Rich Hall's California Stars

0:00:02 > 0:00:06This programme contains some strong language.

0:00:06 > 0:00:08This is the General Sherman, the largest tree in the world.

0:00:08 > 0:00:10It's here in the Sequoia National Park of California.

0:00:10 > 0:00:14It's not the tallest tree in the world, that's in the Redwoods National Park of California.

0:00:14 > 0:00:18It's not the oldest tree in the world, that's in the Inyo National Forest of California.

0:00:18 > 0:00:20For the record, California is also home

0:00:20 > 0:00:22to the world's biggest pine cone.

0:00:22 > 0:00:25In terms of natural superlatives, California is home

0:00:25 > 0:00:29to some of the most astonishing natural wonders on the planet.

0:00:29 > 0:00:32It has the highest waterfall, the hottest spot

0:00:32 > 0:00:36and the deepest canyon in North America.

0:00:36 > 0:00:39So you have to ask yourself, how can a place

0:00:39 > 0:00:41with so much breathtaking beauty

0:00:41 > 0:00:44spawn an addled twit like Miley Cyrus?

0:00:44 > 0:00:47MUSIC: "California Sun" by The Rivieras

0:00:47 > 0:00:51When Miley Cyrus packed up her hillbilly skank trunk

0:00:51 > 0:00:54and sidled off to California in search of stardom,

0:00:54 > 0:00:59she was just emulating the long line of no-hopers, down-and-outers,

0:00:59 > 0:01:03dreamers, prospectors, robber barons, missionaries,

0:01:03 > 0:01:07rheumatics, asthmatics, snake-oil salesmen, refugees

0:01:07 > 0:01:10and human detritus who bought into the idea

0:01:10 > 0:01:13that California was the pot at the end of the rainbow.

0:01:14 > 0:01:18Since its birth, California more than any other US state

0:01:18 > 0:01:22has always believed it was the maker of dreams and legends.

0:01:22 > 0:01:25California entered history as a myth.

0:01:25 > 0:01:28New York, New Hampshire and New Jersey

0:01:28 > 0:01:30are named after British place names,

0:01:30 > 0:01:33the Carolinas and Maryland after British royalty,

0:01:33 > 0:01:35Nebraska, Illinois after Indian tribes.

0:01:35 > 0:01:39California was named after a giant woman.

0:01:40 > 0:01:44Calafia was a mythical pagan warrior queen who first appeared

0:01:44 > 0:01:49in a 15th-century fantasy novel called The Adventures Of Esplandian.

0:01:49 > 0:01:51In the novel,

0:01:51 > 0:01:55Calafia rules an island inhabited entirely by Amazon women.

0:01:55 > 0:01:58She raises an army of female warriors

0:01:58 > 0:02:01and sails away from her island, called California,

0:02:01 > 0:02:06and then, armed with a killer flock of trained griffins, enters a battle

0:02:06 > 0:02:10between Muslims and Christians who are defending Constantinople.

0:02:11 > 0:02:15At the Disney California Adventure Park in Anaheim,

0:02:15 > 0:02:17Calafia, an Amazon woman,

0:02:17 > 0:02:21was portrayed by the 5' 4" Whoopi Goldberg.

0:02:21 > 0:02:25The attraction was called Golden Dreams,

0:02:25 > 0:02:28designed to teach tourists the history of California.

0:02:28 > 0:02:30Well, the excitement was palpable.

0:02:30 > 0:02:33Golden Dreams was demolished in July 2009

0:02:33 > 0:02:36to make way for the construction of a really scary ride

0:02:36 > 0:02:41called The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Undersea Adventure.

0:02:42 > 0:02:44And that's California in a nutshell.

0:02:44 > 0:02:47A place that's always been willing to instantly forget its past

0:02:47 > 0:02:51so that it can recreate it for tourists and dreamers.

0:02:51 > 0:02:54Its state flower is the poppy - an opiate -

0:02:54 > 0:02:57so really, what do you expect of its people?

0:02:57 > 0:03:03# I'd like to rest my heavy head tonight

0:03:03 > 0:03:07# On a bed of California stars

0:03:07 > 0:03:11# I'd like to lay my weary bones tonight

0:03:11 > 0:03:16# On a bed of California stars

0:03:16 > 0:03:20# I'd love to feel your hand touching mine

0:03:20 > 0:03:24# And tell me why I must keep working on

0:03:24 > 0:03:26# Yes, I'd give my life

0:03:26 > 0:03:30# To lay my head tonight on a bed. #

0:03:33 > 0:03:37Virtue and vice is all there is, there's no other story.

