Part Two with Grover McKean, former assistant state treasurer Interview With Political Organizer David I. Shapiro
Bill’s new book is Big Daddy: Jesse Unruh and the Art of Power Politics.
Now on to the pictures. There were some nappy-haired hos at this august gathering. Check out Bill Boyarsky.
Not many people know that Bill and Al Sharpton share the same hair stylist.
Bob Hertzberg puts the moves on Mrs. Zev Yaroslavsky.
And that Kevin Starr. He hit the bottle pretty aggressively (given my Seventh-Day Adventist heritage, I regard two glasses of wine as aggressive, while consuming three — unless it is Passover or Purim — is just asking to be raped).
I wish I could’ve been Bob Hertzberg, sitting up from with Connie, whispering sweet nothings in her ear.
Janelle Wong, head of USC’s Jesse M. Unruh’s Institute of Politics, with poet-publicist Edward Headington Joel Fox, Joel Berman Randall Unruh, professor Randall Unruh, professor Pic Kevin Starr Constance Rice Constance Rice Bob Hertzberg Bob Hertzberg Bill Boyarsky Jesse M. Unruh’s granddaughter Jessie Unruh Jesse Unruh David I. Shapiro, political organizer David I. Shapiro, Faye Doug Jeffe, Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, Mrs. Boyarsky Linda Unruh, Brad Unruh, Bobby Buescher, Corey Bouche Allison Rentel, Grover McKean, Bernie (?) Allison Rentel, Grover McKean, Bernie (?) Allison Rentel, Grover McKean, Bernie (?) Allison Rentel, Grover McKean, Bernie (?) Camera of Death MySpace page.
David Shapiro responds Nov. 16 to my email:
Dear Luke:
I surprised myself, a bit. You did not know it but I have spent 30 years antagonizing those who used to hire me professionally by championing the cause of those who own and operate their own taxis in Los Angeles, and those who lease their and the fleet franchise big wig’s cabs. It is a battle against interests like the organised crime monopolists which my movement in Los Angeles broke through after a seven month battle between December, 1976 and July 1, 1977. For years I was used to standing before the large cameras on the shoulders of camera operators accompanied by their reporters. In recent years I have experienced none of that. So when you approached me, my intent was to touch base with people like Carman Warschaw who knew me well in the old, old days as an operative within the ranks of those who opposed the Unruh wing of the Democratic Party. My dad was an original lawyer for Leo Harvey. Also, appreciating the Boyarsky invitation, I was not sure whether or not I should feel sheepish about my question which I felt was essential in a roomful of nothing but Unruh supporters.
When you approached, it was confusing to me about who you were and why you would single me out in a room-full of luminaries. You pointed a fixed camera and flashed the taking of a picture of me which was also a confusing interruption of my mind-set at the moment. I am so part of the pre-computer savvy generation that it did not enter my mind that you were a combination of tv photographer and accompanying journalist of the past.
What triggered was a result of my long having looked forward to Bill’s book announced to be in the works for years. He was an important figure at the L.A. Times during the height of my taxi organizing, and before that, along with his wife Nancy, as Sacramento bureau chief I think, for A.P. Through Kit Dreyfuss. whose husband had been a distinguished reporter for the Times, I have become acquainted with Nancy and Bill. I would not have been invited but for my relationship with Kit.
My deep interest in the book was a result of my wish to understand the truth behind my "60’s whole-fold immersion in L.A. County’s and California’s politics from my jobs which gave me an opportunity to look closely at how "democracy" and checks and balances were faring amid the perceived terrible threats from fascistic elements in the form of the John Birch Society and organizations like "The Christian Anti-communist crusade" who before my eyes were trying to take over The Palos Verdes Peninsula Library District. When I campaigned in East L.A., well-dressed guys with eagles in their lapels were in the voting areas trying to intimidate people there from reaching the polls. The civil rights movement, and Murrow and team-like reporters of that era, were showing the frightening conduct of sheriffs and their dogs and firehoses. The black-lists and Senator Fritz Burns Red-book and HUAC were ever-present in my parents household.
I sneaked away from my political employment to picket under the watchful eye of mounted sheriffs at the first housing project in Torrance intended to integrate a white bastion. One did not do that if you wanted to be political professional, then. All of this before Otis Chandler, out of Stanford, took hold of the Times, ending decades of reactionary journalism exasperating and worrying folks within the aura of Chaim Shapiro and his brothers Aaron and Abram. Aaron’s son was Academy Award-nominated screen-writer Paul Jarrico, who should have been the Hollywood 11th. His testimony to HUAC, portrayed by Kevin Spacey at his memorable memorial at the Writer’s Guild Auditorium, was always in the house-hold. I visited the Fisher Gallery sculpture garden memorialising the words of many blacklistees before I came to the Peterson Building gathering.
I so much wanted to read a fair and balanced work from Bill. My mad scanning of the book indicated to me, preliminarily, that I was going to be disappointed. Hence, in part, my question. I have yet to read the book. We shall see.
If you have the interest, Google the L.A. Times archives under my name, especially the 1978 article written by Ken Fanucchi (sp?) who literally lived with me and my mother to research his story which got wide distribution. Also note that my mother and I got a huge bemused kick when Bob Scheer’s article in the Times about the history of Jews in L.A. posed my dad’s pic with the moguls and lawyer-barons. His researcher told me that Chaim appeared everywhere as a founder of educational and philanthropic organizations.
You have given me hope that maybe there is a reporter left who might look into the truth of the taxi story, a horrible example of the result of the cowardice of even the most humanistic and progressive politicians. No one, ever, covers the Taxi Commission of L.A anymore. Also there is a recent study by two UCLA professors, Gary Blasi of the Labor Institute and the Law School being one to give you more understanding.
