Speaker 1: You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2: Mark Thompson Here, it is Sunday.
Speaker 3: It feels kind of like almost tropical ot It's got
Speaker 3: like a humidity to it. The mugginess is something that
Speaker 3: I remark on only because we're not super used to it.
Speaker 2: But it's a big day all across the board.
Speaker 3: A lot of sports going on today, as you know,
Speaker 3: and it is Pride Day. And even if you're not
Speaker 3: participating in Pride activities, you are affected by Pride activities
Speaker 3: because they've blocked off a bunch of streets in West Hollywood,
Speaker 3: streets in LA and that's going on through the afternoon.
Speaker 3: So we'll keep you posted on all the different ways
Speaker 3: in which you can get from here to there because
Speaker 3: they have been modified because of the huge parades and
Speaker 3: the huge events around Pride going on all around the city.
Speaker 3: I just got back from Alaska, and I will tell
Speaker 3: you that it is something you already know, probably a
Speaker 3: terrific place to visit. I mean, even if you haven't
Speaker 3: visited there, you've seen pictures. You've seen pictures of the whales,
Speaker 3: the eagles, the glaciers. It's just a terrific thing to
Speaker 3: put on your list, and to whatever extent you can
Speaker 3: adventure into the various stops along the way. You know,
Speaker 3: one of the ways in which you can see Alaska,
Speaker 3: of course, is on a cruise ship and some kind
Speaker 3: of boating vessel can get you from here to there,
Speaker 3: because it's just hard to of course, very hard to
Speaker 3: drive it, and flying it can be a challenge as well.
Speaker 3: So the nice thing is that when you go out
Speaker 3: on any of these excursions, which we did, you experience
Speaker 3: some of this amazing wondrous wildlife and I I include
Speaker 3: the trees and the fauna and all of that. You
Speaker 3: walk through it, and it's just that the areas in
Speaker 3: which all of these different things thrive, it's just green
Speaker 3: and changing, and particularly now as the snows and ice
Speaker 3: fields melt away and retreat, you are left with a
Speaker 3: different window on nature. And now you have more in
Speaker 3: the way of whales and eagles and bears and salmon
Speaker 3: because the salmon run now, of course, with the melting
Speaker 3: of the snow and rivers and streams becoming elevated, becoming
Speaker 3: fed by all of that, the salmon uses those increasing
Speaker 3: waterways to swim and spawn, and you end up with
Speaker 3: all of the predators who depend on the salmon for survival.
Speaker 2: Those are the bears, those are the eagles, etc.
Speaker 3: And so I'm just saying, the whole place comes to life,
Speaker 3: and I recommend it for all Americans. It's crazy way
Speaker 3: we ended up in Alaska, you know, I mean, just
Speaker 3: I'm talking about Americans owning Alaska.
Speaker 2: It was Russian.
Speaker 3: The Russians owned Alaska, as you know, and they literally
Speaker 3: pounded the only resource they felt Alaska was good for,
Speaker 3: which was sea otters. They pounded that out of Alaska.
Speaker 3: They literally hunted every last sea otter in Alaska.
Speaker 2: And it's an amazing thing.
Speaker 3: It's the thing that we've done as humans, you know,
Speaker 3: across any number of species. But the Russians did it
Speaker 3: when they had Alaska as part of Russia. They were
Speaker 3: hunting the seattters for pelts. I mean, that was the
Speaker 3: big thing. You know, you saw those guys in those
Speaker 3: old pictures. They're walking around with shoulders full of you know, fur,
Speaker 3: of dead animals who were full of Furrussians literally hunted
Speaker 3: sea otters to extinction. There were no more in Alaska,
Speaker 3: effectively none. So the Russians all of a sudden felt like,
Speaker 3: well we don't see a lot more here.
Speaker 2: Really that was their position.
Speaker 3: It was, I don't know, we got like the best
Speaker 3: thing here that you can get. And so when the
Speaker 3: Americans came along, the offer on the table looked good
Speaker 3: to the Russians, and they sold Alaska this is you're
Speaker 3: probably aware, for seven million bucks. So we see the Americans,
Speaker 3: we acquire Alaska for seven million dollars, and what do
Speaker 3: we find So soon after that sale, what do we
Speaker 3: find there? Gold and gold, minerals, oil, all of that,
Speaker 3: not to mention timber, all of it has been exploited
Speaker 3: through the years, and you've seen an increase and a
Speaker 3: decrease in these minor towns across Alaska. They're still there,
Speaker 3: A lot of them are set up for tourists, you know,
Speaker 3: but there's still a sense of what existed. And so
Speaker 3: the Alaskan history, and I'm leaving out the Native peoples,
Speaker 3: I mean the native people. They still are there in Alaska,
Speaker 3: albeit having been bumped out by a lot of development
Speaker 3: by you know, essentially bumped out all the way by
Speaker 3: a lot of development.
Speaker 2: But there are still.
Speaker 3: I guess I would call it monuments to the Native peoples,
Speaker 3: and they participate in the maintaining and also the increasing
Speaker 3: of the awareness of the Native people's history. So if
Speaker 3: you go there as a tourist, you see this everywhere
Speaker 3: and it's very much a part of the landscape of Alaska.
