Life is just one damned thing after another. I observed in my most recent edition of the Malibu Times that your renowned reporter Dany Margolies’ name could not be sighted. Why? It wasn’t in the death notifications. I didn’t have a chance to say ciao.

I keep in mind a few years ago, at the Seattle Special Olympics, nine contestants, all physically or mentally disabled, assembled at the starting line for the 100-yard dash. At the gun, they all started out, not exactly in a dash, but with a relish to run the race to the finish and win. All, that is, except one little boy who stumbled on the asphalt, tumbled over a couple of times, and began to cry. The other eight heard the boy cry. They slowed down and looked back. Then they all turned around and went back. All of them. One girl with Down syndrome bent down and kissed him and said: “This will make it better.” Then, all nine linked arms and walked together to the finish line. Dany was one of those people who made life just a little bit better. She helped Malibuites surface.

Deep down, Dany knew what matters is more than winning for ourselves. What matters in this life is helping others win, even if it means slowing down and changing your course. So, to ex-Malibu Times reporter Dany Margolies, wherever your course in life takes you, will be missed.

And that is all I have to say (sure).

Tom Fakehany

The L.A. Times calls it one of the best rock ‘n’ roll albums ever produced. Newsweek magazine said the group’s music set an unmatched standard. Rolling Stone talks about the myth and legend of the great American outsider band, and, MOJO, a top music magazine of Great Britain, claims that Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band’s re-released “Safe as Milk” album from the ’60s remains “a towering achievement, an avant-garde pop masterpiece.”

These comments come 30 something years after the tracks had been recorded during a cult resurgence of the album that introduced the songwriting talent of Malibu writer/actor Herb Bermann to the world. Four record labels, among them BMG, are distributing the re-release of what is now a rock ‘n’ roll classic CD.

“Captain Beefheart and I hooked up in 1966,” recalls Bermann. “I was a poet. I was an actor on the run. I had done Kildare and Asphalt Jungle, the TV series, and I decided I could write.

“I lived on the Sunset strip where the best music was happening,” he continued. “As all writers do, I had a trunk of fragments of work and poems and inspirational whatever.”

Bermann describes the writers of that time in a direct line with the beat poets of the ’50s, breaking all the rules. He is quick to point out that during that time they were not writing for the fun of it.

“We weren’t recreational writers,” he said. “We were politically involved in a difficult time. We were in an unjust war in Vietnam and we wanted to comment on it. We wanted to make a difference–we did.”

Bermann is passionate in his belief that the greatest songwriting in this country occurred during the late sixties.

“I’ve collaborated with a lot of other artists and bands since then,” he said. “It’s been satisfying but we never reached this level.”

Bermann’s success with Beefheart put him on the map as a writer. He then drew on contacts from his decade of work as a television actor and moved into a new form of writing, the screenplay.

“The first job I did won me a Writers’ Guild Award in the early ’70s,” Bermann said. “It was for a Sunday night mystery movie on NBC for Universal.”

Even more important to Bermann was the fact that the script, about a terminally ill golfer struggling with breaking the news to his family, influenced public awareness.

“When an artist does something, he has no idea what kind of life of its own that piece or work is going to have,” he said. “You just do it and they pay you and you go home and hope that you’ll work again. Portions of that script were recorded into the Library of Congress, influencing a pilot program in oncology to help terminal patients and their families.”

Bermann has lived in Topanga Canyon for more than half his life, for 35 years. A New Jersey native, he was strictly pavement before he found his home in Malibu.

“I wake up and there’s deer gazing out my bedroom window,” he said. “The birds start singing at about two-thirty in the morning. I didn’t get that off Columbus Circle in New York.”

Bermann’s creative life is as natural as his surroundings.

“For me it was never a business,” he explains. “The problem is you have to write about something. In order to write about something you must be moved or touched to touch others. You pick a form, there are boundaries within that form.”

For Bermann, there is delight in the recent attention around his resurrected artistic achievements of the past. There is reverence for the opportunity to write in any form. His direction is clear.

“If you’re really a seeker and a spiritual survivor, if you really recognize your own self as a work in progress, it’s the journey and not the destination,” he said. “Where I’m going is, if there’s a story to tell, I’ll tell it to the best of my ability. The human experience is so full of magic, mystery and wonderment that a writer worth his or her salt will never run out of stories.”

You’ve seen them around the shopping centers sitting at the tables collecting signatures for the ballot initiative they call “The Right to Vote on Development Initiative.” Some of them are volunteers, but more of them seem to be paid by an outfit out of Santa Monica, which hires and trains people to collect signatures for initiatives. I talked to several of the collectors, one of whom told me they make about $9 to $10 per hour. In fact, she gave me the company’s name and phone number and the person to call because I told her a little white lie and said I had a kid looking for a summer job.

