been if someone had supported them when their talent fi rst came
out. A lot of us didn’t quite have that support, or maybe we didn’t have the courage or
confi dence. I think there’s a lot of us here is Skid Row that are beginning to let loose that
gift that’s in us - whether it’s acting, writing, drawing, singing - whatever it is: God don’t
make no junk. We’re all gift ed to do something in this world. Th at’s our purpose here. ”
Lynn Rossi is not homeless, nor does she live on Skid Row. Y et, she says she is absolutely
a member of the Skid Row Community - Skid Row changed her life. “Skid Row has
been a healing place for me -- it helped me recover from many obstacles in my own life
and it has been a holy ground for me in terms of being able to express myself. -- Its the
fi rst time I’ve ever really felt acceptance of myself from a whole community, so it really
changed my life in a lot of ways. ” Rossi found Skid Row in 2009 when she was intro-
duced to Michael Blaze of the Skid Row Photography Club. She started taking pictures of
the basketball games in Gladys Park. She’s felt at home ever since. “ A lot of people don’t
know what Skid Row’s about -- they just think its homeless shelters and people living on
the street. Th ey don’t really understand that this is a community. By having these festi-
vals, it really opens up people to the diaspora and variety of creativity that is here. ”
Th is year, Rossi brought a new series of photographs to the festival that tries to recreate
the spirit of moments in African American history. “I take lessons in history and put
a modern twist on them to encapsulate the spirit of the movement, ” Rossi said. “Sure
there’s a lot of wonderful pictures from the civil rights movement, there’s pictures from
slavery times. But what I’m really trying to do is capture the spirit and the energy of
that movement that you never see in history books. I want people to look at my photo-
graphs and say, what does that mean? I want people to question what they see. I want my
photographs to not just be something to look at, but something to educate. Th at’s why it’s
called Evolution of the Revolution, because you’ve got to keep evolving, not revolving.
Walter Fears plays a drum with the Skidroplayaz. Th e Playaz formed in 2009 when a
group of homeless men, mostly drummers, started jamming together in a drum circle on
the street. Th ey have been the house band of the festival since the beginning in 2010.
“We kept getting harassed by the police. When we originally started playing, they felt it
was just noise, ” said Fears. “But the community kind of came behind us to say to them
-- these guys are good for the community, they’re not selling drugs, they’re not drinking.
Th is is the one thing that we have that’s positive, we’ d like you to stop harassing them. ”
Th e trouble escalated, to the point that police illegally seized some of the player’s drums.
Aft er settling a lawsuit out of court, the players got their drums back. While it was
troublesome, Walter says the trial ultimately brought the group closer together. “It really
made us, as a group, more a family, ” said Fears. “Eventually as time went by, they [police]
saw that we were not contributing to the things that make this community ill. ” Since
then, many of the Playaz have found housing. “We have a rehearsal space now. We have
several gigs throughout the year, and we’re in the process of doing some studio work. ”
Walter says for him personally, the band has helped him grow. “I suff ered a severe
physical trauma in 2003 and because of all the prescribed medications and the physical
therapy, I was out there. I was lost. It was through me getting into the arts, painting,
drumming, that I gradually fi lled that void…that whole that was there in my life. When
that void was fi lled, I had nothing but this expression…it comes out in my music, it
comes out in my performances, it comes out in my paintings. It was healing for me, and
it still is today. ”
Th e hospital, envisioned by Chicago and
sculpted by Cassandra, “will inspire you
to heal” and features surfi ng and other
ocean imagery and animals.
about Los Angeles Poverty Department
LAPD’s MISSION: Los Angeles Poverty Department (LAPD) creates performances and
multidisciplinary artworks that connect the experience of people living in poverty to the
social forces that shape their lives and communities. LAPD’s works express the realities,
hopes, dreams and rights of people who live and work in L.A. ’s Skid Row.
LAPD’s VISION: LAPD makes artistic work to change the narraive about Skid Row and
people living in poverty. in doing so, LAPD aims to create a community of compassion,
change individual lives and inspire the next generation of artists.
LAPD’s HISTORY: Th e Los Angeles Poverty Department has been working in LA ’s Skid
Row since 1985, hosting free performance workshops and creating art. LAPD was the
fi rst theater company run for and by homeless people in the nation, as well as the fi rst
arts program of any kind for homeless people in Los Angeles. Our original goals remain
the same: to create community on Skid Row and to amplify the voices of the people who
live on Skid Row, in order to share the lived experience of our company and community
members with the larger city of Los Angeles and the nation.
Festival for All Skid Row Artists is produced by Los Angeles Poverty Department and its community partners Lamp Community’s Fine Arts Program and United Coalition East Prevention Project.
Th is year’s festival is made possible with the support of Th e California Arts Council’s Creating Public Value program ~ CAC’s CPV program is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts ~ the
Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Department of Cultural Aff airs of the city Los Angeles, L.A. County Arts Commission, Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council (DLANC) and Alex Market.
Enormous THANKS TO...
... our expanding group of community partners: Lamp Arts Project, UCEPP,
Amity Foundation’s yearly volunteers, the LA Mission’s volunteers and Union
Rescue Mission helped again with supplies and LA CAN surveyd Black Men &
Boys. Alex Market payed for our lunches, Council District 14 provided tables
and chairs, 4Feeds4 provided delicious meals for 300 folks on Saturday, Love
Nail Tree printed our tshirts, which were provided at cost by Jacob at the Fabric
Planet, Michael Hubman alias Waterman celebrated his 8 year anniversary with
us and Gladys Park chiefs A.J., Chicago, Ron Smith and our volunteers Debora
Hermele, Gabriella Syom, Alexander Th imsporr, Th anh Duc Mao, Gabriela Ma-
ria Aguilar, David Riccardo Bonilla, Magda Wittig, Harout Dermendjian, Melad
Jamal, George Ma, Elizabeth Gordon, Lan Chen, Matt, Kieth Jackson, Nicholas
Maccarone, Nia Fairweather, Danielle Charbonneau and Unoriode Otojarer I.
Coach Ron, OG man and volunteers, providing housing and food on the spot!
And the artists who set up camp at the creativity stations: Kenny “Boog” Sanchez
who lead poetry writing workshops based on hip-hop lyrics, Mindy Look make-
ing jewelry from recycled materials, Matt Miyahara managing the Paper Maché
station, Jen Hofer writing personal letters and poems for anyone who needed
one, Laronva Hartfi eld braiding beautiful fl owers in your hair, Th e Big Draw LA
and the people who invited us to re-imagine our neighborhood: Th eresa Hwang,
Saul, Areol from Our Skid Row and Faith Purvey who Build It Up! Our fi lmcrew:
Helki Frantzen and the whole LAPD crew and staff who made it all happen.
5th Festival For All Skid Row Artists
Find LAPD online:
lapovertydept.org
info@lapovertydept.org
youtube.com/lapovertydepartment
facebook.com/lapovertydepartment
twitter.com/lapovertydept
Call or write us!
Los Angeles Poverty Department
PO Box 26190
Los Angeles, CA 90026
offi ce: 213.413.1077
4
LOS ANGELES POVERTY DEPARTMENT www.lapovertydept.org 213-413-1077
Newspaper designed and edited by Henriëtte Brouwers.
Photos: Austin Hines, Gary John, Carmen Vega, Henriëtte Brouwers, Faith Purvey.
Writers: Danielle Charbonneau, KevinMichel Key, Austin Hines, Henriëtte Boruwers.
Get Ready for Los Angeles Poverty Department’s
6th ANNUAL Festival for All Skid Row Artists
Coming up Saturday & Sunday October 17 & 18, 2015
Th e Festival is 2 aft ernoons of non-stop performances created and performed
by Skid Row talents. We’re talking about performance of all kinds: music, dance,
more music, spoken word, theater and yes even more music. Skid Row visual
artists will display their work and we’ll have visual arts workshops going on, so
anyone can make some work on the spot. If you want to perform or exhibit your
work, contact us anytime between now and October and get a spot at the festival.
Th ere’s always a smiling face behind the counter of Th e Alex Market: Eddie. Eddie was
born in Korea and he has worked in the Skid Row community for almost 13 years. He
worked at the market and he bought the store. He’s seen Skid Row change for the better.
Errol was homeless on Skid Row 12 years ago and used to buy beer at Alex’s Market,
now he works 30 hours a week as uniformed security. Errol moved to Los Angeles from
Jamaica with dreads and a heavy drinking habit, but when he found crack cocaine, his
life took a dive for the worst. He hit bottom on Skid Row and checked into the Midnight
Mission’s recovery program. Th ere he found sobriety and a new beginning. He partici-
pated in the Mission’s security guard training program. When he graduated, Eddie hired
him at the market. “Everybody deserves to get a second chance, you know?” said Eddie.
“We have hired many recovering people. It’s hard to recover. I know that. I take the risk
and give them a chance. ” It doesn’t always work out. “I’ve been hurt many times, ” said
Eddie. “Th ey promise to be sober and then they disappear and in four days they come
up crazy again. It hurts my business, but still I keep trying. If they are in recovery, if they
come on time, I will work with them. Why not?”
Errol has now been sober and employed at the market for more than fi ve years. “He’s
completely recovered, ” said Eddie. “He doesn’t drink or smoke anymore. None of that.
He’s working 5 or 6 days a week now. ”
Errol lives within walking distance from the market and says he loves it. It helps him
remember where he came from. “I’m really happy, ” Errol said. “Life is much better now. ”
Errol just returned from a trip home to visit his family in Jamaica, they had a great time.
It’s the fi rst time he’s been home in 20 years. He didn’t want the family to see what his life
had become, now clean and sober he can go home again. “Life is good, ” he said, before
returning to the back corner of the market to keep stocking the shelves. “He’s a hard-
working man now, ” said Eddie, like a proud brother. Th ey joke around and laugh like
family. “We have a great relationship, ” said Errol.
Eddie hopes he can help other people like Errol in the community. He dreams of starting
a scholarship program in partnership with UCEPP and LAPD to assist people who could
use a little help getting back on their feet. Alex Market has been a continuing supporter
of LAPD and UCEPP . Th e market provided donations for the Festival for All Skid Row
Artists over the past years. Th e story of Th e Alex Market, Eddie and Errol, represent the
part of Skid Row that more oft en than not gets overlooked. It’s called community.
Skid Row’s history and the many people that helped build our commnunity.
Errol and Eddie