Speaker 2: Now I recommend it.
Speaker 3: We had a great, great time and as I say,
Speaker 3: if you have it in you to you know, jumping
Speaker 3: rubber raft, which is what we did, and there were
Speaker 3: just six of us in this raft and we went.
Speaker 3: It was a very cold day, but wow, what a
Speaker 3: wondrous experience to be out there in it, you know.
Speaker 3: And as I say, it's only getting in the next
Speaker 3: month or so, even more crowded with wildlife because of
Speaker 3: the salmon. So I got back then from Alaska, just
Speaker 3: got back and I attended the birthday party. And this
Speaker 3: is something maybe you can relate to. I'm you know,
Speaker 3: when I relate a story to you, I always think
Speaker 3: we can somebody else relate to this, Like it's not
Speaker 3: I hope it's not too you know, self indulgent to
Speaker 3: relate this story, but maybe you'll be able to relate
Speaker 3: to this. I went to this seventieth birthday party of
Speaker 3: a dear friend of mine, very talented, a comic named
Speaker 3: Bobby Slayton. So I was. I was in Beverly Hills
Speaker 3: getting my hair darkened for it. You know, they get
Speaker 3: rid of what the gray hair. There's not a lot
Speaker 3: of gray hair. Everybody, Okay, settle down, but it's a
Speaker 3: little bit. Although the colorist is I guess she's called.
Speaker 3: Said to me, Mark, would you like a maybe we
Speaker 3: leave a little bit of gray in? Would you like
Speaker 3: us to do that just to you can have it?
Speaker 3: I said, I never want to hear you say that
Speaker 3: ever again. If it's an open casket at my funeral,
Speaker 3: I want you to make sure the hair is dark.
Speaker 3: I want to be and I am the aging guy
Speaker 3: with the hair that's too dark for him. Anyway, that
Speaker 3: was in Beverly Hills. Now the way back to the car,
Speaker 3: I pass this store called Club Monaco. It's kind of
Speaker 3: one of these bougie stores that's on the corner, I
Speaker 3: want to say it like Brighton and Beverly. And in
Speaker 3: the window is a suit, kind of a linen suit.
Speaker 3: And I thought I can wear this suit to Bobby's birthday.
Speaker 3: So I go in. I try the suit on and
Speaker 3: it really looks good, you know, and I don't normally
Speaker 3: I'm not out there buying suits all the time.
Speaker 2: You know, this is like I thought.
Speaker 3: I thought, I want to try to look good seventieth
Speaker 3: birthday sit down dinner. I mean, you know, so I
Speaker 3: do the whole thing quickly. I'm not big into trying
Speaker 3: on clothes. I just don't like the whole thing. I
Speaker 3: don't not a good shopper that way. Just let's do it.
Speaker 3: Does it fit great, Let's buy it. And then I
Speaker 3: said to the guy, please cut off all of the
Speaker 3: tags and stuff because I'm gonna wear it to this
Speaker 3: dinner tonight. And he said, of course, I'm gonna take
Speaker 3: off the the store detector thing. I said, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: I mean all the tags please. He said, okay. So
Speaker 3: I didn't pay any attention to it. He puts the
Speaker 3: thing in the bag. And you know where this is coming.
Speaker 3: You know that where this whole thing is ending up.
Speaker 3: I go to the event. I put on the jacket
Speaker 3: to the suit, which I have yet to really put on.
Speaker 3: It was hanging on a hanger in the car. And
Speaker 3: the first thing I see on the back of the
Speaker 3: jacket is what the store detection device, the thing you
Speaker 3: can't get off unless you've got you know, the store
Speaker 3: detection device remover machine.
Speaker 2: So that's there, and then.
Speaker 3: I see that there are other things that he's left on.
Speaker 3: I mean, the guy didn't The only thing I asked
Speaker 3: him to do was take these things off. So I
Speaker 3: can take off the other stuff before I walk into
Speaker 3: the party. But I can't take off this store detection
Speaker 3: machine thing, you know what I'm talking about, the thing
Speaker 3: that they leave a fixed to every item so that
Speaker 3: when people walk off, it sets off the alarm. So
Speaker 3: now I'm really you know, I'm doing that thing where
Speaker 3: I'm not letting people see like the back of my jacket,
Speaker 3: because it's so embarrassing. And I vow to go back
Speaker 3: the next day and plan and I'm I'm really angry
Speaker 3: about this, but I'm I'm not a shower, and I'm
Speaker 3: not a you know, it's I'm kind of a but
Speaker 3: I'm I'm steaming on the inside.
Speaker 2: I go back and the guy isn't there.
Speaker 3: It's a different guy, and I said, Hi, I was
Speaker 3: there yesterday and I bought this suit, and I'm telling
Speaker 3: him the whole story, and he says, wow, I'm really
Speaker 3: sorry to hear that. I can see, you know, I
Speaker 3: can see that he's left it on there, let me
Speaker 3: take it off for you, and I said, yeah, I
Speaker 3: appreciate if you're taking it off for me now. But
Speaker 3: the event I was talking about, and I indicated to
Speaker 3: the salesperson that I was going to be going to
Speaker 3: that event happened last night and it was very embarrassing,
Speaker 3: and I wondered if you can make some kind of adjustment,
Speaker 3: I mean store credit or something. I mean, this is
Speaker 3: really you know And I said, it just like that,
Speaker 3: and he said, I can see where it would frustrate you.
