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BEN LEE’S BLOG
Sharing a Passion for Music
My son Spencer recently joined the West Los Angeles Children’s Choir and not only has it been great for him, I’ve really enjoyed it, too. Maybe it’s because he’s the first of my three sons to be interested in making music and therefore following a bit in my musical footsteps.
I haven’t always been a realtor. I’ve also been a lawyer (still have my license but no longer practice) and before that, I worked in the music business. I had always been interested in music from as far back as I can remember. I took years of guitar, voice and harmonica lessons and even paid my way through Europe during college by playing music and singing in a band in bars and other local venues.
In college, I was a featured soloist and in high school I liked being in Madrigals and singing with a nationally recognized choir. Although, side note, Madrigals was the only class in high school I actually got a ‘B’ in, destroying my otherwise perfect 4.0 grade point average and thereby ruining my chances at graduating Valedictorian from Santa Monica High School.
Why did I get a B? One day, we as a class acted up while a substitute was teaching and when our actual teacher returned, she was none too happy about our terrible behavior and marked everyone down a grade. So I got a B. Sore subject, clearly. Still burns.
But, back to music- what’s great about being in a choir is that it really becomes like a team sport. You have built in camaraderie and support. You learn together, gel voices together, perform together and you create something potentially beautiful. I think my middle son may be drawn to this aspect of being in a choir. He wasn’t born with a particularly special or glorious voice but he loves being a part of a group. The only thing he liked after one season of playing baseball was the part when you got to hang out in the dugout and joke around with the other teammates. He’s a social guy and likes being part of a team just as long as he doesn’t take a ball to the head or have the pressure of having to make a basket before the timer blares.
The performing part of being in a group is another benefit to joining a choir. The choir Spencer is now a part of is particularly unique in that they get hired to do many professional gigs, in fact last month they sang back up for the band ‘Walk the Moon’ on the Jimmy Kimmel Show. Spencer loved being on TV and it was sweet to see him so proud of himself. Middle children are often not afforded the spotlight in a busy household so to see him absorb all the attention for a change was definitely a treat.
In the end, we often don’t get to take our hobbies and passions and turn them into careers. If we did, I’d be Mick Jagger right now instead of selling residential real estate. But if we do take those childhood hobbies and passions and still practice and enjoy them alongside our professional chosen fields, then that is something special. I still love music and get out there as often as I can to play the harmonica, whether it’s on stage or just at home, backing up my son the singing star.
Thoughts on the San Bernardino Shooting
It’s hard to sit down to blog about real estate or neighborhood matters when the whole nation is reeling again after a senseless mass shooting and the deaths of so many innocent people. There are so many family members mourning the loss of their loved ones today and it is all a tragedy that could’ve been easily avoided.
I don’t have the answers. I know plenty of responsible gun owners who recoil at the prospect of having their second amendment rights affected in any way. However, it is completely ludicrous that a fundamentalist of any ilk could legally obtain a machine assault type rifle. There is a breakdown of common sense when it comes to buying weapons in this country.
I know many other individuals who work in the mental health field and say it’s imperative that the government needs to allocate more funding towards mental health issues and come up with ways to manage this escalating problem. That’s probably true- research and money could fix a lot of diseases in all areas of medicine, both mentally and physically. But lately, these killers and terrorists wouldn’t necessarily be found in clinical trials and therapy groups. They are religious nuts who have essentially been brainwashed.
All I know is this has become too routine and I don’t like living in a world that feels unsafe. There are certain professions that you accept danger as part of the job: police officers, firefighters, soldiers. But workers in an Inland Regional Center? Whose sole purpose was to help those in need? No one who showed up for work that day could have foreseen what would play out in a bloody and terrible way only a few hours later.
Every outsider, especially in Southern California, is full of shock and sadness today, maybe still tomorrow and even through the weekend. But then the images slowly fade to our memory and life goes on. The guards go down until the next tragedy occurs. And the sick part is that we don’t even think ‘if’ the next tragedy occurs. It’s ‘when.’ And none of us are really outsiders.