0:03:37 > 0:03:39John Steinbeck said that.

0:03:39 > 0:03:41You remember John Steinbeck.

0:03:41 > 0:03:44He was the influential American writer whose career was cut short

0:03:44 > 0:03:48by a crazed assassin named Michael Gove.

0:03:48 > 0:03:52Steinbeck mined the underside of California, its broken promise,

0:03:52 > 0:03:55and most of the impressionable writing, art and music since then

0:03:55 > 0:03:58has been by people who either lost faith in the place

0:03:58 > 0:03:59or never had it to begin with.

0:04:02 > 0:04:06The stories of Charles Bukowski and Raymond Chandler.

0:04:06 > 0:04:09The poetry of Allen Ginsberg and the City Lights poets.

0:04:09 > 0:04:13I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness

0:04:13 > 0:04:17Starving hysterical naked...

0:04:17 > 0:04:19The music of Tom Waits.

0:04:19 > 0:04:22# Liar, liar with your pants on fire... #

0:04:22 > 0:04:25The films of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

0:04:25 > 0:04:30Wait a minute. I've just confused artistic merit with celebrity hood.

0:04:30 > 0:04:32How did that happen?

0:04:32 > 0:04:35Well, it's easy if you apply the California standard of human quality.

0:04:35 > 0:04:39In 2003, Schwarzenegger ran for Governor of California

0:04:39 > 0:04:42against Cruz Bustamente.

0:04:42 > 0:04:44Let's compare credentials.

0:04:44 > 0:04:48Bustamente was California's Lieutenant Governor at the time.

0:04:48 > 0:04:51He had an inside understanding of California politics.

0:04:51 > 0:04:54Schwarzenegger was once Mr Junior Europe.

0:04:54 > 0:04:59Bustamente had a Bachelor of Arts degree from Cal State, Fresno.

0:04:59 > 0:05:02But he didn't look good in a unitard.

0:05:03 > 0:05:07Bustamente was the highest-ranking Latino office-holder in the United States,

0:05:07 > 0:05:10but Schwarzenegger had landed the coveted role

0:05:10 > 0:05:14of T-800 Model 101 in Terminator.

0:05:16 > 0:05:19Human quality isn't even a virtue in California.

0:05:19 > 0:05:23Humans occupy places like Sherman Oaks or Tarzana.

0:05:23 > 0:05:27If you achieve god-like status, you can occupy the Governor's mansion

0:05:27 > 0:05:31or the White House, and in order to achieve god-like status,

0:05:31 > 0:05:35you only need to have appeared in at least three B movies.

0:05:35 > 0:05:37Arnold Schwarzenegger is coming your way,

0:05:37 > 0:05:41magnificent as Hercules!

0:05:41 > 0:05:45The story begins quietly enough, high atop fabled Mount Olympus.

0:05:45 > 0:05:49Hercules annoys Zeus just once too often with his need for adventure.

0:05:49 > 0:05:54I'm tired of the same old faces, the same old things.

0:05:56 > 0:06:00It's an easy place to exaggerate.

0:06:00 > 0:06:05The fact that they named the territory after the goddess Calafia.

0:06:05 > 0:06:07That didn't happen anywhere else.

0:06:07 > 0:06:12- Right.- It was very easy to translate all that into mythological image.

0:06:12 > 0:06:16Arnold Schwarzenegger - he's totally awesome.

0:06:18 > 0:06:20That's what this town has always been,

0:06:20 > 0:06:22Greek mythology with pictures.

0:06:22 > 0:06:26You see, the California stars have all the same desires

0:06:26 > 0:06:29and longings as us, but they have the clout to do something about it.

0:06:29 > 0:06:32So they're both human and immortal.

0:06:38 > 0:06:41- We are entering the Garden of Legends?- Garden of Legends.

0:06:41 > 0:06:43That is the area of the cemetery

0:06:43 > 0:06:46that's probably most heavily populated

0:06:46 > 0:06:48with famous people from the film industry.

0:06:53 > 0:06:56The building on the right is the cathedral mausoleum,

0:06:56 > 0:07:00where our probably most legendary resident lies,

0:07:00 > 0:07:02Rudolph Valentino.