Speaker 3: We just don't do that. We don't do any kind
Speaker 3: of store credit. I said, really, I mean, you know this,
Speaker 3: this seems like a real screw up. Wouldn't you want
Speaker 3: to do something if you're the store to make it right,
Speaker 3: I asked him. He said, yeah, yeah, I'm just not
Speaker 3: We just don't do it. I mean maybe we should,
Speaker 3: but we don't. He said, if you want, I'll let
Speaker 3: you return it, which we also don't do typically, while
Speaker 3: you guys don't.
Speaker 2: Do a lot. But I said, well, I like the suit.
Speaker 3: I just feel as though you'd want to do something
Speaker 3: to kind of keep me as a customer. He said, yeah,
Speaker 3: I don't know. He said, I'll give you an eight
Speaker 3: hundred number, he said, But to be honest, I don't
Speaker 3: think they're going to do anything like all right, and
Speaker 3: that was the end of it. So now my debut
Speaker 3: appearance of my new linen suit, complete with the store
Speaker 3: detection device on it, has passed. No store credit, no adjustment.
Speaker 3: Maybe you can relate to this. Have you been in
Speaker 3: a situation like that where you go go back You're thinking, Hey,
Speaker 3: this is a perfectly reasonable thing that I'm asking you
Speaker 3: to do.
Speaker 2: I'm asking you to make this right. Give me a.
Speaker 3: Twenty dollars, twenty five dollars, fifty dollars something. This is
Speaker 3: a higher end store. Nothing, it's the new America. It's
Speaker 3: to screw you America. Anyway, It's great to be back.
Speaker 3: That's a little something on Alaska and that one store.
Speaker 3: Be sure that they take off your tags. That's all
Speaker 3: I would say to you. We have a great show ahead.
Speaker 3: A best selling author, Bottom of the Hour, The Great
Speaker 3: Man is the new book from Kira Davis Lori. It's
Speaker 3: a it's a historical novel. It's set in Los Angeles.
Speaker 3: That's why I think it'd be so great to talk
Speaker 3: to her about this today. Matt Nicky and Robin All
Speaker 3: on the scene. We'll get in tomorrow.
Speaker 4: As we continue, you're listening to KFI AM six forty
Speaker 4: on demand.
Speaker 3: Mark Thompson hanging out Sunday after noon. It's a Pride
Speaker 3: Day and their Pride activities all around LA. Mostly who
Speaker 3: for a lot of this stuff West Hollywood rich ties
Speaker 3: to the LGBTQ community, of course in West Hollywood. One
Speaker 3: thing I would mention is, I'm seeing some pictures and
Speaker 3: videos and somebody actually sent me a video of dogs
Speaker 3: that were taken to the parade. There's nothing wrong with
Speaker 3: that except for the fact that a there might be
Speaker 3: noise that might affect them in some way I don't know.
Speaker 3: But more to the point, as the temperature is kind
Speaker 3: of warm, make sure that there is water along the route.
Speaker 3: The complaint from the person who sent me the video
Speaker 3: was you can tell these dogs are thirsty, you know,
Speaker 3: tongues out, breathing heavily, and there's no provision that they
Speaker 3: can see for them to be able to rehydrate to
Speaker 3: get water. So that is what's happening in Pride Land.
Speaker 3: But with that one warning that if you're going, please
Speaker 3: be warned. Doesn't look like there's a lot of water
Speaker 3: out there, of course along the parade route, and it
Speaker 3: would be cool if you could provide some water for
Speaker 3: your animal.
Speaker 2: And speaking of that, the.
Speaker 3: Piece that ran in the La Times was really really troubling,
Speaker 3: and there's.
Speaker 2: Even a.
Speaker 3: Video out of Coasta Mesa showing a volunteer at a
Speaker 3: pet rescue dragging a dog on the street in Coasta Mesa.
Speaker 3: The dog walker is dragging this limp dog on a
Speaker 3: leash in front of the Priceless Pets No Kill Pet Rescue.
