Cat Lady - Tipi Hedren

In the Founder's Room beneath the Magic Castle in Hollywood, an exclusive club inside an already exclusive club, Tippi Hedren was taking a short break from raising money for her cats to watch some sleight-of-hand at the bar.

It was the The Birds star’s 80th birthday, but Hedren declined cake and any celbratory to-do. Instead, she kept the focus on her cats. Photographs of the lions and leopards of Shambala, the wildlife preserve she founded, lined the walls of the room, leading guests to a table where the actress, back with a calligraphy pen in hand, waited to sign prints for hundreds of dollars a pop. It takes one million dollars a year to keep preserve running, to provide the 400-500 pounds of meat the hungry animals eat daily, to clean them and care for them and keep them on the minds of caring people.

Hedren isn’t your average celeb with a bleeding heart. It’s been said (incorrectly) that Alfred Hitchcok plucked her out of a small town in Minnesota to star in her first film; that her short and strange relationship with the noted, reportedly celibate director ended when Hedren criticized the horror master’s weight (this, after Hitchcock allegedly built a ramp between his trailer and hers and once mailed Hedren's daughter a miniature likeness of her mother lying in a tiny coffin). Marnie, the second film they made together, stalled first on set and then at the box office, effectively ending her career in film.

The actual details of Hedren's tete-a-tete with Hitchcock's Hollywood aren't certain because of years of polite "no comments." I’m re-telling these myths because they are precisely what Hedren has fought to eclipse with her Shambala foundation. Hedren didn't have the career in cinema that she was promised, but the career she found along the way was no less meaningful. Regardless of the path that led her to animal activism, Hedren has committed herself to it fully for almost thirty years. Some give up their passions when they become actors. Hedren seems to have used acting to find hers. Currently she’s working to help pass a congressional bill that would prevent the breeding of wild cats as pets, a surprising immediate and modern problem: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lists the exotic cat trade as a business "just under illegal drugs."

I couldn't think of an octogenarian better suited for this task. Hedren’s fought Hitchcock, forty years of rumors, and Hollywood itself. Surely she can take on Washington, too.

Originally in Los Angeles Magazine

Original Sin - The Confederate Relic Room

Above the mahogany gun rack in my grandfather's house hung a shadow box with a small stack of colorful money that fanned out of a leather wallet. There were fives, tens and 20s, but the numbers printed on the bills were so far removed from any actual value that their previous owner had chosen to frame them as keepsakes. These were Confederate bills, and the South wouldn't be rising again.

The bills had found their way into my grandfather's house past inflation and eventual irrelevance at the end of the Civil War, through Reconstruction and the slow rekindling of the Southern economy. If my grandfather was to be believed, the bills belonged to his great-great-granddaddy, a man who fought for the Confederate States of America, was decorated in combat, captured and held prisoner, and then freed after the end of the war with nothing but a blanket to shelter him as he walked the long miles barefoot back to South Carolina.

This story, I've found, is a common one among many Southern families, and while I'm sure there were a few blanketed ex-Confederates straggling back home after the treaty at Appomattox, I think this story is more to make the descendants of a failed nation state feel a bit warmer toward their great-Uncle Johnny Reb.

The facts themselves are a bit tougher to swallow. South Carolina, the state in which I was raised, quite literally started the Civil War, ratifying the Articles of Secession and punctuating it with cannon fire in Charleston Harbor towards an island fort occupied by the Union. That first battle, as South Carolinians are quick to point out, resulted in only one casualty—a horse. But the implications ran deeper. Union General Sherman famously said in response, " … When I go through South Carolina it will be one of the most horrible things in the history of the world. The devil himself couldn't restrain my men in that state." Sherman eventually burned Charleston to the ground. And the havoc and destruction from that first declaration of war and rebellion crept all the way into my childhood one century later.

We took elementary-school field trips to see grown men re-enact battles on the fields outside of Middleton Plantation. We studied the relics in the medical tent and imagined life as young amputees. We wrote reports on the men encamped outside a war zone, ready to lead the charge. Fantastic words like "hard tack," "submersible," and "grape shot" invaded our vocabularies. That all of my Social Studies classes spent months on their Civil War sections made sense to me: It is a war that is still being fought.

And it's not just fought by costumed re-enactors. I'm still fighting with it, too.

My grandfather told me another story about my family's past, one that's told a lot less frequently than the Reb-in-swaddling-clothes myth, so I fear it’s true. There's no easy way to say it: My family owned slaves. Some great-Aunt far down the line kept about a dozen African slaves on her small plantation outside of Florence, South Carolina.



Much of me didn't want to know. I ran away from this truth as swiftly as I ran from the South, first to Michigan, then to California. I studied African-American history, praised Malcolm X and affirmative action, tried to deny and to forget. I called for South Carolina to remove their Dixie flag from the capitol building as swiftly as I had removed the traces of an accent from my voice, to the annoyance of my Southern family. But still the guilt remained.

Penniless after the war, my family moved inland to work on the canals cutting through the capital, Columbia. In 1949, they opened a small, open-air market near their home and began selling fireworks. Twice each year, I make the journey back to South Carolina to sell gunpowder with my family. But much of my time is spent in the fireworks store—my sight of the South was limited to trips to the import warehouses and hardware stores. This year, I was determined to stare down the South I had been ignoring, to confront the past I didn't want to acknowledge.

Seeking the source, I headed to the Confederate Relic Room in the basement of the SC State Museum. I was expecting a small room with a few glass cases, curated by an old lady wearing an antebellum dress. The receptionist, who wore a bob hairdo and a Christmas sweater behind a large desk, looked like she hadn't seen anyone remotely interested in the War in a long time. She waved me inside with a free admission.

What I got inside was more of an actual museum—filled with writing, quotes, exhibits, mannequins, artifacts and relics of all kinds. It wasn't a scattershot collection. This was how the people of South Carolina chose to officially remember the war. From the inscription at the opening of the exhibit hall:



"As the birthplace of secession in 1860, South Carolina stood as the very embodiment of Southern martial spirit, pro slavery and states' rights politics, and resistance to federal authority. Because of its leading role in forming the Confederacy, South Carolina was also a special target of vengeful Union armies, especially in 1865, leading to the dark time of the state's post-war era."



The museum had a lone display case on slavery. It was filled with paperwork, ledgers with prices listed next to names in perfect calligraphy. The display made sure to note that not all slaves worked for free, but neglected to emphasize that they didn't have much of a choice in the matter either way. Iconic photos of slaves weren't shown. The only artifacts of slave life were two bronze identification tags, listing number 231, a male, and 294, a female.

Another exhibit told stories of the revelry in Columbia that followed the signing Articles of Secession. A jubilant citizenship set off canons and made bonfires. "Firecrackers exploded in the street." I saw echoes of myself in the face of an unnamed soldier pictured next to the exhibit. I saw my family of a century earlier, shooting fireworks to celebrate a document that would unravel a nation.



And I hoped that the fires that burned Charleston and made worthless the bills above my grandfather's gun chest also cleansed me of this original sin. I prayed for it to be so, and for forgiveness.

Originally in SpliceToday at: http://www.splicetoday.com/writing/original-sin-the-confederate-relic-room

Buy This House

Let's get this out of the way: Yes, you can buy a house in Los Angeles and pay less per month than a bland two-bedroom in Culver City. But this isn't a late-night TV infomercial. There are catches. It can be excruciatingly hard work. But it is possible. I'm doing it. I'm buying a real house in Los Angeles for $164,000.

A small introduction: I've been in Los Angeles for two years. In that time, I've spent a total of $24,000 on rent on a tiny apartment, my half of a two-bed, two-bath in West Hollywood. I loved my apartment; it was home. But I was tired of scraping by. No matter how modest my lifestyle, $1000 escaped from my bank account on the fifth of every month, never to return.

And it wasn't like I thought buying a house was a possibility. The cute bungalows one on my street started at $870,000. I began to accept the possibility I would be living in an apartment well into old age; the only home in my future would be a retirement home.

Then this global financial meltdown happened and everything changed. I admit, it's a lot easier to be flippant when I have nothing at stake, no home equity worth half what I paid. But even those hit hardest by this bursting bubble can admit that the market was overvalued. When you're buying a house, you have to keep these people in mind. Your gain comes from their loss.

My goal was to find a house where the monthly payments would leave my roommate and me paying no more than half of what I was paying before. $500 a month to own your own home is possible. Here's what you need:

First, a willingness to leave the Westside. If you're hoping to pay about $500 a month to own your own home, there are some places you just won't be able to live. Forget West Hollywood, Santa Monica, Venice Beach, Echo Park, and Silver Lake. Forget Culver City, and Koreatown too.

To find the real deals, you're going to have to go to the South or the East. Explore West Adams, Crenshaw, Westmont, Florence-Graham. Drive out to East L.A. on Cesar Chavez and wonder why you've never explored Boyle Heights, City Terrace or Monterey Park.

There are good blocks and bad blocks of each of these. Some that wind up on the news and some that rival the most pristine the Westside has to offer. With all of the foreclosures in these areas, young, motivated people like you are ready to move in. Remember, Echo Park and Silver Lake were once considered "rough."

My advice is to look for a house in East L.A. The Metro Transit Authority gave the people East of downtown a golden present in November: a brand new subway line. The Metro Gold Line connects East L.A. directly to Union Station and runs throughout the city. Taking the subway to work every day? Count me in.

Find a relative with better credit than you. Unless you've paid off your car and student loans and kept a credit card paid off throughout college, your credit is probably undeveloped. You might have to have a co-signer to apply for the home loan with you. They won't have to front the money for the down payment or help pay for the loan, just vouch that you can make monthly payments. Maybe reserve this one for mom and dad. They trust you.

Find another relative with some cash to spare. You've already asked enough of this first family member. All you need for the down payment on a loan from the Federal Housing Administration is 3.5 percent down. This works out to be about $5000. I know this seems like a lot, but keep in mind that most people save for years for a down payment. All you need is just one favor from a wealthy uncle.

Even better, you can pay him back quickly. Because this is probably your first house, you'll qualify for the first-time homebuyer credit. This is an $8000 credit added to your 2010 taxes. Whatever you don't owe the U.S. government in April, you get to keep. Pay your uncle back over the summer and put the rest towards fixing up the house. Or, if you're feeling generous, give him some interest on his loan.

All you need to do is submit a copy of the HUD-1 statement from your closing. It needs to be in your name (not your co-signer's). You need to have a binding contract in by May 1, 2010 and have closed on the house by the first of July. Plenty of time.

Choose a bank, get pre-qualified. This takes about 15 minutes, and can be done over the phone. The pre-qualification is a bit of an estimation given your yearly income, credit score, rough savings and down payment amount. This isn't an actual pre-approval for a loan—to get one of those, you have to go through an underwriting process which, to the credit of banks everywhere, is a tougher process than it was a year ago (you have to submit two years of tax forms and prove your income).

But a pre-qualification is still important. With any luck, you'll get the paperwork started for a low-interest Federal Housing loan that'll stay at a fixed rate for the life of the loan (usually 30 years). Once you have a pre-qual, you'll have an idea of how much you can spend. The fun part is coming up …

Start searching for houses! A realtor can help with this, but if you just want to check out the repossessed homes on the market in L.A., try this tip: You can see all of the properties that Bank of America now owns. You can use this tool to research listings, get a sense of prices around a specific area, and (perhaps the best tool at your disposal) check Google Street View. Go to www.bankofamerica.com and click on "Mortgage." In the top, right-hand corner, there should be a search bar. Type in "REO" and hit "Search." After you input your state, search by “County” and set your results per page to around 100. This brings up a list of all of the repossessed homes owned by Bank of America. Find the list of homes in L.A. County and you've got a great head start in your search.

Also, you'll want to consider getting a buyer's realtor. These guys are different than the ones who rep houses (usually called "listing agents"). They'll work with you to find the house you want in the area you want, usually with more sophisticated search tools than you'll be able to find on public house listing websites. Watch out for realtors who seem too pushy or too eager to get you into the first house you find. The good thing is that you'll see many more houses this way.

Here's what to look for: First, interior photos of the house. If there aren't any, there's a chance that the house isn't vacant—it's been foreclosed on by the bank and the original occupants are still inside. This makes it impossible to get a loan on the house; the occupants won't allow an appraiser inside, so the bank won't lend.

Second, check the neighborhood on Google Street View. Pay close attention to the homes nearby. Look for graffiti. Check if there are any schools or parks nearby.

Third, if you're really interested, drive by the house yourself. After you get a feel for the neighborhood, take a trip to the local police station. As a matter of public record, the officers have to disclose if there were any recent crimes in the area. Don't be scared off by petty theft (I had $5000 of camera equipment stolen out of a locked garage in West Hollywood, of all places). But there's no need to be too cavalier, either.

Here's what you need: Once you've found a house, it's time to call everyone together and put in a bid. To bid on a house in California, you need a few more things. First, with every bid, you need to put a small amount of money down to prove that you're serious about the full bid. This is called an Earnest Money Deposit or EMD. Usually, it's between $500 and $1000 in a check made out to "Escrow."

Next, you need a copy of a bank statement showing you (or your uncle or whomever) can cover the down payment and the closing costs. These can include a home inspection, property taxes, and the fees for your realtor. Then, you'll need that pre-approval from your mortgage broker. Expect this one to be a bit more thorough than your pre-qual.

You'll need some luck, too. But keep in mind, no matter how much pressure you feel from your realtor, this is still a buyer's market—especially in the sub-$200k listings. If you miss out on one home, there will be another. Just keep trying.

Here's the Catch. As you'd imagine, all of this stuff is much easier said than done. The more people you involve, the more people you'll have to corral (and argue with) when it comes time to close on your new home. A small list of the people that you'll need to add to the favorites on your cell phone: Your mortgage broker, your co-signer parents, your wealthy uncle, your new roommate, your realtor, your accountant…

The final word. This is a lot of work. But you can do it. And there's some more good news—even besides the $8000 tax credit and all the money you'll save on rent. Banks have a policy of not foreclosing on families over the holidays. In 2010, a wave of newly-repossessed homes are going to come on the market. So start hunting!

Originally in SpliceToday at: http://www.splicetoday.com/consume/buy-this-house

We Got It For Cheap - The 99 Cent Only Store

On February 7, 2007, Andreas Gursky's 99 Cent II Diptychon became the most expensive photograph ever sold, fetching $3.3 million at auction. Reporters delighted in the irony of this news—the cathedral of high art illuminating the bargain basement of shopping.

True to its price, the photograph is enormous: shoppers wade through a red sea of product labels and ads across two enlarged frames, displayed vertically (creating a Diptychon). Gursky, famous for taming compositions most photographers would consider too busy, captured cleanly the endless repetition that can overwhelm those seeing the 99¢ Only Store for the first time.

And yet, Gursky's focus on the waves of uniformity from the packaging in the snack aisles caused him to overlook the store's most natural and unwieldy department—the produce section.

East Coast readers familiar with the Family Dollar and Dollar Tree chains may have a hard time believing this, but California residents can pick up groceries in their neighborhood dollar store. Now, I'm not talking about freeze-dried, knock-off snack sticks (though these are readily available). I mean produce: Spinach and Romaine hearts, broccoli and snap peas, eggplant and red peppers, cartons of raspberries and Portobello mushrooms, kiwis (six for a dollar) and tiny avocados (three for a dollar). My crowning achievement was a full Dole pineapple, bought stem and all for only 99 cents.

Newcomers, most of them expecting single-ply toilet paper and cheap, plastic toys, tend to approach the groceries with outward hesitation.

In a recent trip to the store, I watched one of these newcomers observe a regular customer casually add a bag of nectarines to her shopping basket. The newcomer, a young woman who moved with the lethargic speed of someone who had been living on Ramen, slowly made her way towards the produce section. She paused, perhaps asking herself the same tough questions that I had on my first visit: Where does all of this food come from? How can it be sold for one third of the price of a supermarket super sale? Is there some kind of fell-off-the-truck hucksterism going on?

At first, everyone wants to know the answers. A good friend of mine, Food Network blogger Eric Kahn Gale, was skeptical when I first introduced him to the store. He told me he was expecting "a lot of crap in there, stuff you have very little interest in buying," but the price slowly won Eric over. His disbelief turned into a nervous sort of joy as he filled his shopping basket, the total only coming to $12.

But the questions remain: how do they sell all that produce for only 99 cents? With all honesty, I can say this: I don't want to know the truth. Chalk it up to this annoying, child-like gullibility I can't seem to shake. Looks too good to be true? Looks pretty good to me. And yet, this time, I feel like I haven't been duped. This time, my confidence is grounded in fact. Kind of.

First, it's a matter of grading. The produce at every supermarket in America has been graded by the USDA. These grades are pretty comprehensive and wide-ranging (the latest proposed rules cover Beet Greens). Right now, I'm reading the1954 document titled "United States Standards for Grades of Carrots with Short Trimmed Tops." It covers firmness, color, leaf-stem quality, and size down to an eighth of an inch. Fascinating.

Chances are, you've never had to think about the grading of your veggies because most all of the food in major grocery chains is graded U.S. No. 1. Stock boys take great pride in their perfect produce pyramids, and a lot of that perfection is down to unblemished uniformity. The buyers charged with choosing inventory simply won't settle for anything less than the highest grade.

So the farmers with completely edible (though not quite so glamorous) Grade 2 vegetables and fruit are left with truckloads of unsellable goods. Their avocados might be a bit smaller, their oranges might have one too many navels, and their potatoes might not be perfectly ovoid. But the only major-market buyer who will consider them is the 99¢ Only Store.

These major-chain supermarket buyers also have to shop for consistency. What happens if your neighborhood grocery store runs out of milk? Or eggs? Each grocery store recruits a vigilant team to ensure that they never have to find out the answer to that question. And yet a trip to the 99¢ Only Store is more of a grab bag; you never know what's going to be in stock. You could come home with pasta, fruit, bread, and milk, though it's best not to plan a recipe around any specific ingredient.

But what if you don't care about recipes? What if you don't care if your carrots aren't a shocking shade of orange? Or if your bell peppers aren't the size of votive candles? Well, then, welcome to the faithful flock of the 99¢ Only Store. You too can focus on the ripe and overlook the spoiled.

So the kiwis may be prime to eat only for a few days after purchase. Or they may not be prime for weeks. Sure, some of the name-brand salad dressing may be three months away from expiration. But, whether bought from a farmer or snuck from a salad bar, lettuce inevitably browns. Potato chips turn stale. I'm willing to make concessions.

But what about those unanswered questions? As my girlfriend reminds me, I'm willfully ignorant because I'm unwillingly poor.

A few months ago, in commemoration of their near-namesake date, 9/9/09, the 99¢ Only Store gave away nine weddings for the low, low price of, yes, 99 cents.

The wedding ceremonies took place in aisle 9 of their Hollywood store on Sunset Blvd. from 8:09 to 9:09 AM. Looking at photos  from the event, the brides look somewhat shocked, all of them standing in a single row, all of them wearing gowns crafted from items sold at the store.

I highly doubt that any of them, in their childhood dreams of marriage, would have pictured exchanging their vows next to eight couples, stuck in a discount store. But I'd also bet that some of their surprise came from a different place, of living in a moment that's far too good to be true.

Originally in SpliceToday at: http://www.splicetoday.com/consume/we-got-it-for-cheap