0:07:02 > 0:07:05Cecil B DeMille and his family,

0:07:05 > 0:07:08a memorial to the director Tony Scott.

0:07:08 > 0:07:12Douglas Fairbanks right next to Johnny Ramone.

0:07:15 > 0:07:18That's Alfalfa, from the Little Rascals.

0:07:18 > 0:07:21He had a very tragic end.

0:07:21 > 0:07:25- He was stabbed in a knife fight, over, like, 50 bucks.- Really?

0:07:28 > 0:07:31Only in California can immortality be anointed.

0:07:31 > 0:07:33Barring that, it can be purchased.

0:07:33 > 0:07:37So we make video biographies of everybody,

0:07:37 > 0:07:42not just of famous people, and we take it very seriously,

0:07:42 > 0:07:47and some people will do basically instalments from their entire lives.

0:08:08 > 0:08:10And what would something like this cost?

0:08:10 > 0:08:16The biographies start at about 3,500

0:08:16 > 0:08:19for one chapter, and then each chapter after that.

0:08:19 > 0:08:22Each chapter is probably about eight to ten minutes long.

0:08:22 > 0:08:25We do also offer broadcasting,

0:08:25 > 0:08:29live webcasting of funeral services.

0:08:31 > 0:08:35That's always been California's greatest trick -

0:08:35 > 0:08:39its promise of immortality, fame, wealth or a better life

0:08:39 > 0:08:42by merely setting your foot across a state line.

0:08:42 > 0:08:45If you look at California history over the centuries,

0:08:45 > 0:08:49it's this series of waves of people coming here

0:08:49 > 0:08:50to improve their lives.

0:08:50 > 0:08:53From the very beginning, it was so Eden-like

0:08:53 > 0:08:56in its properties, and so full of possibility,

0:08:56 > 0:08:59and then the gold rush - wham!

0:08:59 > 0:09:04And from that point forward, it was just the land of dreams.

0:09:04 > 0:09:08It's gold. It's gold!

0:09:09 > 0:09:12Before the discovery of gold,

0:09:12 > 0:09:15the West was a vast plains in need of people.

0:09:15 > 0:09:20It would be a place called Coloma, 140 miles east of San Francisco,

0:09:20 > 0:09:24that two men would make a single discovery that would instigate

0:09:24 > 0:09:27the largest global migration in American history.

0:09:28 > 0:09:31On the morning of January 24th 1848,

0:09:31 > 0:09:34a man named James Marshall was inspecting the flutter wheel

0:09:34 > 0:09:38on the tailrace of a sawmill on the American River.

0:09:38 > 0:09:41I don't know what any of those words meant.

0:09:41 > 0:09:44But the mill was owned by a man named John Sutter.

0:09:44 > 0:09:46Marshall was his foreman.

0:09:46 > 0:09:49Marshall looked down in the water, saw something gleaming,

0:09:49 > 0:09:52about the size of a pea,

0:09:52 > 0:09:54picked it up, inspected it, then took it back

0:09:54 > 0:09:57and showed it to his workers.

0:09:58 > 0:10:00They couldn't have cared less.

0:10:00 > 0:10:04They were being paid a dollar a day, guaranteed wage.

0:10:04 > 0:10:07Marshall took the nugget to Sutter himself. Sutter tested it

0:10:07 > 0:10:10and realised it was indeed gold.

0:10:10 > 0:10:13Well, you can imagine what happened after that.

0:10:13 > 0:10:15Nothing.

0:10:15 > 0:10:18No-one was willing to give much credence to a pair

0:10:18 > 0:10:20of mud-caked mill-workers.

0:10:20 > 0:10:23But, for some reason, when the news hit San Francisco,

0:10:23 > 0:10:25the shit hit the fan.

0:10:25 > 0:10:28In May of that year, a Mormon merchant named Sam Brannan

0:10:28 > 0:10:31raced through the streets of San Francisco on horseback yelling,

0:10:31 > 0:10:34"Gold, gold, gold from the American River!"

0:10:34 > 0:10:39Within two days, two-thirds of the city of San Francisco was deserted.

0:10:39 > 0:10:42Physicians walked away from their patients,

0:10:42 > 0:10:44sailors deserted their ships.