Speaker 3: The Coasta Mesa police de barment was reported reportedly contacted
Speaker 3: Priceless Pets that they're looking into it and they are
Speaker 3: quote taking immediate action, but the statement goes on, this
Speaker 3: is not who we are, this is not the standard
Speaker 3: of care that we stand for, and the volunteer apparently
Speaker 3: has been dismissed from the rescue. The piece that I
Speaker 3: was talking about the La Times, though, is about the
Speaker 3: shelter in LA and the animal shelters in LA that
Speaker 3: are controlled by someone who's just left. Stacy Danes about
Speaker 3: a month into her job overseeing the La City animal shelters,
Speaker 3: an employee apparently defied her. In the first month, she
Speaker 3: asked the employee to clean a kennel, and instead the
Speaker 3: employee picked up a hose and sprayed a dog in
Speaker 3: the face, according to Stacey Danes. Danes thought that the
Speaker 3: employee should be fired, but the city's personnel department recommended
Speaker 3: five days of leave. Now Mayor Karen Bass hired Stacy
Speaker 3: Danes in June twenty twenty three, promising to make La
Speaker 3: a national model for animal welfare. I mean, there have
Speaker 3: been problems around the La animal shelter system. Dogs live
Speaker 3: in these overcrowded, dirty kennels. Volunteers have been complaining animals
Speaker 3: sometimes don't get food and water. Dogs and cats are suffering,
Speaker 3: and they're suffering more as staffing issues reemerge. But this
Speaker 3: interview with Stacy Dames in the La Times, she says
Speaker 3: she felt powerless to solve these entrenched problems that include
Speaker 3: severe understaffing, employees who mistreat or neglect animals completely. She
Speaker 3: said she was repeatedly told by the personnel department, which
Speaker 3: functions kind of like a human resources department, that she
Speaker 3: couldn't fire employees. She clashed with one of the unions
Speaker 3: that represents shelter employees. She even reached out to La
Speaker 3: County prosecutors for help at one point, apparently so as
Speaker 3: the overcrowding gowers, dogs and cats are euthanized in numbers
Speaker 3: that just would make your skin crawl more and more,
Speaker 3: even under her watch, as she was there to reform
Speaker 3: the whole thing. She's saying, now, we need to tell
Speaker 3: the unfiltered, unvarnished truth about what is happening in the
Speaker 3: LA shelters.
Speaker 2: This is her speaking.
Speaker 3: After a little more than a year as Animal Services
Speaker 3: general manager. She went on paid leave and then she resigned,
Speaker 3: So she's saying the series the city just simply does
Speaker 3: not provide enough funding to meet the basic needs of
Speaker 3: the animals in the six shelters that the city runs,
Speaker 3: and there have been real problems with money. Right during
Speaker 3: Karen Bass's first year in office, because of a lot
Speaker 3: of critical reporting from the La Times and others about
Speaker 3: conditions in the shelters, the mayor offered an eighteen percent
Speaker 3: budget increase, less than the fifty six percent increase that
Speaker 3: Animal Services had asked for, But then her budget proposal
Speaker 3: lowered in the department's final funding in the following fiscal year,
Speaker 3: and in passing.
Speaker 2: A budget now.
Speaker 3: With a billion dollar shortfall, Animal Services doesn't get an increase,
Speaker 3: but doesn't get any cuts. So Stacey Danes again, the
Speaker 3: former head of these shelters, brought in by Karen Bass.
Speaker 3: She's held these jobs running shelters in San Jose and
Speaker 3: Long Beach. She says that the employees are becoming desensitized
Speaker 3: to the suffering of the animals they witness. A day
Speaker 3: after day, five hundred dogs have to be handled, cleaning kennels,
Speaker 3: setting up adoptions, working with the medical team. There's a
Speaker 3: lot to do, so she's seeing even abuse of the animals,
Speaker 3: and that's perhaps one of the most disturbing things I
Speaker 3: read in the piece. She said she witnessed some of
Speaker 3: her employees terrorizing dogs by banging on their kennels or
Speaker 3: spraying them with water to move them back. She told
Speaker 3: employees to stop that behavior, but some said they'd been
Speaker 3: trained to treat the dogs that way. She wanted to
Speaker 3: start a schedule the tract when each task was done
Speaker 3: that had to be done at the shelter, but a
Speaker 3: union rep said that the information could be used to
Speaker 3: punish employees and push back on it. And then she
Speaker 3: dropped that proposal because of the opposition from the union.
Speaker 3: And then there's gossip and then there's pushback from employees
Speaker 3: supervisors with sexual relationships with subordinates. I mean, it's so
Speaker 3: going on and more and more. You just want to
Speaker 3: see these poor creatures that end up in these shelters
Speaker 3: treated with some dignity. So she's beaking up. The LA
Speaker 3: Times shared a lot of her thoughts in today's La Times,
Speaker 3: and the number of dogs euthanized at city shelters from
Speaker 3: January through September last year went up. Can you guess
Speaker 3: how much it went up? Seventy two percent. Seventy two
Speaker 3: percent more dogs were euthanized at city shelters than with
Speaker 3: the same period the previous years, and the number of
Speaker 3: dogs entering the shelters is going up each year, but
Speaker 3: the number put to death far outpaced the number of
Speaker 3: dogs entering the shelters. There's no euthanasian policy, and they
Speaker 3: created a euthanasia policy during Stacy Danes's tenure.
Speaker 2: But as I say, she has resigned.
Speaker 3: It's a full on five alarm fire in the LA.
Speaker 2: Shelter business.
Speaker 3: So the LA Animal Shelters watch this space will give
Speaker 3: you more as it becomes available, but nothing good is
Speaker 3: happening in that world. When we come back set in
Speaker 3: Los Angeles. Her latest. She is a best selling author.
Speaker 3: Her latest is called The Great Man. Man is spelled
Speaker 3: m ann. We'll talk about this piece of historical fiction
Speaker 3: set right here in Los Angeles with the author Kira
Speaker 3: Davis Lourie. We'll do it next right here.
