If you’ve never kayaked before, you wouldn’t start by going down the Los Angeles River, a stream that travels along a mostly cemented riverbed. But Palisadian Dr. Jeffrey Tipton was a willing participant this July when he joined a 12-person group that wanted to convince the Army Corps of Engineers that the L.A. River is a navigable waterway and thus deserves protection under the Clean Water Act. The river’s fate was suddenly at stake this spring when it lost its federal designation as navigable, according to Fran Diamond, chairman of the L.A. Regional Water Quality Control Board. She told the Palisadian-Post that a rancher wanted to fill in a dry creek bed in the Santa Susana Mountains north of Chatsworth in order to develop property (Those mountains are part of the watershed for the L.A. River). After the rancher argued that the river itself was a dry streambed, the Army Corps reviewed the stream and determined that less than four miles was navigable and removed its classification on June 4. While the classification might seem unimportant for a cemented urban riverbed, a 2006 U.S. Supreme Court ruling stated that the Clean Water Act’s protections against pollution apply to a stream or wetland only if it had a ‘significant nexus’ with ‘traditional navigable waters.’ Congressional representatives, state legislators, environmental groups and citizens such as Tipton were outraged at the Army Corps decision. ‘It is a critical issue,’ said Tipton, who is also the director of student health services at Cal State L.A. and owner of the Palisades Integrative Medical Clinic in the Pharmaca building. ‘The Army Corps was looking at the L.A. River as an ephemeral river, one that comes and goes, as more of a storm channel,’ said Tipton, who noted that taking away the designation would eliminate control of the pollutants added to the water. ‘How could they turn our river into a sewer?’ He asked. ‘It’s a living thing.’ Tipton initially became interested in the waterway last year after taking a tour of the river with his family (wife Evelyn Wendel and children, Miles, 11, and Maude, 8) led by environmental writer Jenny Price, the author of ‘Thirteen Ways of Seeing Nature in Los Angeles.’ A week later, Tipton, Wendel, and a friend, George Wolf, shot a short film about a frustrated commuter who hops out of his car and kayaks to work. The humorous video, ‘George’s L.A. River Commute,’ can be found on YouTube. Fast forward to this July when Tipton and his 12-member group began kayaking the entire 52-mile length of the L.A. River from Canoga Park to Long Beach during the dry season. Although people are not allowed to kayak, wade or play in the river, the group received permission because they had a film permit. With kayaks donated from Sports Chalet, they began their two-and a-half day journey on July 25 in the San Fernando Valley. They followed the river’s course as it moves toward the Sepulveda Dam Recreational Area, then turned east toward Burbank and Glendale, taking a turn south through Vernon, Commerce, Maywood, Bell, Bell Garden, South Gate, Lynwood, Compton, Paramount, Carson, and ending in Long Beach, where the river ‘flows’ into the Pacific Ocean. Although he was a rookie kayaker, Tipton was one of only three who paddled the entire length of the river As he kayaked, Tipton was amazed by the landscape surrounding the waterway. ‘It was like a mini-jungle with birds and trees, in sections along Encino and Glendale,’ he said. ‘We saw people fishing at Atwater Village near Los Feliz. For six or seven miles there is no concrete on the bottom of the river. There are even artesian wells underground.’ Further down the stream, Tipton saw a naked homeless man shaving in the river. ‘Do you have a permit to be in the river?’ the homeless man asked Tipton. ‘Do you have a permit to be naked?’ Tipton replied. When the man admitted he didn’t, Tipton said, ‘Then let’s call it a draw.’ The kayakers drove home each night and returned to the river in the morning. On the second day, police helicopters circled the group and officers told the kayakers to get out of the water. But pedestrians on the bridge overhead shouted for them to stay in. Police showed up on the edge of the river, but once they learned that the paddlers had a permit, they let them continue the journey. ‘I’ve discovered that if you say you have a film permit, the police will let you do almost anything,’ Tipton joked. He admitted that the final day was grueling. ‘It was physically challenging. The river was fast flowing and I had to do a lot of paddling.’ To add to his problems, his kayak had sprung a leak. ‘I did tip over once and got a mouth and nose full of water. . .yuck,’ he said. The group’s journey was covered by the media and, on August 19, the Los Angeles Times reported that ‘the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] told the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that it is stepping into an obscure debate over whether the river and its tributary streams are ‘traditional navigable waters.’ ”It’s important for us to protect urban rivers and waterways around the country,’ said Benjamin H. Grumbles, an EPA assistant administrator for water (who was quoted in the article). ‘We are stepping up to ensure that the Clean Water Act tools are applied consistently and fairly and we all work together to protect the L.A. River.” Tipton believes that his group’s river trip helped push the EPA in the right direction. ‘Essentially, this whole thing boils down to who has the right to protect, clean and use the river,’ he said. ‘We decided that we, the people, have the right.’ Last Thursday, Tipton, who is bilingual and has a master’s degree from UCLA in public health, was on Channel 34, explaining in Spanish the importance of keeping the Los Angeles River under the Clean Water Act. ‘I’m happy that the EPA is going to look at the navigability,’ Fran Diamond said. ‘We can reclaim the L.A. River as an important resource for the community; a place where people can recreate and a habitat is restored. ‘There is a concerted effort to remove as much concrete as we can, while maintaining safety by preventing flooding,’ she continued. ‘One of the ways we can make this city livable is with the L.A. River, recreating it with green space and make it the resource that it once was.’ A 284-page Los Angeles River Revitalization Master Plan was completed in 2007 and suggests ways that this can be accomplished. The plan would include establishing community parks, riparian habitats and promenades with overlooks. ‘I was struck by the possibility that the river could actually become a regular river again,’ Tipton said. ‘I was also thinking how great it would be for Angelenos to reclaim the 52 miles of river as a greenbelt. We have more than enough concrete in LA; it’s time for us to green things up a bit.’   Friends of the L.A. River conducts bus tours along the river twice a year and car caravans four times a year. A car-caravan tour is scheduled for Sunday, September 14, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and will be led by Jenny Price. Youth under 18 are free and dogs are welcome. Spaces are limited and advance sign-up is required. Contact Ramona at mail@folar.org or (323)223-0585. Customized tours are also available. Visit www.folar.org.

Actor Don Diamont Balances ‘Young and the Restless’ with His Real-Life Role as Palisadian Dad

He’s just your average Palisadian dad. He picks up his kids from school, listens to Elvis, and shops at Target. He also happens to be a Hollywood heartthrob adored by millions of female viewers nationwide who watch him daily and religiously on CBS. Okay, perhaps Don Diamont is not your average Palisadian after all. But aside from his handsomer-than-average looks, you’d never mistake this unpretentious 45-year-0ld for the Hollywood actor stereotype. If any soap opera deserves this town’s rooting interest, it’s ‘The Young and the Restless.’ After all, the Palisades is well represented not only by Diamont (as the ethically suspect Brad Carlton) but co-stars Eric Braeden (Victor Newman) and Joshua Morrow (Nicholas Newman), who both live here. A 23-year ‘Young and the Restless’ veteran, Diamont says that he still loves working on the show, especially since it affords so many story twists and license to test a thespian’s range. For example, something major in Brad Carlton’s character arc occurred on the July 28, 2006 episode, when it was revealed that Carlton was, in fact'[gasp!]… Jewish! Turns out that Carlton’s real name was George Kaplan, and his mother was an Italian Jew forced into hiding after cataloguing looted Nazi art. Post-war, she immigrated to the United States, started a new family, and became a hunter of stolen works. That’s when her adversaries bludgeoned her family to death, except for herself and George, who managed to go into hiding. The back story was not only a shocker to Brad Carlton, but to the actor who had played him for two decades. ‘I came across the part [in the script] that revealed Brad’s real name is George Kaplan,’ Diamont tells the Palisadian-Post. ‘I said, ‘Hmm. George Kaplan.’ I called Lynn [Latham, then-head writer] and asked her, ‘Is he really Jewish?’ She wanted to have a Jewish family in daytime. I was the first real Jewish male lead in daytime. I said, ‘Let’s do it!’ It’s out of the box and I totally embraced it.’ The identity twist was doable for two reasons: as scripted, Carlton had always been something of an enigma’and in real life, Diamont himself is Jewish. ‘There was a 20-year history of mystery of Brad’s past,’ he says. ‘Nobody knew anything about him. Nothing.’ In 2006, Latham told a reporter her reasons for making Carlton Jewish. ‘I have always preferred to write for an ethnically and racially mixed cast that represents most religions. That’s the world … most of us live in.’ So how did the soap’s attentive following react? ‘Fans were very supportive,’ Diamont says. ‘The ratings were higher than they were for a while.’ An understatement, given that ‘Young and the Restless,’ while celebrating its 35th anniversary in March, broke industry records by topping the ratings for the 1,000th consecutive week, averaging 5.79 million viewers daily and outperforming various prime-time shows. As Variety put it, ‘The CBS daytime drama that has been on top since the final weeks of the Reagan administration.’ ‘We’ve been number one for 17 years,’ Diamont says, although with a caveat: ‘There’s definitely an attrition going on. You have the Internet, 500 TV channels ‘ it’s ever more of a challenge.’ And after 23 years, isn’t playing the same character a challenge in itself? ‘A lot of that comes from the writers and the stories that they come up with,’ he counters. ‘They keep you enthralled.’ Diamont brings personal history to the character’s identity change. Like Carlton, he downplayed his Jewishness while growing up because of some bullying he encountered as a teen. Although Diamont excelled at basketball and football while attending Brentwood School, his negative experiences had a cumulative effect, and when he began to pursue his acting career, Diamont adopted his mother’s less ostensibly Jewish maiden name over his surname (Feinberg). Raised secular, ‘I didn’t know who I was, or why I should have pride in who I was,’ he told a reporter in 2006. ‘Part of me was ashamed because I had been shamed … I wanted to hide.’ Thankfully, today’s climate is more multicultural, and Diamont can take pride in his ethnicity, as do fellow Palisadian mensches Adam Sandler, Judd Apatow and Steven Spielberg. Several deaths in the Diamont family unit helped the actor make peace with his heritage. He learned that his mother’s cousin had been injected with gasoline at Auschwitz. Dying of cancer in 1987, Diamont’s father lamented raising his children without a cultural identity. When Diamont’s brother, Jack, was diagnosed with a brain tumor two years later, the siblings decided on a joint bar mitzvah. Only Diamont made it to Stephen S. Wise Temple’s bima, from which he paid tribute to his late sibling. More recently, Diamont’s sister, Bette, succumbed to cardiac arrest, and his mother died of emphysema in 2006. Diamont struggled to work. ‘It is ironic that as my mother passed, my TV mother has just been introduced on the show,’ he said at the time. No doubt, millions of women would like to bed down bad boy Brad Carlton, but his real-life doppelganger is spoken for. Diamont’s wife is Cindy Ambuehl, 43, who starred as Renee Peterson on the long-running primetime series ‘JAG,’ also on CBS. Rounding out the Diamont-Ambuehl nest in Santa Monica Canyon are the couple’s twin boys, Anton and Davis, 5; and Diamont’s children from a previous relationship, Lauren, 19, Sasha, 16, Alexander, 13, and Luca, 7. Diamont’s Tulane-bound nephew, 19, the son of the actor’s late sister, also lives with them. Ambuehl, who has a front-row seat to the fanfare Diamont receives from viewers, explains how fan reaction vacillates, depending on what’s happening in Brad Carlton’s world. ‘Sometimes it’s, ‘Oh, Brad, we love you,” she says. ‘Other times, ‘Brad, we’re so mad at you.’ The fans are always flipping out when they see him. Whether it’s at the beach or at the mall, he is so gracious. He never ceases to amaze me. [Recently], he hosted nine fans on the set. Donald truly appreciates his fans.’ Continues Diamont’s number-one fan, ‘He’s Jerry Lewis in an Elvis Presley body. He’s very funny and goofy.’ Diamont and family love the Palisades. ‘When we were looking for a home, it was our desire to live in near the water and in a healthy, relaxed environment,’ Diamont says. ‘What better place than the Palisades? You’re in a metropolitan city, but you feel completely removed from that in this beach community.’ Outside of his day gig, Diamont posed for Playgirl and landed in People’s ’50 Most Beautiful People’ issue. His movie credits include ‘Anger Management’ starring Sandler, and ‘A Low Down Dirty Shame.’ But features are not priority, as Diamont has a more important commitment pending: football season. Alexander, who practices at Palisades High, will quarterback the Westside Bruins in the Valley Conference, and dad wants to be there, watching from the stands. ‘What brings me my greatest joy is my family,’ Diamont says.

Tomorrow night, director Mike Macready once again returns to the Pierson Playhouse with a production that promises to kick off the new Theatre Palisades season on an unpredictable note. Produced by Cindy Dellinger, ‘Early One Evening at the Rainbow Bar and Grille,’ by playwright Bruce Graham, is a black comedy set in a bar in rural Pennsylvania on what may be the last day of life on earth as we know it, until a mysterious visitor arrives on the scene and offers new hope to some of the townsfolk. The cast includes Quinn Gonzales, Lewis Hauser, Palisadian George Lissandrello, Mary Dryden, Kimshelley Garner and Macready, all of whom have appeared in previous Theatre Palisades’ productions. Stephen Knight will make his Theatre Palisades debut. Dellinger has produced plays at Theatre Palisades since 1999, and ‘Early’ will mark the 10th show she has produced or co-produced with Macready, who lives in Santa Monica Canyon.   ’Our first collaboration together was ‘Bus Stop,” Macready recalls. ‘That came off very well. She is somebody who is a detail person and helps support me. We work in concert together nicely. We’re at the point where we have to say very little. It’s worked out very well.’ Macready last directed ‘Fatal Attraction’ for Theatre Palisades two years ago, and he has also helmed productions of ‘The Dining Room’ and Steve Martin’s ‘Picasso at the Lapin Agile’ over the last two decades. ‘I love working with this theater because I love how intimate it’s set up,’ says Macready, who has also directed productions at the Long Beach Playhouse and Burbank’s Little Theatre. ‘Rainbow Bar and Grille’ was selected from about 30 plays considered for this year’s five productions, with musicals usually slotted for summer and heavier fare for fall and winter. ‘We have a play-reading committee of 8 to 10 people,’ Macready says. ”Rainbow’ looked like a fresh piece of material, with a nice earthy appeal. It’s a difficult show to do because the author doesn’t tell you that it’s a comedy. I call it a black comedy. There’s a message in there about our lovely planet and what we’re doing to it.’ The deadpan nature of ‘Rainbow Bar and Grille’ produced some challenges for its director. ‘There are a couple of very long scenes,’ Macready explains. ‘The traps of the play are making it too serious. If you can couch the message in humor, the characters are very, very rich and funny, and you make it more palatable for the audience.’ Beyond the above-the-line talent, ‘Rainbow Bar’ intends to deliver a quality production. Sherman Wayne, a recent multiple-winner of the Theatre Palisades Awards (he was director and set designer of ‘Noises Off’), has designed the set. Other credits include costume designs by Sherry Coon, lighting design by Andy Frew, sound design by Bill Prachar, props by Dennis Owens and graphic design by Joanne Reich. The show will be stage managed by Karin Huebner. ‘Rainbow Bar and Grille’ debuted at the Harold Prince Theatre at the University of Pennsylvania under the auspices of the Philadelphia Festival Theater on December 2, 1986. Originally directed by Gloria Muzio, the production subsequently opened about a year later at the WPA Theatre in New York. The play has not been mounted often since. Having never seen a staging of it, Macready is working blind with his interpretation of the material, which the director sees as a big plus: ‘What’s interesting is it’s not done much, so you can make it your own.’ ‘Early One Evening at the Rainbow Bar and Grille’ shows at the Pierson Playhouse (corner of Haverford Avenue and Temescal Canyon Road) on Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m., through October 12. Tickets: call (310) 454-1970 or visit www.theatrepalisades.com.

This year, 386 college graduates will carry out the mission of Teach For America’s Los Angeles chapter to equalize the educational playing field for inner-city schools. One of those teachers will be a Palisadian: Kathryn Madden, 22, who graduated in May from Vassar College. The dearth of Teach For America instructors in this region only underscores how important Madden’s role is. The art history major tells the Palisadian-Post, ‘I’ve always been interested in education. I took a class at Vassar about contemporary issues in education and was shocked to hear the problems in our educational system. ‘Teaching has always been in the back of my mind,’ she continues. ‘I was planning on either getting my master’s or working in a museum before this came into my life.’ So Madden made a two-year commitment to teach under TFA’s auspices. It was an easy decision for her to make. Like so many people, Madden is unhappy with the achievement gap in our country’s public schools, where income brackets and race can divide a gifted child from a good education. ‘Basically,’ she says bluntly, ‘your zip code can determine the quality of education you receive, especially in L.A.’ Teach For America recruits college graduates to instruct children in America’s urban and rural areas with the goal of closing the widening achievement gap among students in deprived areas. Since its inception in 1990, the program has nurtured more than 17,000 teachers. Currently, about 5,000 TFA members teach in 26 areas in dire need of assistance. This year, three new communities”Kansas City, Indianapolis and Jacksonville”were added. Madden, whose family moved to the Palisades from Bel-Air in the fall of 2000, attended St. Matthew’s School and Marymount High School. As her Vassar experience wound down, she applied for TFA and entered an admissions process she dubs ‘very vigorous,’ which included an online application, phone interviews, and an all-day interview process at TFA’s New York City office. ‘They’re looking for people with leadership experience and comittment to closing the gap and solving this problem,’ says Madden, who volunteered for various nonprofit organizations throughout high school and, during her college years, worked as the assistant editor of the yearbook and as a docent at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center. She also interned at the Santa Monica Museum of Art. To ready herself for her first year, she took part in TFA’s five-week training session in July and August.   That experience consisted of living with her TFA peers at Loyola Marymount and ‘getting bussed to our school sites, then teaching until 1 p.m.’ at Animo Leadership Charter High School in Inglewood. This baptism by fire required Madden to jump into a routine that included rising at 5:30 a.m. each day, planning lessons, and meeting with teachers. ‘They kind of threw us in there but we had much support,’ Madden says. ‘We got observed every day, we met with advisers. That said, I still have a lot to learn and I’m excited to learn from veteran teachers.’ Observing TFA members really inspired her, Madden says, as she witnessed ‘how the kids responded to the young people coming in with such energy.’ Contrary to impressions, TFA is not a volunteer organization. Madden will receive a salary, plus a $5,000 bonus from the program: ‘I am paid through inner-city schools ‘ LAUSD or the charter school. The grant goes to getting my master’s in urban education and my teaching credentials.’ Come September 8, Madden looks forward to teaching 10th grade English at Frederick Douglass Academy High School, a new charter school near USC. ‘We only have up to the 11th grade right now,’ she says of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard site, where she’ll teach predominantly African-American teens hailing from areas such as Watts and Culver City. Madden will apply all of her two-year commitment toward working at Frederick Douglass: ‘I’m planning on staying even longer,’ she says. ‘Actually, two-thirds of Teach For America alumni remain in the teaching field.’ Madden harbors no illusions. She knows her work is cut out for her. ‘I’ve talked to second-year corps members. The [State of California’s school] budget cuts are causing a lot of anxiety. It’s a mess of a system and there needs to be some sort of systemic change. I went to St. Matthew’s, which was a great school and to see the [contrast] is really frightening.’ Nevertheless, Madden cannot wait to get started. ‘I never questioned my commitment to the cause at all, but meeting my students [this summer] gave me the drive to continue teaching perhaps for the rest of my life. It was inspiring to meet my students and hear their stories.’ The budding teacher highly recommends that prospective educators take part in TFA and make a firsthand difference in closing the academic gap at hard-pressed schools. ‘I’ve never worked harder, I’ve never been more tired, but I’ve never been happier,’ she says of her training sessions. Now comes the real work. For information on Teach For America, visit www.teachforamerica.org.