0:10:44 > 0:10:47The military chief of the army resigned, grabbed a pick,

0:10:47 > 0:10:50a shovel, a mule, and headed for the American River.

0:10:50 > 0:10:53One of the great mysteries of the California gold rush

0:10:53 > 0:10:56is how no-one would believe people like Sutter and Marshall,

0:10:56 > 0:10:59who had an understanding of hydrology and minerals,

0:10:59 > 0:11:01but when a Mormon - a Mormon! -

0:11:01 > 0:11:05a guy who believes that if you're black and convert to Mormonism

0:11:05 > 0:11:07you'll turn white,

0:11:07 > 0:11:11a guy who believes that the Garden of Eden is in Missouri,

0:11:11 > 0:11:14a guy who believes that if you wear flip-flops in church

0:11:14 > 0:11:18you'll go to hell, that Satan has control over the ocean -

0:11:18 > 0:11:22so don't go swimming - a guy who believes that a baby in the womb

0:11:22 > 0:11:24is technically in Heaven,

0:11:24 > 0:11:27a guy who believes that you could start a religion by claiming

0:11:27 > 0:11:32to have found 18 gold tablets but then somehow "lost" them...

0:11:32 > 0:11:36Yeah, when a person believes in that and says, "Gold,"

0:11:36 > 0:11:39people go fucking nuts.

0:11:40 > 0:11:42The news spread rapidly.

0:11:42 > 0:11:44Some made the hazardous trip,

0:11:44 > 0:11:47moving swiftly over the plains in covered wagons.

0:11:49 > 0:11:52Others took the long journey in sailing vessels,

0:11:52 > 0:11:57going down the coast of South America around Cape Horn.

0:11:58 > 0:12:01As news of the gold fever spread,

0:12:01 > 0:12:04it turned California into a truly global frontier.

0:12:04 > 0:12:06The word got out on the ships,

0:12:06 > 0:12:10and so the Chileans, South Americans, people from Mexico, they came.

0:12:10 > 0:12:15The word got to China, and they overran everything.

0:12:15 > 0:12:17Sutter has a diary, and it's interesting.

0:12:17 > 0:12:19"More people coming, heading for the mountains.

0:12:19 > 0:12:21"More people coming."

0:12:21 > 0:12:22Then in May of 1848,

0:12:22 > 0:12:25remember gold was discovered in January,

0:12:25 > 0:12:28by May he stops keeping the diary, he's just been overrun.

0:12:31 > 0:12:36Within 12 months, over 100,000 grizzled gold-seeking prospectors

0:12:36 > 0:12:38came to stake their claim.

0:12:38 > 0:12:41So this is what caused the fever,

0:12:41 > 0:12:43and it truly is beautiful.

0:12:43 > 0:12:45You can imagine how addictive it would be

0:12:45 > 0:12:47to be chasing something this lovely.

0:12:47 > 0:12:50Wow. Is this the way they would find it in the river?

0:12:50 > 0:12:54No. What they were finding in the river were little nuggets,

0:12:54 > 0:12:57and they looked sort of like brass, they didn't have this sparkle.

0:12:57 > 0:13:00Sometimes it was just dust and that's why they would have to take a pan

0:13:00 > 0:13:03into the river and they would just wash it around

0:13:03 > 0:13:06and the tiny, tiny flakes would separate from the black sand.

0:13:06 > 0:13:09# I've travelled all over this country

0:13:09 > 0:13:12# Prospecting and digging for gold... #

0:13:12 > 0:13:17They stood knee-deep in icy water all day, filling a pan with dirt,

0:13:17 > 0:13:21lowering it into the water, sifting through it or packing it in and out

0:13:21 > 0:13:24by wagon. They slept in the cold and damp,

0:13:24 > 0:13:26they ate bacon or sourdough bread,

0:13:26 > 0:13:30fought pneumonia and dysentery, and every time more people showed up,

0:13:30 > 0:13:33they had to wander off and find a new spot to dig.

0:13:34 > 0:13:36The work was so hard.

0:13:36 > 0:13:40And if you worked all day, you might make the equivalent of one ounce,

0:13:40 > 0:13:43which would be worth about 16,

0:13:43 > 0:13:46which would buy you a couple of dinners.

0:13:46 > 0:13:49# For each man who got rich by mining

0:13:49 > 0:13:53# Perceiving that hundreds grew poor... #

0:13:53 > 0:13:57The truth is there was no guarantee of success for these prospectors.

0:13:57 > 0:14:01They could be panning and digging for months and find nothing at all,

0:14:01 > 0:14:04but that's the essence of the California spirit.

0:14:04 > 0:14:06Come on and try your luck.

0:14:06 > 0:14:10Few of the miners had any knowledge of geology or hydraulics,

0:14:10 > 0:14:14but quite often there would be these gold-mining fortune-telling machines

0:14:14 > 0:14:16at every camp where you merely put in 50 cents

0:14:16 > 0:14:20and they would tell you whether or not you were going to find gold.

0:14:21 > 0:14:26I have seen the greatest minds of my generation

0:14:26 > 0:14:28destroyed by insanity,

0:14:28 > 0:14:31naked, starving...

0:14:31 > 0:14:34It was the irresistible temptation of striking the mother lode

0:14:34 > 0:14:36that kept people coming to California,

0:14:36 > 0:14:41and as more migrants came, towns sprang up and cities grew.

0:14:41 > 0:14:44The transformation was unbelievable,

0:14:44 > 0:14:49because we went from a few tents on the sand dunes in 1848.

0:14:49 > 0:14:52Five years later, you've got one of the major cities.

0:14:52 > 0:14:56You've got a state. It was bountiful.

0:14:56 > 0:14:59California was flourishing, but it wasn't because

0:14:59 > 0:15:02the prospectors were finding their dreams.

0:15:04 > 0:15:06Most of the people who made money in the gold rush

0:15:06 > 0:15:09didn't do it by sifting through mud.

0:15:09 > 0:15:13They were the people who sold the shovels, who ran the hotels,

0:15:13 > 0:15:17the boarding houses, the hardware stores and the whorehouses.

0:15:17 > 0:15:21All those in favour of bringing prostitution to this camp

0:15:21 > 0:15:22say aye!

0:15:22 > 0:15:24ALL: Aye!

0:15:27 > 0:15:30In 1849, a state constitution was written.

0:15:30 > 0:15:33A governor and a legislature were chosen,

0:15:33 > 0:15:37and a year later, California became a state.

0:15:38 > 0:15:41The Golden State, they called it.

0:15:45 > 0:15:49The state is based on this illusion of gold, right?

0:15:49 > 0:15:52Created the whole romantic image of California,

0:15:52 > 0:15:55this is where you want to be, this is where opportunity is,

0:15:55 > 0:15:58where the sunshine is. Where you can reach out your bedroom window

0:15:58 > 0:16:02and grab an orange off your orange tree in the middle of December.

0:16:02 > 0:16:04It's all based on a lie.

0:16:09 > 0:16:13The gold rush dispersed the Native American population of California.

0:16:13 > 0:16:17Within ten years, it was one-fifth the population it was in 1849.

0:16:17 > 0:16:20Americans loathed the presence of any other race,

0:16:20 > 0:16:23they believed that the gold was just for them.

0:16:23 > 0:16:27That's what the gold rush did. It destroyed that agrarian ethos,

0:16:27 > 0:16:30that sense of virtue, that Protestant work ethic.

0:16:30 > 0:16:34Just cashed it in for a fly-by-night, get-rich-quick,

0:16:34 > 0:16:37something-for-nothing worship of the almighty dollar

0:16:37 > 0:16:41that's pretty much been the backbone of American society ever since.

0:16:53 > 0:16:58In 1846, a congressman named Charles Cathcart from Indiana

0:16:58 > 0:17:02stood on the floor of the House of Representatives in Washington DC

0:17:02 > 0:17:05and invoked the following statement.

0:17:05 > 0:17:09"The Iron Horse, on the wings of the wind,

0:17:09 > 0:17:15"his nostrils distended with flame, salamander-like, vomiting fire

0:17:15 > 0:17:20"and smoke, trembling with power, yet made subservient to the steel

0:17:20 > 0:17:26"curb imposed upon him by the hand of man, flies across the continent

0:17:26 > 0:17:31"in less time than it took our ancestry to visit a neighbouring city."

0:17:31 > 0:17:36And with that short, succinct statement, a mania was born -

0:17:36 > 0:17:39to build a railroad to connect two oceans.

0:17:42 > 0:17:45A railroad uniting America's east and west coast

0:17:45 > 0:17:46was needed now more than ever.