Abstract (if available)

Abstract Los Angeles Poverty Department (LAPD) is a nonprofit performance group made up of primarily homeless and formerly homeless actors in the Skid Row community of downtown Los Angeles. For this thesis, the author became an embedded reporter in the Skid Row neighborhood, shadowing LAPD and its members for eight months. This thesis re-tells, examines and analyzes the author’s experiences with LAPD and several of its individual members through a series of vignettes and essays, each examining Skid Row culture, the role art plays in the community and the role of the journalist. In reflection, the author explores the advantages and disadvantages of embedded journalism in producing work that fairly and tactfully portrays the complexities of misunderstood and oppressed communities.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Charbonneau, Danielle (author)

Core Title Skid Row culture: an embedded journalist's exploration of art and community in the nation's homeless capital

School Annenberg School for Communication

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Specialized Journalism (The Arts)

Publication Date 07/30/2015

Defense Date 08/01/2015

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag art,culture,embedded journalism,embedded journalist,Homelessness,LAMP Community,Los Angeles,Los Angeles Poverty Department,OAI-PMH Harvest,Skid row,Skid Row art,Skid Row artists,Skid Row community,Skid Row culture,social activism

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Anawalt, Sasha (committee chair), Blair, Brent (committee member), Page, Tim (committee member)

Creator Email dcharbon2323@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-616163

Unique identifier UC11304026

Identifier etd-Charbonnea-3761.pdf (filename),usctheses-c3-616163 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-Charbonnea-3761.pdf

Dmrecord 616163

Document Type Thesis

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Charbonneau, Danielle

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA