Why I Watch Old Movies While Our City Burns

Los Angeles has transformed dramatically since I first arrived in 1976. What was once a city of dreams and opportunity now fills me with a profound sadness as I witness the unrest downtown and growing challenges that make even visiting familiar places feel unsafe.

My thoughts turn to my grandmother Gittel Bernstein, who arrived from Poland in 1920 and spent twenty years in America before becoming a citizen. Throughout those decades, despite her non-citizen status, she built a remarkable life – starting with a simple pushcart selling dry goods, progressing to a market stand, and eventually opening her own store across from the kosher chicken market where I would watch, fascinated, as rabbis performed ritual slaughter. In today's America, would she have been deported back to Poland to face the horrors of Auschwitz? This thought haunts me as I consider how our approach to immigration has evolved.

The homelessness crisis that prompted me to launch a podcast several years ago remains largely unresolved despite endless discussions. As I approach my 78th birthday, I find myself seeking refuge in Turner Classic Movies – escaping into films from the 1920s through the 1950s, before cinema took turns I never quite embraced in the 1960s. These old movies comfort me when reality becomes too harsh. Despite my concerns, I remain grateful for meaningful relationships, especially with my husband Ed, and continue to believe in fighting for an America where everyone has the opportunity to contribute and belong. Because if nobody told you they love you today, I love you – simply because you're you. Fight on, because you're worth it.

Chapters

• 0:00 Monday Morning Reflections
• 1:27 My Grandmother's Immigration Story
• 3:18 Concerns About Downtown LA
• 4:17 Finding Comfort in Old Movies
• 5:05 Gratitude and Final Thoughts

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

Morning bitches and dolls. If no one told you they love you today, then I love you because you're you. It's Monday, june 9th, all day and it's been a heck of a weekend June 9th all day and it's been a heck of a weekend With what's going on in downtown Los Angeles. It's very, very sad and I'm very sad about it because I moved to Los Angeles in 1976. Let's see, june 15th I believe it was something like that to come out here to do a nightclub sing in a nightclub called the Towpath Inn, and you know it was great. So back then, now it's not so great. I have to say I'm very sad about what's going on in our country, especially here in Los Angeles. But what can we do? What can we do to help? You know, I started my podcast about homelessness about was three years ago, two years ago, I don't know when my first yeah, maybe two years ago, because I wanted to talk about what we could do about the homeless, the unhoused issues here, and so far, as far as I can see, not much has really been done and now we have these problems.

Speaker 1: 1:27

You know, I think back to when my grandparents, gittel Bernstein and Harshal Bernstein, came to America. He came before she did. Okay. She came in 1920. She was not a citizen until 1940. That's 20 years.

Speaker 1: 1:45

She lived here, not as a citizen, but took care of the family, did everything. She had her own business. You know. She had a shopping cart like a cart, where she sold underwear, socks, you know, dry goods. And then she went into the market on 40th Street and 13th Avenue and she had a stand there and she sold the same things there, which was wonderful. And then she opened a store on 39th Street, right across Caddy Corner, from the chicken market, you know, where they used to like the kosher chicken market, where they, would you know, cut the. I used to watch them. I just couldn't believe how now I was so obsessed with watching the rabbis, you know, slaughter the chickens. I was nuts back then. But she, you know, she would have been sent back today. She would have been sent back to Poland back then, you, you know, and have to go into the camps, auschwitz or one of the other ones.

Speaker 1: 2:48

So I'm very grateful that she lived back then, you know, and became an American citizen, took her 20 years to become an American citizen, you know. So I'm very proud of my Bubby, my Bubby, gittel, bernstein, and you know, I just take a look at our city today and I'm very sad. I was supposed to go downtown to work on something and I had to call and say I'm not going to go downtown because of what's going on there. Who knows what would happen? Right, of course. Right, so to say I'm nervous about the whole thing. Of course I'm nervous and I pray that all the people who are involved with all the riots and everything are okay. I pray for them and I pray that every person has a right to become a citizen here if they choose to. So I just don't like what's going on in our country anymore.

Speaker 1: 3:48

I'm very sad about the whole thing. You know, I'm in my late 70s in a few months I'll be 78 fucking years old and I don't like what's happened in our country now and I just am very sad when I watch things on TV about that. So what I do is I watch old movies on TCM when I'm not working, because that's what makes me happy. The movies from yesteryear, all the movies from the 20s, the silence, the 30s, the 40s and the 50s, the 60s movies started to turn in a different direction, which I did not like and I do not like. So I will watch all the old movies. So, tcm, thank you for putting those movies on. Kim, thank you for putting those movies on.

Speaker 1: 4:37

I just have to say and this is just a brief little me, tiktok Bubby, you know, on my podcast which I don't do as often as I used to do, and I just have to apologize because you know things don't really come to me anymore that they once did my things that I want to talk about and say I'm just grateful for the people in my life my beautiful, wonderful husband, ed we went to a party and his family's one of his family members turned 85 yesterday and we went back to Los Feliz, where Ed grew up and I lived for 23 years. So I just have to say that, you know, if nobody told you they love you today, I love you because you're. You Fight on, fight on for your country, fight on to become a citizen in this country and fight on because you're worth it, and I love all of you. Bye.