Speaker 1: You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 3: Mark Thompson here, I'm so excited to have a best
Speaker 3: selling author in the midst here with a book that
Speaker 3: takes place in Los Angeles. It's set against the backdrop
Speaker 3: of Los Angeles. The Library Journal already saying that her
Speaker 3: nuanced and sympathetic characters and stellar writing are nearly as
Speaker 3: brilliant as in The Great Gatsby. Wow it is. It's
Speaker 3: pretty amazing that you got this from Bloomberg. Bloomberg chooses
Speaker 3: your book as one of the ten best books of
Speaker 3: the summer. How about it for Kira Davis LORI and
Speaker 3: The Great Man, which is your new book, Bravo.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: Man is spelled m A n N And it's being released.
Speaker 3: I think is it next week that it's released?
Speaker 5: Tenth? Yeah, right around the corner.
Speaker 3: So tell me about where it's set, because in a
Speaker 3: part of LA that is sort of very different now
Speaker 3: than it was.
Speaker 6: Yeah, the area is called West Adam Heights and right
Speaker 6: now there's the Ten Freeways right through it, but that
Speaker 6: did not that wasn't.
Speaker 5: Always the case.
Speaker 6: So West Adam Heights was Los Angeles' Beverly Hills before
Speaker 6: we had Beverly Hills.
Speaker 5: So all the la aristocracy lived there. And then the
Speaker 5: stock market crashed.
Speaker 6: And as the thirties wore on, people discovered it was
Speaker 6: actually really expensive to keep up your mansion, right, so
Speaker 6: they had to sell. But the only people who were
Speaker 6: able to buy at that time were the newly wealthy
Speaker 6: African Americans. So you had African American oil tycoons, hoteliers,
Speaker 6: business moguls, and then the Hollywood movie stars and they
Speaker 6: started buying up these mansions. And Hattie McDaniel was one
Speaker 6: of the people who lived there, and she would throw
Speaker 6: these gala parties where her guest list would include Bing Crosby,
Speaker 6: Clark Gable, Lena Horne, Duke Ellington was her entertainment and right,
Speaker 6: I mean, so it was extraordinarily Gatsby esque, which is
Speaker 6: why I took the framework of the Gatsby and said
Speaker 6: it in this real world.
Speaker 5: That was right here in Los Angeles.
Speaker 3: Apparently it's amazingly successful, this narrative. So this veteran who
Speaker 3: is your main character, arrives back in nineteen forty five
Speaker 3: Los Angeles to this area and figuring there'd be a
Speaker 3: fresh start, this affluent neighborhood that you describe, and then
Speaker 3: take us through a little bit of what he encounters.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 6: So, Charlie Trammel, he is he was in World War
Speaker 6: Two and he's just come back to his home in
Speaker 6: He came back home to his home in Virginia, in
Speaker 6: rural Virginia where his family was sharecroppers. But as what
Speaker 6: just was the case, as with the case in at
Speaker 6: the end of World War One, black veterans were not
Speaker 6: treated well, particularly in the South.
Speaker 5: There was a lot of violence and abuse.
Speaker 6: And he decides that's the stock going to work, and
Speaker 6: he has a cousin who he hasn't seen forever, who's
Speaker 6: in Los Angeles.
Speaker 5: He's like, yeah, come on out here. Lots of opportunity.
Speaker 2: This is good.
Speaker 6: He goes out and discovers it's not just that she's
Speaker 6: doing okay, she's living the life. Okay, you know, she's
Speaker 6: coming out. She's got diamonds in her ears. She's driving
Speaker 6: like the nice car. You know, she's got clothes that
Speaker 6: look like they were designed just for her. And you know,
Speaker 6: when he knew her, I mean she left young, but like.
Speaker 5: She's his cousin.
Speaker 6: This was this was a sharecropping family, so he doesn't
Speaker 6: really know the full trajectory. And she married this guy
Speaker 6: who's living up in West Adam Heights, which had been
Speaker 6: nicknamed at that point LA's sugar Hill. So he gets
Speaker 6: brought into this world from the sharecropping world and as
Speaker 6: well as the the drama and trauma of World War Two,
Speaker 6: into this world of black luxury that he didn't know existed.
Speaker 6: And he's seeing, you know again movie stars. And one
Speaker 6: of the things really interesting for him with the black
Speaker 6: movie stars is, like a lot of African Americans of
Speaker 6: that period, there was a lot of mixed feelings about
Speaker 6: their black movie stars because they were taking these roles
Speaker 6: that were really stereotypic, typical, and frequently demeaning.
Speaker 3: Sure, the servant the exact yeah, of course.
Speaker 6: Right, you know, they were the they were there to
Speaker 6: be subservient and the butther of the joke, you know.
Speaker 6: And then he meets these people and they're the they's
Speaker 6: so the dichonag between them and the characters they play
Speaker 6: is gigantic, right, I mean, as he meets Louise Beaver's
Speaker 6: who was a huge star at the time, less known
Speaker 6: now by the time, she was as big as Hattie McDaniel,
Speaker 6: and she played roles that, you know, these plaintive roles
Speaker 6: of you know, these the the servant, the main occasionally
Speaker 6: occasionally the slave, right you know, And and she in
Speaker 6: reality she was.
Speaker 3: This.
Speaker 5: She has a three story house.
Speaker 6: She's you know, makes a point like, I don't touch
Speaker 6: the kitchen. That's not my job. My husband's gonna have
Speaker 6: to do that. She smokes cigars, She has poker games
Speaker 6: every Sunday up on the third floor, right, you know,
Speaker 6: I mean, she loves being first row at the boxing Max.
Speaker 6: And he says, it's like it's the same She has
Speaker 6: the same voice and the same face, but a completely
Speaker 6: different spine than what I've seen on the screen.
Speaker 3: So it's he's just so he can't like he's trying
Speaker 3: to reconcile these these two.
Speaker 5: Worlds exactly exactly.
Speaker 6: And what's really one of the things I found so
Speaker 6: compelling about that that community is Charlie was not again,
Speaker 6: he was not alone in having mixed feelings about the celebrities,
Speaker 6: the black celebrities. In fact, the black business elite generally speaking,
Speaker 6: really resented.
Speaker 5: The black celebrities because they felt.
Speaker 6: They were undermining their own social progress, that these images
Speaker 6: that we were seeing on the screen were demeaning the
Speaker 6: entire race, and there wasn't a lot of sympathy for
Speaker 6: the position that.
Speaker 5: These actors were in.
Speaker 6: They were genuinely trying to open doors, right, but the
Speaker 6: opportunities weren't there for better roles. And for instance, when
Speaker 6: they did get better roles, those roles were frequently thanks
Speaker 6: to the Hayes Office, which was a censorship office, the
Speaker 6: parts that showed them, that showed their agency were taken
Speaker 6: out like that was not acceptable. And so even when
Speaker 6: they accepted roles that they thought, oh, this is the
Speaker 6: role where I get to show my strength, then it's
Speaker 6: literally in a movie that Louisse Beaver's was in Imitation
Speaker 6: of Life. Someone from the Hayes Office wrote and said,
Speaker 6: looking at this script, it would appear you don't seem
Speaker 6: to see how these the black servants don't want more
Speaker 6: than being a black servant, that they want to be independent.
Speaker 6: Surely I know that you must be wanting to show
Speaker 6: that they are happy with their place in society, but
Speaker 6: it's not coming through, so you need to adjust the
Speaker 6: script right exactly exactly so.
Speaker 5: But there wasn't sympathy for that in the black communities
Speaker 5: or in the black business elite.
Speaker 2: And that's interesting.
Speaker 3: So even within this affluent world and Black America's flourish
Speaker 3: in this way, and your main character is coming from
Speaker 3: this place where he just can't believe all these black
Speaker 3: people are doing so well. But even within that community
Speaker 3: there is this conflict. They're the business people and then
Speaker 3: there's show people.
Speaker 2: The show business.
Speaker 3: Hold that thought. I'm because it's interesting. You have to
Speaker 3: research all this as a writer, you know, getting the plot,
Speaker 3: finding your main character that's going to run through this
Speaker 3: entire world. You have to research that world because it
Speaker 3: is historically based your novel, right, Yeah, So I want
Speaker 3: to talk to you a little bit about that, and
Speaker 3: you know about what La was like it was the
Speaker 3: mid nineteen forties.
Speaker 5: Right ninety five.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I want to get to again the books called The
Speaker 3: Great Man, and I do want to mention Kira if
Speaker 3: you want to meet her. There is a series of
Speaker 3: upcoming events June tenth, at Romans in Pasadena.
Speaker 2: They always have great events there. They just do such great.
Speaker 3: Yeah, June eleventh Diesel a bookstore Santa Monica, another great spot.
Speaker 3: And then June nineteenth Chevaliet Books in Los Angeles. Again
Speaker 3: the tenth, the eleventh, and the nineteenth Romans, Diesel and Chevalier's.
Speaker 3: All that information I think is on your website is
Speaker 3: it's kid.
Speaker 5: Davis Kiridavisluriy dot com.
Speaker 3: Ciadavislivery dot com. I knew you when you were Kira Davis.
Speaker 3: Then you married an esteemed director.
Speaker 2: Rod Lurie. He's very creative, also very talented guy.
Speaker 5: He loses a lot of money to you in poker.
Speaker 3: That's that's not the way I usually live it. But
Speaker 3: it's a lot of creativity under that roof of yours.
Speaker 3: So that's great. Kira Davis Lourie. We continue the book
Speaker 3: Is the Great Man and more.
Speaker 4: As we continue, you're listening to KFI AM six forty
Speaker 4: on demand.
Speaker 2: What's it is a Pride Day.
Speaker 3: The traffic is being reworked and that will continue for
Speaker 3: the next few hours. We're talking to Kurra Davis LORII.
Speaker 3: Kira Davis Lourie is a best selling author her latest
Speaker 3: is The Great Man m A Double n She has,
Speaker 3: you know, book signing, and I would imagine they'll read
Speaker 3: probably from the book as well at these events June
Speaker 3: tenth at Romans and Pasadena, June eleventh at Diesel in
Speaker 3: Santa Monica, and June nineteenth at Chevaliet's Books. It takes
Speaker 3: place in the nineteen forties, and again it's historical novel,
Speaker 3: and this is your first piece of historical fiction, I think, right,
Speaker 3: it is. Yeah, And so you had to research this
Speaker 3: period of the mid nineteen forties and this part of LA,
Speaker 3: this affluent black community made up of, as you suggested,
Speaker 3: show business performers top of their game and the business
Speaker 3: elite top of their game. These are real people. This
Speaker 3: is a real place existed in LA in the mid
Speaker 3: nineteen forties. Two things, were there things that surprised you?
Speaker 3: First of all in your research? And also was there
Speaker 3: stuff in there that you didn't get a chance to
Speaker 3: include in the book.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so, so much of it was surprising. For one thing,
Speaker 6: you have to think of how people's feelings and their
Speaker 6: view and the lens they saw Los Angeles through was
Speaker 6: so different in good and bad ways.
Speaker 5: One of my characters John Alexander Somerville.
Speaker 6: He was the first African American to graduate from USC.
Speaker 6: He had a dentistry degree and the top of his
Speaker 6: class and opened up a huge luxury hotel and YadA YadA.
Speaker 6: But he wrote not a biography, and in it he
Speaker 6: talks about how Los Angeles, yes there's racial problems, but
Speaker 6: we're so much more enlightened than the majority of the country.
Speaker 6: For instance, you don't see the race riots in Los
Speaker 6: Angeles that you see in other parts of the country,
Speaker 6: and which was true when he wrote that book.
Speaker 2: But like, but if you can always take around a
Speaker 2: little bit right.
Speaker 6: Exactly, it's like, oh wow, this is like such a
Speaker 6: different kind of viewpoint of of what LA is right.
Speaker 3: What was schene by the way, and just in general
Speaker 3: in California, there's a change of open of an acceptance.
Speaker 3: I don't know to what extent. That's just sort of
Speaker 3: a brand that we have in California. How much of
Speaker 3: it is really true, Yeah, but it's interesting that there
Speaker 3: was real, his real sense, palpable sense of it back
Speaker 3: in the mid nineteen forties.
Speaker 6: He was I mean, he well, he was a very
Speaker 6: he was a very optimistic man, and he definitely saw
Speaker 6: he saw the opportunity. He felt like if you just
Speaker 6: talked to people, were reasonable with them, things would progress.
Speaker 6: And that was frequently his experience. Now, it is also
Speaker 6: true that Los Angeles, a California in general, but definitely
Speaker 6: particularly Los Angeles, had a lot of what they called
Speaker 6: racial covenants. About eighty percent of Los Angeles, the apercent
Speaker 6: of the homes of Los Angeles had a covenant on
Speaker 6: them saying that the only people who were allowed to
Speaker 6: live in those homes were white people. Yeah, and the
Speaker 6: only and if you were black, the only way that
Speaker 6: you were allowed to live in the those homes was
Speaker 6: if you were a servant to white people and so,
Speaker 6: and that included the homes in West Adam Heights. So
Speaker 6: there was actually in the book at details there was
Speaker 6: a lawsuit from the white neighbors who were trying to
Speaker 6: get these people kicked out of their homes because of
Speaker 6: the racial covenants on there.
Speaker 2: So wow, Yeah, in battle to their own neighborhoods.
Speaker 6: Exactly, exactly, And that's and it's sort of an interest
Speaker 6: again talk about economies. You have these people in Minx
Speaker 6: who are on the verge of being homeless because of
Speaker 6: people trying to kick them out of their homes. So
Speaker 6: it's it's based on race and nothing else. And at
Speaker 6: that time, the racial covenants were considered legal, so it
Speaker 6: was it was a real battle and that really started
Speaker 6: to be honest, not with African Americans. It was a
Speaker 6: push against the Chinese residence of the turn of the
Speaker 6: twentieth century in California, and then it just sort of
Speaker 6: moved ethnic group.
Speaker 5: Yes, exactly, exactly exactly.
Speaker 2: What and what's what?
Speaker 3: What part of this world that your researched in that
Speaker 3: mid nineteen forties world, in that neighborhood that you described,
Speaker 3: that's the backdrop for this book, The Great Man? What
Speaker 3: what would you have liked to include that you couldn't Okay, So.
Speaker 6: The Hattie McDaniel, she was mammy and gone with the wind.
Speaker 6: They had the premiere in a Georgia Atlanta theater. It
Speaker 6: was a segregated theater, so she was not allowed to
Speaker 6: attend the premiere.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's so many of those kinds of stories exactly.
Speaker 6: So they had this big premiere and just to put
Speaker 6: an exclamation point on the whole thing, they brought in
Speaker 6: a kid's choir that they kind of dressed up in
Speaker 6: rags and they were it was a black kids choir
Speaker 6: and they were going to sing and it was supposed
Speaker 6: to be like the slaves of the plantation South for
Speaker 6: this white audience and like to entertain them before in
Speaker 6: that choir. One of the kids in that choir was
Speaker 6: Martin Luther King Jr.
Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah, what a fact?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: What a fact?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 2: How did you discover that that was?
Speaker 5: I mean when I was so that's again, it's document.
Speaker 6: When I was researching Hattie McDaniel looking through all the
Speaker 6: materials of that premiere, I mean, that was in there,
Speaker 6: and I'm like, but but nobody in nineteen forty five
Speaker 6: knows who Martin Luther King Jr.
Speaker 2: Is.