If this could happen at an innocent place like the Inland Regional Center, then can’t it happen anywhere? It’s a depressing and maddening thought and one I hope my children and their children don’t have to face. At a certain point, we have to stand together and say enough is enough and a change needs to be made. No one wants to live in fear and have our lives be at the mercy of a handful of lunatics.
Maybe soon I can return to a lighthearted blog but today I’m still angry about the recent San Bernardino shooting and I really hope our elected officials are angry, too. When will the next time be the last time??
My Annual Thanksgiving Hike
Thanksgiving is over and this year it was a great, big, crowded affair. My wife and I hosted a record 38 people at our house in Cheviot Hills. There were friends, family members, friends of family members… even one or two people we barely knew but wanted to share the holiday with us. In our house, more is always merrier and we included them all with open arms.
We didn’t make all the food- it was essentially a pot-luck with my wife taking on the lion’s share of the cooking but still accepting side dishes from a handful of the guests. I spent much of the day in the most helpful way possible: by getting the heck out of the way. It’s my annual tradition to take our three boys on a hike. Luckily, living in Southern California means that the weather in late November is generally fairly conducive to an outdoor hike and this is how we like to ‘earn the bird.’
Every year it gets a little bit easier because the boys are a year older. They complain less and seem to enjoy it more which in turn makes me enjoy it more, too. We throw some food and water in a bag and head up the Santa Monica Mountains to hike up to the Nike tower. We enjoy it for the amazing view and sense of accomplishment, however back in the late 1950s, this particular area had a rich military history.
It was one of sixteen Los Angeles area Nike-Ajax supersonic anti-aircraft missile launch sites. During the Cold War, these sites were located near important urban and industrial areas throughout the United States. There were underground radar and intricate computer systems created to detect and track enemy aircraft and then guide anti-aircraft missiles that would be launched from the Sepulveda Basin to their targets. The original radar tower still stands and today it really provides one of the most stunning views of our city on one side and the valley on the other. And to take an 11 year old, 9 year old and 6 year old to the very top is an achievement worthy of celebrating with a couple of Snapples and Gatorades. It also makes us all very hungry.
Making our way back down the mountain, much of our conversation centers around all the delicious Thanksgiving menu items waiting for us back home. Our mouths watering as we count the minutes with each downhill step until we can be home by the fireplace, enjoying the cranberry sauce, turkey, stuffing and sweet potatoes. And pumpkin pie. With whipped cream.
Maybe in a few years we’ll talk about other subjects like where the boys will be heading to college or maybe beyond that, who they’re thinking of marrying. Maybe we’ll continue this traditional hike even after these boys eventually have children of their own and nothing would make me happier. Because nothing tastes better than a meal enjoyed after a vigorous work out, especially one shared with people you love.
Whatever traditions you embrace year after year, I hope you all had as wonderful of a Thanksgiving holiday as I did.
Looking Back Through the years of the Cheviot Hills Neighborhood
Just as Mark Twain plumbed his boyhood along the Mississippi River for tales of his fictional heroes, so the Cheviot Hills Neighborhood of the 1940’s and 50’s provide the fodder for boyhood memories framed not by a river, but by open spaces from south of Pico Blvd to west of Robertson Blvd. These memories will be not of fictional heroes but real kids (now in their dotage) whose actions and observations will be shared in coming issues of these newsletters.
Before it was reestablished as a public golf course and park in the 1940’s, The Rancho Park Golf Course was just wild open spaces full of rabbits and other critters. The kids and their dogs would go there with bows and arrows and chase whatever was available. Two movies that were shot on the old field included the Story of GI Joe starring Robert Mitchum and Sea of Grass with Spencer Tracy. Sea of Grass used the area as a pretty good representation of the midwest and its open spaces. The cultured and organized baseball facility that is now part of the park was different then. The boys of the neighborhood dragged their own field on to the area where there are now tennis courts. It really was the field of dreams and gave reality to the word sandlot. On the days we were not running around the open spaces,we could sneak into the back lot of 20th Century Fox which is now Century City. Back then it was relatively easy to enjoy an alternative reality with all the old sets and pioneer settings that we could wander at will as long as the security guards did not catch us.