0:17:46 > 0:17:49It was decided two companies would build it,

0:17:49 > 0:17:51one from the east and one from the west.

0:17:53 > 0:17:56America was a giant pair of trousers,

0:17:56 > 0:18:00and the 2,000 miles of track would be the belt holding it up.

0:18:01 > 0:18:05But there was one major obstacle, the Sierra Nevada mountains,

0:18:05 > 0:18:08the highest peaks in continental America.

0:18:08 > 0:18:11One man thought he could do it, Theodore Judah.

0:18:11 > 0:18:15Now, Judah was a civil engineer so unlike the fat cats back east,

0:18:15 > 0:18:18he actually knew a thing or two about building railroads

0:18:18 > 0:18:20because he'd built railroads before.

0:18:20 > 0:18:24He surveyed the Sierra mountains and concluded that, conceivably,

0:18:24 > 0:18:26the railroad could come through here, Donner Pass.

0:18:26 > 0:18:296,400 feet high.

0:18:29 > 0:18:32If the name Donner rings a bell, it's because it's the most

0:18:32 > 0:18:35notable incidence of cannibalism in American history.

0:18:37 > 0:18:4017 years before construction of the transcontinental railroad,

0:18:40 > 0:18:44a group of pioneers set off from Springfield, Illinois, for California.

0:18:46 > 0:18:5022 men, women and children broke off from the main group

0:18:50 > 0:18:52to take an ill-advised short cut.

0:18:52 > 0:18:55This group would be known as the "Donner party".

0:18:57 > 0:19:00The Donner party got stranded in 20-foot snowdrifts

0:19:00 > 0:19:03and slowly realising they were going to perish,

0:19:03 > 0:19:07resorted to cannibalism. Who knows what really happened?

0:19:07 > 0:19:09Given the vagaries of strangers travelling together,

0:19:09 > 0:19:12it's possible that some of the pioneers had been snacking

0:19:12 > 0:19:14on their companions as far back as Wyoming.

0:19:14 > 0:19:18I'll leave it to you to draw conclusions on how California

0:19:18 > 0:19:21induces a certain kind of cut-throat mentality on its people.

0:19:21 > 0:19:24All I'm saying is, these people were in Nevada,

0:19:24 > 0:19:25they got each other's back.

0:19:25 > 0:19:29Soon as they cross into California, they start eating each other.

0:19:30 > 0:19:34The point is, the Donner pass was a formidable obstacle.

0:19:34 > 0:19:36Judah believed it could be conquered.

0:19:36 > 0:19:39He just needed some backers and, in 1861,

0:19:39 > 0:19:43he succeeded in bringing together four men who would turn out

0:19:43 > 0:19:46to be the biggest crooks in American history.

0:19:46 > 0:19:51And when I say "crooks", I mean the kind of scheming, conniving,

0:19:51 > 0:19:56four-flushing, profligate, cut-throat, slimeball varlets,

0:19:56 > 0:19:59scullions and mountebanks that would make the average crook

0:19:59 > 0:20:02run to a dictionary to look up what those words mean.

0:20:04 > 0:20:08Mark Hopkins, a failed miner who had opted to open a grocery store.

0:20:08 > 0:20:12Charles Crocker, failed miner, now a dry goods merchant.

0:20:12 > 0:20:16Leland Stanford, failed miner, now a lawyer and general store owner.

0:20:16 > 0:20:20And Collis Huntington, who hadn't even bothered to fail at mining.

0:20:20 > 0:20:22He owned a hardware store.

0:20:22 > 0:20:24On the evening of November 9 1860,

0:20:24 > 0:20:29Huntington, Hopkins, Crocker and Stanford met upstairs

0:20:29 > 0:20:33at this Sacramento hardware store owned by Collis Huntington.

0:20:33 > 0:20:38Theodore Judah laid out his plans, and the men agreed to back him.

0:20:38 > 0:20:42They were bonded by this realisation

0:20:42 > 0:20:46that there is an opportunity

0:20:46 > 0:20:52to stop being merchants and become extremely, extremely rich men.

0:20:55 > 0:20:58These four men, who became known as the Associates,

0:20:58 > 0:21:02invested a total of 7,000 in the venture.

0:21:02 > 0:21:06They formed the Central Pacific Railroad and started selling stock

0:21:06 > 0:21:10in an enterprise which to this point was nothing but an idea on paper.