Speaker 5: I can't include it. I can't include it.
Speaker 6: It's like, so it doesn't But but how much did
Speaker 6: I want to?
Speaker 2: Right? Somehow?
Speaker 5: Exactly?
Speaker 2: That's wild.
Speaker 3: That's so true though, when you immerse yourself in a
Speaker 3: time period, you can't just jump out and go, hey,
Speaker 3: by the way.
Speaker 6: Right, it's nice j MLK and the yeah, and they're
Speaker 6: going to be like, I'm sorry who So yeah, it's
Speaker 6: and there was so much like that, and it was
Speaker 6: really it was really a challenge for me choosing what
Speaker 6: to include and what just was ended up sounding like
Speaker 6: a lecture.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 6: It's like I want you need to just be entertainment
Speaker 6: and so but there was like all of this extra
Speaker 6: stuff that I learned. I wish I could just sort
Speaker 6: of pack in there, and you can't.
Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly. And by the way, you know, it's like
Speaker 5: there's no but.
Speaker 3: It's got to be a good ride for your reader,
Speaker 3: That's what I mean. Obviously you're a best selling author.
Speaker 3: That's what you've been true to and that ride for
Speaker 3: the reader. The great Man. So your character in the
Speaker 3: last couple of moments that we have, your character does
Speaker 3: get into this world and again after military service, and
Speaker 3: I think falls in with I was just reading about
Speaker 3: the book I have to get into the book falls
Speaker 3: into with some not so savory characters.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, okay, so I do have a gas b
Speaker 6: esque character, right, So James quote unquote reaper Man, right,
Speaker 6: Reaper is his mo like her that nobody uses to
Speaker 6: his face, right, and it's he clearly has extraordinary wealth.
Speaker 6: He is like Hattie throwing huge gala events, except even bigger.
Speaker 5: The neighborhood.
Speaker 6: Both the business moguls and the Hollywood elite are a
Speaker 6: little nervous about this guy, because they don't really know
Speaker 6: where he came from or where his money came from.
Speaker 6: And they're already battling for their homes, so they don't
Speaker 6: really need any extra controversy that he may be bringing in.
Speaker 6: But Charlie is really drawn to him, and he's very
Speaker 6: kind to Charlie, and the parties are amazing, and so
Speaker 6: he sort of gets wrapped up in his world too, of.
Speaker 5: Just a little bit of like.
Speaker 6: Mystery, the hint of maybe something nefarious, but you don't
Speaker 6: really know, right And and of course, as in Gatsby,
Speaker 6: it turns out that he is truly in love with
Speaker 6: Charlie's cousin, who the one who brought him out.
Speaker 5: So that's yeah, so so yeah.
Speaker 6: So you know we got and she is married, so
Speaker 6: you know, there's the love triangle, there's like the who
Speaker 6: is this guy? And there is also the clash of
Speaker 6: the two communities and the court case and everything going on.
Speaker 3: Oh that's terrific. There sounds like there's so much in
Speaker 3: this book. The great Man Kira Davis LORII, Hey listen again.
Speaker 3: I encourage you to meet Kira and participate in one
Speaker 3: of three events. June tenth at Romans, They do great
Speaker 3: stuff in Pasadena. You can meet Kira, she'll sign your book.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and that's at seven, by the way, seven pm,
Speaker 5: so come after work.
Speaker 3: Oh great, Okay, good, it's a nice evening event June
Speaker 3: eleventh at Diesel a bookstore that's at sixth that's at
Speaker 3: six in Santa Monica and Chevalier's Books in LA on
Speaker 3: the nineteenth.
Speaker 2: What time is that?
Speaker 5: Six six thirty? I think six thirty.
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, you can check the website. Kira is k
Speaker 3: y R Kira Davis, l u r E. Kiradavisluri dot
Speaker 3: com has all the information again Romans, Diesel and Chevalier's
Speaker 3: The book is out June tenth, The Great Man. It
Speaker 3: takes place right here in La. There's a Hollywood connection
Speaker 3: and La as most of us had not seen it,
Speaker 3: I mean in the mid nineteen forties. You know, I've
Speaker 3: learned more about La in the nineteen forties in this
Speaker 3: conversation with you than I ever knew. So you're so
Speaker 3: cool to stop to the studio.
Speaker 5: Thank you, Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 3: Give my best to your your husband. I absolutely it
Speaker 3: was also a very talented guy filmmaker. I hope his
Speaker 3: next work comes out soon and we can talk to
Speaker 3: him as well.
Speaker 5: It's going to be amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks Kira.
Speaker 3: When we come back, we have everything on the docket
Speaker 3: and it includes and this is something we're going to
Speaker 3: want your input on, a pet bereavement counselor you know
Speaker 3: this is true. There's a new book out about essentially
Speaker 3: getting you through the pain, the literal pain you can
Speaker 3: feel emotionally when you lose a pet, a companion animal,
Speaker 3: And we'll talk a little bit about that and with
Speaker 3: her about her new book.
Speaker 2: That'll be at the bottom of the next hour.
Speaker 3: Also, it's goodbye to Inside the NBA their last night.
Speaker 3: We'll play the mic Drop moment for you next
Speaker 1: KFI AM six forty on demand