10/16/2005      

Correction, by Fiona Tan
No matter who you are and what you think, this number has got to disappoint you: in America, there are 2.2 million people in prison.

Fiona Tan's show at the Hammer Museum in Westwood doesn't say this or that about the state of imprisonment in America or try to score political points one way or another.

Instead, it shows, simply, on video screens, larger than life portraits of the many, many people who live and work in our nations prisons. Ben Adair speaks to Fiona Tan.

Correction closes on Oct. 16

Prison Diary
John Mills was 21 years old when he picked up a tape recorder and started recording his own daily life. John Mills is a prisoner at the Polk Youth Institution in Butner, North Carolina. Polk houses men between the ages of 18 and 22 who are sentenced anywhere from a few months to life in prison. John Mills said he committed, maybe 75 armed robberies before he was locked up at age 17. One of those got him 7 to 9.

John Mills' radio diary was produced by Joe Richman for the Prison Diary series. Find out more about Joe Richman's Prison Diaries series

Song Break: My Mind's Playing Tricks on Me
by the Geto Boys

High Fashion Crime Scenes
Artist Melanie Pullen focuses on crime pictures at her show at Ace Gallery in Beverly Hills. Her photographs are all elaborately designed and posed and are both critiques and a homage to the genre of crime photography. Queena Kim met up with Melanie Pullen at Ace Gallery.

Miss Mickey Champion
Mickey Champion is NOT a household name, but she is one of LA's most storied blues talents. Alexis Rivera runs a bar called Little Pedro's Blue Bongo and he picks Miss Mickey up at her home in the Crenshaw district and then drops her off at Little Pedro's where she plays every Tuesday night.

Little Pedros
901 E. 1st St.
Los Angeles, CA
T - 213.687.3766
map

Original Pride: The Satyrs Motorcycle Club
One of the more interesting, directly Southern California-related films to come out of the recent Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Film Festival... aka OUTFEST was from first time director and motorcycle enthusiast Scott Bloom. Scott's documentary, Original Pride documents the longest, continuously active gay organization in the country – the Satyrs Motorcycle club. Imagine... Marlon Brando, straight from the Wild One... or the Hell's Angels... only one little difference. Queena Kim met up with Scott Bloom earlier this week.

If
Andrew Salter was, at one point, a curious, funny child in a very serious place: The New Children's Hospital at Westmead is located in Syndey, Australia and it's a bit of an experiment. It has an extraordinary art collection, an aviary and sweeping gardens The doctors there treat sick kids with medicine and also with laughter, drawing and painting.

And that gets us back to young Andrew Salter. The transformative and healing power of creativity can often be found in a simple question. What if you weren't sick? What if you were normal kid? What if?

"If" was produced for the Australian Broadcasting Company by Sherre DeLys and John Jacobs.