On a whole, the paid collectors didn’t seem to have any particular ax to grind. They thought it was an environmental measure and had memorized a little pitch to help get signatures. Really nothing surprising, because that’s the way modern initiative politics is practiced in California, which is one of the reasons it’s so expensive to get a statewide initiative onto the ballot. It’s considerably easier in a city, especially a small city like Malibu, to get something onto the ballot because it only takes 10 percent of the registered voters, and 15 percent to authorize the City Council to call a special election. Last count we had 8,500 registered voters in town, which means they only need 1,275 signatures to make the 15 percent, and they apparently achieved that easily. They turned in 2,370 signatures as confirmed by the city clerk. N ow it goes down to the Registrar of Voters for a check of the names against the voter rolls. Although probably some of the names will be disqualified, it’s fairly clear there will be more than enough, with plenty to spare.

At City Hall Monday I talked to some of the initiative people who were very excited and happy just after the numbers were announced. The next item on their agenda is to try and compel the City Council to put the initiative onto the November ballot. Although no one would admit it, the attempt to get it on the November ballot is because there will also be a race for City Council at that time to fill the rest of Harry Barovsky’s uncompleted term. I suspect they see this initiative as part of a coordinated campaign to get themselves back into political power after their loss this spring.

Several things were clear in talking to the group. It was clear that they are a group of people committed to stopping, if not all development in the Civic Center, at least as much as they can. Several seemed to recognize that in the last election Walt Keller and Carolyn Van Horn may have just overstayed their welcome and the election became one about personality. They want to try and refocus the issue on what they see as the environment.

They obviously want to move as quickly as possible and keep it as simple as possible: “Are you for or against the environment?”

The other side, and the battle lines are not yet clear as to exactly who that is, is going to want to take a long hard look at the initiative. It has some very broad language that some think impacts not just new construction, but also every existing commercial building in Malibu. They see the initiative as enormous in its reach and possibly destructive in its power. In no small measure the initiative removes much of the planning power from the council and throws it into a very expensive political and legal quagmire. The strategy appears to be: “Let’s not rush this thing.”

The initiative people also have a strategy, and it’s tied in with the approval process for the Malibu Bay Company development deal. They gave me a copy of a memo from Terry Huffman, a wetlands specialist, who just completed a survey of the proposed 20-acre Pt. Dume ballfield site alongside PCH. The gravamen of his findings were that there is no way you could build three ball fields and a community center on Pt. Dume because of environmental constraints, principally proximity to Environmentally Sensitive Habitat Areas (ESHA’s) and impacts on migratory birds in the Pacific Flyway. If correct, and at this point it’s only Huffman’s opinion, it would impact the political equation. The argument would run: “Why go for the deal? It’s not going to get you what you want anyway, so turn it down.”

The next round probably is back into the council’s hands.

Hurrahs to the City Council for finally talking about real changes in city ordinances that don’t make any sense, and for suggesting that a reprioritization of the city’s enforcement actions is at hand. For too long this city’s people have been at the service of the city’s “codes” instead of the codes serving the people. Why are we making it so hard for people who want to get a simple permit for little buildings, like sheds and guest houses, that were built a long time ago? Because under the rules developed by our previous administration, whose mottoes were “reverse growth,” “make them tear it down” and “get their money,” they are all sent to Planning. The Planning Department is where the city really gets to fleece people’s wallets and is the source of the public’s resistance to Code Enforcement.

The Planning Department is necessary to ensure that new homes and new additions conform to our vision of the future look of Malibu. The Planning Department was not created to give approval for the way Malibu always looked before the department was even created. The Building Code reveals that the permit requirements for small buildings are fairly simple and they don’t require Planning. What the Planning Department should be doing is talking people out of building 10,000 square foot monstrosities instead of guest houses and sheds. These palaces have a far greater negative impact on the ecology, traffic, and a quality of life in Malibu than these insignificant little buildings ever will.

Val Fish

A pay phone was recently removed from the poolside rec. room at Malibu Canyon Village Complex thus requiring anyone with an emergency to get back to their unit or hope someone nearby is home. Most units are quite far from the pool. This should be a matter of children’s and adult’s safety. God forbid there’s an accident, but if your child or parent slipped and hit their head, or broke a bone, or suffered a chest pain, wouldn’t it make sense to have a pay phone for 911?

The history of this phone is noteworthy because a near-tragedy was the impetus for its original installation. Lillian Arnesti, an elderly resident of Malibu Canyon Village Complex, was swimming one morning about two years ago when she suffered a debilitating attack of dizziness. She managed to pull herself out, and sit in a chair. It was forty minutes before a security guard found her. If there had been a phone nearby, she could have called 911.

Lillian immediately put the matter before the Homeowner’s Association, which disagreed with her, citing a cost of five hundred dollars for installation, plus an enormous monthly charge. Lillian contacted the phone company herself, and discovered it cost one hundred dollars installation, plus thirty-seven dollars and twenty five cents a month, including maintenance.

Lillian reported this to the City of Malibu’s head of environmental safety, Keith Young, who wrote the Homeowner’s Association through Malibu Canyon Village’s management company. In the letter, Mr. Young thoroughly supported the installation of the pay phone, particularly for the safety of children and the elderly. The phone was installed. Recently, when Lillian found out the phone was removed, she immediately called an Association board member, and was told, “The reason the phone was removed is money.”

