So-called activist investor Nelson Peltz, who’s aiming to win two Disney board seats, has stirred up some controversy by calling out Disney’s recent era of “woke” strategy through diversifying its slate of films at Marvel Studios.
Andor Episodes 1-3 Review
The 81-year-old businessman, whose experience is with food companies including Wendy’s and H.J. Heinz as well as having once supported the DeSantis presidential campaign, had a lot to say about The Marvels and Black Pantherin an interview with the Financial Times. “Why do I have to have a Marvel [movie] that’s all women?” Peltz asked the publication. “Not that I have anything against women, but why do I have to do that? Why can’t I have Marvels that are both? Why do I need an all-Black cast?” Side note: Peltz happens to be the father of Nicola Peltz, who played Katara in 2010’s infamously very white Last Airbenderadaptation.
He continued, “People go to watch a movie or a show to be entertained. They don’t go to get a message.” Since he also claimed that he doesn’t have experience in media, it’s interesting to note that Peltz’s Trian Partners is pushing for this vote as part of Ike Perlmutter’s hopes for retaliation against Disney CEO Bob Iger, who terminated him from Marvel Entertainment last year. Variety reported that, “Trian controls roughly $3.5 billion worth of Disney stock, 79% of which is owned by Perlmutter.” This goes back to Perlmutter’s feud with Kevin Feige, who pushed for Black Panther and Captain Marvel. Perlmutter fought against diversity in Marvel’s slate until Iger stepped in to force his hand and allow the films to be made.
Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther, starring the late Chadwick Boseman, was a hit with $1.35 billion at the worldwide box office; it kicked off the Academy Award-winning franchise and brought more inclusivity to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Proving Perlmutter wrong publicly while revealing the lengths the forner Marvel exec went to in order to stop diverse superhero toys, merch, and movies being made really propelled Feige into the public’s good graces. Recent misses for the studio including The Marvels havecaused some Marvel watchers to wonder if Feige’s position should be called into question. When asked by the Financial Times if it should, Peltz responded, “I’m not ready to say that, but I question his record.”
Disney board member George Lucas recently stood up against Peltz by releasing a statement (reprinted in Variety and elsewhere) to support Bob Iger in rejecting his bid. “Creating magic is not for amateurs,” Lucas said in a shot right at Peltz, who also admitted to the Financial Times he’s been a bit of a bully. (“What sense is being a billionaire if you’re not a bully?” Peltz has been quoted as saying.) Which is such a strange stance to bring into Disney, standing directly against all it represents.
Lucas continued, “When I sold Lucasfilm just over a decade ago, I was delighted to become a Disney shareholder because of my longtime admiration for its iconic brand and Bob Iger’s leadership.” He added, “When Bob recently returned to the company during a difficult time, I was relieved. No one knows Disney better. I remain a significant shareholder because I have full faith and confidence in the power of Disney and Bob’s track record of driving long-term value. I have voted all of my shares for Disney’s 12 directors and urge other shareholders to do the same.”
Peltz aims to add more board seats for his hedge fund firm through his Disney bid and support the agenda that Ike Perlmutter, his silent third party partner, has advocated for during his Disney tenure. The Hollywood Reporter disclosed that Perlmutter had this up his sleeve as soon as he was terminated, as he immediately pledged his stakes in Disney to Peltz. Before Iger came back Peltz had attempted a proxy battle with the company as a result of its losses, but was held off by his return. With this seat bid he hopes for round two in having more direct influence on the company board.
Welcome back to the Connected States, the project that involves me living in a van for a year, driving around and telling stories. After going live last week I was absolutely overwhelmed by the positive response. I received so many tips, well-wishes, and offers of help that I haven’t been able to respond to them all yet. It was truly moving,
Former NASA Astronaut Leland Melvin on the “Overview Effect”
When we last left off I was in Iowa City, Iowa, which is not a very creative name for a city, so I moved on. By that point, though I’d left myself very little time. I needed to be in Detroit by 9:30am the next day so I could finally do my TSA Pre-check interview, and Detroit was 490 miles away. I drove until I got very tired, whereupon I pulled into yet another Walmart parking lot and slept for 2.5 hours, and then kept going. My dad had recommended The Burning Room, a book by Michael Connelly, so I downloaded it on Audible and that did a good job of keeping me alert.
Photo: Brent Rose
The real reason I was heading to Michigan was to see one of my oldest and best friends get married. David and I go back to 7th grade, but many of the guests would be people we had gone to high school with. It’s still a pretty tight-knit crew, as, for various reasons, many of us had left our small California town for Brooklyn during the last decade, and so we’d formed a sort of “I miss real burritos” support group. Anyway, the wedding would be a couple hours north but first we decided to explore Detroit proper a little. We met up with David’s old roommate Blair who grew up in the area and had since returned, prodigal son style.
If I had to pick one word to describe Detroit it would be “powder keg,” which is two words, so I would have lost that game. But that’s what it is. There is so much potential energy in that city, and it’s just waiting for something to set it off. It’s also volatile as hell. I’ve never seen a place that had been so obviously fucked by a single industry. Big auto burned these people, and these people are pissed.
Photo: Brent Rose
Much of what you see on the news is true. There are rows upon rows of abandoned houses. Some houses—and not just a couple—have been burned to the ground. Everywhere you go you see desperate people. But Detroit is on the cusp of major changes. Real estate is so cheap that a lot of rich, white tech-industry type folks are buying up massive amounts of property, just because it’s cheap and they can. The artists have already moved in, and just like in any other city, once the artists move in they yuppies aren’t far behind.
Photo: Brent Rose
And so you see the original Detroiters in a hard spot. They want Detroit to keep its identity and so change is fearsome, but they also realize that what the city needs more than anything is jobs. And so there’s a precarious acceptance of the new wave pushing in. Tech is being welcomed in, as long as it doesn’t overstep its bounds. But it will. It always does. And I don’t know what the aftermath to that will be.
Photo: Brent Rose
What I found to be most inspiring, though, is the creative response Detroit has had to all of this change. Take, for example, Tyree Guyton’s Heidelberg Project on the East Side, which has been around for 29 years now. It takes found objects, rubble, and abandoned houses and transforms them into something beautiful and inspiring.
Photo: Brent Rose
Photo: Brent Rose
[More from the Heidelberg Project]
Photo: Brent Rose
[Gabby in front of the MBAD African Bead Museum]
The same could be said of MBAD African Bead Museum. Not only does this shop, inside of a highly decorated but otherwise unassuming house, have the most amazing collection of beads I’ve ever seen, but it serves as a conduit for the community. There I spoke with a woman named Gabby, of the Detroit Poetry Society, whose greeting for everyone was “Peace,” a sort of mantra she hoped would come true. She talked of the changes she’s seen, and of the importance of finding common ground among all people, which isn’t so unlike the goal of Connected States.
Photo: Brent Rose
Photo: Brent Rose
The area around the MBAD Museum hosts an incredible array of open-air art, similar to the Heidelberg Project, but this is mostly made by the artist Olayami Dabls, who owns the museum as well. It’s at once breathtaking and heartbreaking.
Photo: Brent Rose
[Wedding backdrop]
But Michigan isn’t just Detroit. We left the city for Saginaw, a couple hours north, where my friend Leila, the bride, grew up. I kept my van (Ashley, “The Beast”) parked either at her parents beautiful home, where the wedding took place, or in the hotel parking lot where some other weddings guests were staying. The wedding was a three-day Bangladeshi affair, but I stayed for five. I think I needed the peace and quiet, and I’ll forever be grateful for the hospitality Leila’s family showed me.
Photo: Brent Rose
[Late night hangs in the van with some of my favorite people in the world.]
I have to say, taking the van to a wedding is kind of the best. This is the third one I’ve brought it to, and aside from the fact that you don’t have to pay for a potentially expensive hotel room, you can park it pretty much wherever you want and set up camp. It ended up being a sweet spot for after-partying, but it served an even more useful purpose.
Just before the wedding was set to begin, the sky opened up and the rain came pouring down in buckets. This was just before the groom’s family and friends were supposed to parade to the house and strike a deal to gain entry (a really fun tradition). There were dozens of us standing in a field and getting absolutely soaked. So we piled into the van. Not everyone, of course, but we managed to get 14 people in there, including the groom, who stayed dry for the 15 or so minutes before the storm passed. It was clutch. I even broadcast my first Periscope video from the middle of the chaos.
Saginaw hosted another first for me. The bride’s family had an old Sea-Doo jet ski in the garage, and we busted it out on the small lake there. We tied a rope to the back of it and I pulled my trusty surfboard out of the trunk, a 5’ 8” Rusty DWART made with Varial foam. Making the transition from prone to standing was extremely tricky. You have to get dragged on your belly fast enough so the board starts planing. Then you wedge your back foot against the traction pad, and slide your front knee up underneath you. Then you need to take the rope with your back hand, so you’re reaching across your body, and use your front hand to stabilize the nose of the board as you pop up.
It took about six tries before I got it, but once I did, it was unbelievably satisfying. I’ve never gone anywhere near that fast on a surfboard, and the lake was so glassy it was like carving through a mirror. Also, falling really hurts at that speed. I had a good bellyflop dismount and it felt like the entire lake punched me in the gut.
Leaving Saginaw, I stopped to get an oil change, and then I just sat there for an hour, unsure of which way to go. This was the first time this trip that I could really pick any direction I wanted. I’d originally thought I’d head back through Detroit and spend some time with friends and family in Chicago, but people kept speaking with reverence of the Upper Peninsula (“the UP”) of Michigan. So I put the question to Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. It was time to see if the social experiment part of this project had any legs.
Within half an hour I had almost 50 responses, most of them saying to go north, citing reasons like they’ve seen Chicago a million times, and they wanted something less explored. I took this all in. I knew there would be better opportunities for tech stories in Detroit and Chicago, but I’d probably be passing through that way in the early fall anyway… Screw it, I’m going north!
A gentleman named Ben pointed me toward the Traverse City Film Festival, which is Michael Moore’s baby. I got word that the opening night party would be that night, so I quickly reached out to them, said I was with Gizmodo, and could I have press credentials. Five minutes later I was set and driving thataway.
Photo: Brent Rose
[Top of the Park Place Hotel, with an abomination of a “Manhattan”]
Nick didn’t live in TC, but he had a friend there named Phil who he linked me up with. Phil recommended I check out the Park Place Hotel which would provide a view of the whole town. It was beautiful up there, but I ordered a Manhattan and it was served on the rocks, so the whole place should probably be burnt to the ground. I did meet a lovely woman named Wendy who was there with her whole family. She’d lived in Traverse City most of her life, and made me feel very welcome.
From there, Phil advised me to check out a Cider House. I’ll be damned if it wasn’t the best cider I’ve ever had in my life. It was so perfectly balanced and it didn’t have any of that cloying sweetness. The lavender and elderberry were especially good. Really nice and dry. I spoke to Karen who runs and/or owns the place (forgive me for being unsure, but I was drinking cider), who told me all about their organic process. I highly recommend quaffing it out if you can find it.
Photo: Brent Rose
Photo: Brent Rose
[These people randomly came up to me and insisted on taking a photo together.]
From there I found the the Traverse City Film Festival party. An open-air deal that took over two city blocks. It was there that I finally met Phil, who was there with his friends. We gorged on the local foods on offer, which were absolutely amazing. The whole food scene in Traverse City is insane. I’ve never seen a U.S. town so small with so much good grub. Definitely a foodie haven. We spend the rest of the party listening to the lyrical stylings of Rick Chyme, which I really enjoyed.
Photo: Brent Rose
[Rick Chyme on the mic]
It turned out that Phil’s girlfriend Emily is good friends with Karen, so we ended up after-partying in the closed-up pub. The after-after party was in the van, where Phil, Rick, and I ended up lounging as I made maple old fashioneds and sazeracs.
Photo: Brent Rose
In the morning, Phil came through and showed me the project he’s been working on, a book for the 50th anniversary of the Super Bowl. The foreword was by Dwight Clark, so I was sold. I flipped through the book and said I’d get one for my dad for Christmas, which is true. You can check it out here. Plug alert over.
Photo: Brent Rose
Basically, I couldn’t imagine a better beginning to the social experiment element of this trip. The very first try found me good people, good food, good cider, and good times in a place I wouldn’t have known about otherwise. Truly incredible.
Today I’ll be continuing north to the Upper Peninsula. Maybe to Pictured Rocks, which I hear is incredible. Giz’s Andrew Liszewski made me promise I’d eat some fudge in Mackinac, and well, a promise is a promise. If you’ve got good people or places or things up north, let me know, would you? I hope to be updating from the road more regularly, so I hope you’ll follow along. You can find more photos from this leg in a gallery at ConnectedStates.com. Thanks for reading.
-Brent Rose 7.30.15 Traverse City, MI
Photo: Brent Rose
Connected States is a new series from Brent Rose in collaboration with Gizmodo about living a truly mobile life. Brent will be traveling the U.S. in a high-tech van, telling stories from the road. New episodes will appear every week on Gizmodo, with more content being released in between. He is currently soliciting ideas for places to go, things to see, and people to talk to. Follow him on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and ConnectedStates.com
All photos in this entry were taken with a Sony A7s. The video was shot with a GoPro Hero4 Black, and the Instagram shots came from my LG G4.
The L.A. politics chisme mill flooded my phone with texts and calls this morning. Was it true that Assemblymember Wendy Carrillo was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving?
Not the Roosevelt High and Cal State Los Angeles graduate who loves to speak to students and community groups to let Latinas know that more of them are needed in politics.
Not the former radio personality who used to host a public affairs show on Power 106 called “Knowledge Is Power” that profiled local heroes and urged Latinos to uplift our community at all times.
Carrillo, 43, was booked Friday morning on suspicion of driving under the influence and being involved in a traffic collision while having a high blood-alcohol count — in other words, double the legal limit or more. A law enforcement source said that police responded around 1:30 a.m. to the 6200 block of Monterey Road near Highland Park, where a motorist had struck two parked cars.
In a statement released before she left jail, Carrillo apologized, though she didn’t say anything about an arrest or allegedly driving while intoxicated. “I must adhere to a higher standard that demands personal accountability for my conduct and I accept responsibility for my actions,” Carrillo wrote. “I intend to seek the necessary help and support.”
Oy vey, Wendy.
Considered one of De León’s two main challengers, her arrest will inevitably launch a sea of “Wino Wendy” opposition mailers from now until the March primary. Whether her chances are kaput is something Eastside voters get to decide — if she stays in the race. But she can no longer claim the moral high ground against De León, who’s still trying to move on after he mocked Black political power on a leaked tape that upended City Hall.
It’s one thing to be caught talking bigoted trash in a secretly recorded conversation. It’s another to get behind the wheel after too many drinks and crash into the night.
That stain to Carrillo’s reputation and career is permanent. She’s no longer going to be thought of as just a homegrown champion of the Eastside. She’s the latest Latina politician to make her constituents proud, then embarrass them with stupid falls from grace that never had to happen.
In 2018, it was Bell-area Assemblymember Cristina Garcia, who was stripped of her committee assignments after being investigated for allegedly sexually harassing a male staffer years earlier. Though cleared of that charge, Garcia was found to have violated the Assembly’s sexual harassment policy for “commonly and pervasively” using foul language.
Last year, it was then-L.A. City Council President Nury Martinez, the first Latina to hold that position and someone who reveled in presenting herself as la máschingona — the boss bitch — of City Hall. She resigned after she appeared on the same tape as De León, uttering anti-Black and anti-Oaxacan nonsense.
This summer, Riverside City Councilmember Clarissa Cervantes was arrested for the second time on drunk driving charges just weeks after having told a judge, “Each day I carry remorse and promise to never repeat those actions.” That hasn’t stopped the 32-year-old from continuing to run for the Assembly seat held by her sister, Sabrina.
Now, Wendy.
Politicians of all genders and ethnicities mess up, of course. But Carrillo’s arrest is especially disappointing, coming in a year where Los Angeles lost two legendary Latina politicians: former L.A. County Supervisor Gloria Molina and former Assemblymember Cindy Montañez. The two leaned on their backgrounds to fight against a racist, macho world that would be better if only more mujeres had a say in it.
Molina and Montañez were beloved precisely because they held themselves to a higher standard as Latinas, because allies and enemies alike knew that they were true public servants — no way would they get caught violating the public’s trust, whether on or off the job.
Driving while boozed up as an elected official is as bad a middle finger to regular folk as you can give.
You’re always a fool if you drink and drive. In this day and age of Uber and Lyft, you’re a straight-up pendejo. When you’re a politician and do that, you probably shouldn’t be in office. Constituents entrust to you the responsibility of devising policy and making things run right. The last thing they need to worry about is you smashing into their cars early in the morning.
Assemblywoman Wendy Carrillo shows murals that are defaced by grafitti in Boyle Heights
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
It’s especially maddening that Carrillo got caught up in an easily avoidable mistake. In 2020, she was reprimanded by then-Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon for “unwelcome” behavior after she was accused of inappropriately hugging and kissing an employee. Did she not realize that opponents have had her under a microscope ever since?
It’s even more frustrating when you consider that Carrillo can lean on mentors like state Sen. Maria Elena Durazo and former L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and a roster of friends across the Eastside, whenever she needs help. Did no one in that circle think to have a handler around Carrillo at every public appearance, in the lead-up to one of the most contentious political races to hit the Eastside in decades?
I’m sadly familiar with drunk driving arrests. Friends have lost their jobs and relationships. My father was collared at least twice when I was a young child, although he’s been sober now for over 40 years. Carrillo should take whatever legal penalties may come her way and not ask for any special treatment. Then, she should spend the rest of her life and career urging everyone not to drink and drive — and offer herself as a cautionary tale.
Already, calls are coming for Carrillo to drop out of the council race, and even resign her Assembly post. She probably won’t, but she should at least think about it — as a lesson in humility, and as a reminder of what could’ve been.
I still remember when she and I met at her family home in Boyle Heights in the spring, after she told me she was running for City Council. We walked down Avenida Cesar Chavez, where shopkeepers and pedestrians greeted her with genuine joy.
She cast herself as the anti-De León, someone who wouldn’t embarrass Latinos and the Eastside with hubris — and she also claimed the Eastside deserved someone who actually cared. We saw streets in disrepair, trash inside planters, historic murals tagged beyond recognition.
“It’s not even about Kevin,” Carrillo said then. “It’s about respecting this community.”
A DUI arrest is not respecting the community. All you had to do was call an Uber.
