03/27/2005       [ Listen to the whole show]

Ben's Introduction
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Deported: Weazel’s Diary
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--> Imagine you grow up in the United States. You spend your whole life here. You feel like an American. And then one day, you commit a crime and without warning, you’re sent to a country you barely remember. That’s what happened to one former LA resident William, otherwise known as Weazel. He got in trouble with the law and the law deported Weazel to El Salvador, where he was born. We hear Weazel’s story from his own words about what it was like adapting to life in a country that he barely knows and what lessons he’s learned from his new life.

"Either/Or" by Elliott Smith (Angeles)
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Lennie Bluett
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The 86 year old Jazz musician and Los Angeles resident returns to Pacific Drift. Lennie takes Ben on a tour of the neighborhood he grew up in and pays a visit to Emmanuel Arts, Bluett’s old high school.

Hammer Museum – Thing: New Sculpture Exhibit
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20 young, Los Angeles based artists are featured in this contemporary sculpture exhibit at the Hammer Museum in Westwood. Ben gets a tour of the exhibit from curator Aimee Chang. Ben learns that God's Eyes - those arts and crafts things he made with popsicle sticks and yarn as a kid in summer camp - were made by Native Americans to symbolize peyote trips.

Thing runs through June 5th at the Hammer.

Hammer Museum
10899 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90024
Tel: 310.443.7000

Vincent Price Art Gallery
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Actor and art collector Vincent Price began donating works of art to East LA College in 1951. Later he founded the Vincent Price Art Gallery, which has one of the premier art collections for in the country. Ayala Ben-Yehuda visits the gallery and talks to gallery director Tom Silliman.

Vincent Price Art Gallery
1301 Avenida Cesar Chavez
Monterey Park, CA
Tel: 323.265.8650

New Work Festival at Taper – Marisela Norte
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The 17th annual New Work Festival at the Mark Taper Forum presents eight new plays as part of its New Work Festival. Queena talks to poet Marisela Norte who will perform her poem East LA Days/Fellini Nights at the Kirk Douglas Theater.

Playwright Marisela Norte performs East LA Days/Fellini Nights on March 30, April 2 and April 3rd.

Kirk Douglas Theater
9820 Washington Blvd.
Culver City, CA
Tel: 213.972.7376

My Barbarian on Squirrels in Los Angeles
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In a performance piece commissioned by Pacific Drift, art group My Barbarian. http://www.mybarbarian.com/ The group is made up of Los Angeles actors and artists (including Andi Ouchi from The Thing) and they take up the cause of the oppressed and marginalized Angelino squirrel.