Is the Malibu Canyon Village Association so poor, that the safety of children and the elderly isn’t worth the thirty-seven dollars and twenty five cents a month? We can’t afford not to have a public phone, or do we need a disaster to wake us up to the fact that thirty-seven dollars and twenty five cents for a public phone may and can save a life.

Sincerely,

James Heartland

Amnesia is a condition that enables a woman who has gone through labor to become pregnant again. It is also a condition that has an effect on those who believe that the Malibu Times is a weekly that sucks and is full of trash. Your tabloid is jam packed with the commentary of outstanding contributors, both professional writers and the helper donors of poets and letter writers. Pam Linn’s article in the June 22, 2000 issue of The Malibu Times regarding her “Dear Old Dad” is a case in point. Her observations were enlightening, educational and revealing.

Pam demonstrated a deep perceptive of life with her father, which was considerate, affectionate and kindhearted. Not leaving out mothers, I recall an editorial written by a cantankerous editor of a Malibu newspaper which showed the same qualities when writing about a visit to his mother a few years back. The predicament at The Malibu Times is the wealth of writing genius in such a diminutive community and a limited amount of space in which to publish articles. If the editorial staff of the Malibu Times looks around on their floor for discarded pieces they just might find a letter explaining “relativity” from Albert Einstein or even one of Mayor Tom Hasse’s amnesia misplaced traffic tickets.

And this is all I have to say (sure).

Tom Fakehany

Up to last week, 134 people had been put to death in the state of Texas during the Governorship of George W. Bush, and none of them seemed to cause much of a ruckus. The latest, Gary Graham, number 135, died last week from lethal injection, but this time, something was very different.

In a country where a significant majority of the population supports the death penalty something was changing, and for the first time in several decades people weren’t so sure. A majority, in fact, according to surveys, may actually be in favor of a moratorium while the death penalty is being investigated.

What happened and why now?

It probably started simply enough with a U.S. Supreme Court consensus that death penalty appeals were taking too long and they took steps to speed up the assembly line. Suddenly, there was a long line waiting to die, particularly in states like Texas, Florida and Virginia, and with it some basic questions. How come some states had so many waiting to die and in others so few? How come those on death row were disproportionally minority, poor and frequently stupid?

Even among the supporters of the death penalty, myself included, no one wants to see an innocent person die, or someone railroaded without a fair trial, on bad evidence, or in a rigged trial.

Still, even though many of us were uneasy, most of us believed the system worked, and there were judicial checks and balances built into it.

Then along came DNA evidence, and, although it mostly was a factor in rape cases, a sizable enough group of convicted men were being exonerated and freed and we all began to wonder if the system was as airtight as we were led to believe.

After that, there were the Innocence projects. One in Chicago and one in New York and some of their results shocked people.

Recently, a local Malibu lawyer Ron Stackler, who comes from Chicago and was familiar with the project, spoke to the Malibu Bar Association about the survey results in Illinois, which were scary.

How scary? Scary enough that in January a very gutsy Republican Governor decided to declare a moratorium on the death penalty in Illinois, because, since 1977 when the death penalty was reinstated in Illinois, 12 men have died and another 13, originally scheduled to die, have been exonerated. Apparently, the judicial process in death penalty cases didn’t seem to work much better then a coin flip.

Here is what they found:

Of the 285 on death row, 33 convicted had attorneys who were involved in disciplinary actions, before or after, of either disbarment or suspensions

Of the 285 on death row, 46 cases included jail house informants–by any measure the least reliable of evidence (prisoners promised lighter sentences for testifying against the defendants).

Of the 285 on death row 20 were convicted in part on dubious expert scientific testimony based upon hair found on the victim supposedly connected to the defendant.

Of the 285 cases on death row 35 were instances where the defendant was black and the jury all white even in cities, such as Chicago, where 50 percent of the population is black, indicating that potential black jurors were being excluded.

In 140 of the 285 cases there was either an outright reversal or a new trial granted.

The Governor of Illinois finally decided he had enough and stopped the executions.

Because of the upcoming presidential election, the Chicago Tribune began to look at the Texas’ death row and ask the same questions. They found pretty much the same thing as they found in Illinois plus another little local Texas wrinkle. Apparently, many counties in Texas have no public defender so the local judge appoints the attorney which makes it something of a patronage situation. The pay is generally terrible and as in Graham’s case the trial took only three days. In California it takes three days to try a traffic ticket, which will give you some sense of perspective. It’s not clear to me who appoints appellate council but if it follows the same system it’s a cinch that the appeals lawyer is not going to be any more competent than the trial lawyer so whatever chance there was of correcting trial mistakes on appeal is pretty much gone.

None of us want to see murders go free.

But if the system is set up in way that for all practical purposes it’s rigged, it’s a double crime. Not only are we convicting an innocent man but also somewhere out there a murderer is walking around free.

There are 16 or so executions scheduled in Texas between now and November and as we get the pressure is going to build.

In my mind, it’s time for a moratorium on the death penalty and then a good, hard, careful look.