As for Beverlywood, that area was strictly bean fields with lots of agriculture obvious after wandering in the hills that it was full of oil. The tar oozed up and you did not need to be a geologist to know that there was liquid gold underfoot. The area of the Cheviot Hills neighborhood now known as the County Club Estates was another departed golf course known as the California County Club. The kids in the area could run on the greens when the golfers were down the fairway and grab their golf balls hoping they would give chase (which they often did). When one walked to Hamilton High from Cheviot Hills, the easiest way was through a road on the golf course. However,once a year the owners blocked the use of the road so that no one could claim a perpetual easement over it. The other golf course in the area was Hillcrest which was founded by the Jewish entertainment poobahs of the west side because they were not allowed to be members of the club that had preceded it. So the Hillcrest Country Club was popular with the Jack Bennys and George Burns’ of the day. When the Cheviot Hills neighborhood was originally developed, it did not include the area below Glenbarr Ave. That area was slightly newer and maybe more upscale and was known as Monte Mar Vista, definable because it had concrete streets as opposed to the tar macadam of old Cheviot. Everybody attended Overland Avenue School and after school, hung out at the Marshall P Riddick Youth Center for the Cub and Boy Scout meetings. Interesting that after all this time the Riddick youth center still provides a facility for after school and extra curricular activities.
I’m Going To Be On The News! Tune in to KCBS 2 Tomorrow at 5 PM P/T.
I was excited to get a call the other day asking if I would be willing to be interviewed on the local news (KCBS 2, channel 2 at 5 pm) this Friday night. The topic, I was told, would be real estate and I would be used as a resident expert to answer a variety of real estate related questions. I quickly agreed to being interviewed and am still excited to be on TV, but feeling a little bit nervous, as well. I can talk about real estate until I’m blue in the face but when it comes to creating great sound bites that only a television producer could truly appreciate, I may be slightly out of practice.
It may come as a bit of a surprise, but this is not the first time I’ve ventured into the spotlight of show business. My wife used to work in television entertainment journalism, specifically Hard Copy and Extra as well as a few shows in between. I think the first (and last) time she let me come with her to a shoot was many years ago when we were dating. She had to cover a party at the Playboy Mansion so she said I could pretend to be one of the crew just so that I could have the experience of being at this most famous (and infamous!) residence. She handed me a boom mic and told me to hold it high and look natural. Everywhere I turned there was another half naked model wandering around. It was impossible to look natural in the midst of all that unnatural scenery! And I guess I didn’t do a very good job holding the microphone high enough, either. Apparently much of the footage was deemed unusable due to the fact that the boom mic I was holding kept dipping into the shot. Clearly, I was distracted by my surroundings- a rookie mistake.
Since then, I’ve been on television a few times. I appeared on HGTV’s “Selling LA,” where I showed clients a property that they were interested in buying. I also was interviewed for a segment on CBS national news about the real estate bubble. So, while I’m honored to be considered an expert in the field and feel special that I got asked to share my expertise with all those tuning in, I’m not even the only member of my family who’s due to appear on TV this week. My middle son Spencer and his choir (the West LA Children’s Choir, directed by my mother-in-law) will be on the Jimmy Kimmel Show on the 17th backing up the band Walk the Moon singing their new single.
But despite my wealth of television experience and various exposure to the field (pun intended, Playboy bunnies), this appearance on Friday will be the first time I’ve been in an actual studio, speaking extemporaneously in a 3-5 minute segment, interviewed by news anchors in the second largest market in America. I’m not sure how best to prepare or even what I’m going to wear. I just hope I know all the answers to the viewers’ questions and I sound like I know what I’m talking about.
I also hope that after all this build-up, I don’t end up on the cutting room floor but sometimes, as they say, that’s show biz. And as long as I’m already hoping for stuff, I really hope that the person holding the boom mic on set knows more about getting good sound quality than I did!
So, please wish me GOOD luck this Friday the 13th and set your recorders for KCBS 2 (that’s channel 2 in Los Angeles) from 5-6pm. I hope I answer all your real estate questions well!