0:21:10 > 0:21:13Leland Stanford ran for office and managed to get himself

0:21:13 > 0:21:15elected Governor of California -

0:21:15 > 0:21:18not too much of a conflict of interest there(!)

0:21:18 > 0:21:22So with bags full of cash, the Associates set out to win

0:21:22 > 0:21:25the contract to build the western section of the railroad.

0:21:29 > 0:21:33What ensued was textbook Karl Marx capitalism.

0:21:33 > 0:21:37The government pretends to be neutral in order to maintain order,

0:21:37 > 0:21:41while unfailingly serving the interest of the rich.

0:21:41 > 0:21:43Collis Huntington went to Washington

0:21:43 > 0:21:46and, for 200,000, bribed a contract.

0:21:46 > 0:21:49The US government gave the Central Pacific Railroad -

0:21:49 > 0:21:51that is four guys with beards

0:21:51 > 0:21:55who called themselves the Central Pacific Railroad -

0:21:55 > 0:21:58access to over nine million acres of land.

0:21:58 > 0:22:01These men would have the right of way for up to 200 yards

0:22:01 > 0:22:04on either side of the railroad. Sweet!

0:22:07 > 0:22:11The government gave them over 100 million to start building

0:22:11 > 0:22:14the railroad and, on top of that, agreed to pay them

0:22:14 > 0:22:2116,000 per mile over flat lands, 32,000 per mile over hill terrain

0:22:21 > 0:22:25and 48,000 per mile through the mountains.

0:22:25 > 0:22:28Leland Stanford went out and hired a crooked surveyor

0:22:28 > 0:22:32who immediately concluded that hilly terrain started

0:22:32 > 0:22:35just east of Sacramento, altitude 30 feet.

0:22:35 > 0:22:37When Theodore Judah realised that his idea

0:22:37 > 0:22:40was being turned into a major scam,

0:22:40 > 0:22:42he decided to pay the Associates their money back

0:22:42 > 0:22:44and reclaim his idea.

0:22:44 > 0:22:47He headed off to New York by boat, via the Isthmus of Panama,

0:22:47 > 0:22:50to find some new investors.

0:22:50 > 0:22:53Theodore Judah caught pneumonia in Panama and died.

0:22:53 > 0:22:56How convenient for the Associates.

0:22:56 > 0:22:59You know those Hollywood stories about the scriptwriter

0:22:59 > 0:23:02who comes up with the idea, fashions the script,

0:23:02 > 0:23:05does about a dozen rewrites, then shows up at the studio

0:23:05 > 0:23:09only to find out he's been locked out by the producers?

0:23:09 > 0:23:11That all began with Theodore Judah.

0:23:11 > 0:23:14On January 8th 1863,

0:23:14 > 0:23:18construction began on the Central Pacific Railroad,

0:23:18 > 0:23:22and with Judah gone, the Associates could exploit the situation

0:23:22 > 0:23:23like nobody's business.

0:23:23 > 0:23:26Oh, they bamboozled everybody they came in contact with.

0:23:26 > 0:23:30They built companies within companies within companies,

0:23:30 > 0:23:32like little Russian dolls of corruption.

0:23:32 > 0:23:36For instance, they would mine their own coal for 2 a tonne

0:23:36 > 0:23:40and then sell it back to themselves for 6 a tonne.

0:23:42 > 0:23:45They chopped down all the trees along the way to build sleepers.

0:23:45 > 0:23:48They tore up the land, they relocated the Indians.

0:23:48 > 0:23:51Charles Crocker would arrive at a small settlement or town

0:23:51 > 0:23:54and shake down the local politicians.

0:23:54 > 0:23:58"Fork over, or the train doesn't come through here.

0:23:58 > 0:24:00"You will dry up and die in a year."

0:24:00 > 0:24:04You might ask yourself, how did these guys get away with it?

0:24:04 > 0:24:07Well, first of all, America was involved in a Civil War

0:24:07 > 0:24:10so the President was a little distracted.

0:24:10 > 0:24:13Also, this was California, so far away from the rest

0:24:13 > 0:24:17of the country that they weren't being scrutinised.

0:24:17 > 0:24:20The building of the transcontinental railroad

0:24:20 > 0:24:22is the greatest entwining of technical achievement

0:24:22 > 0:24:26and outright financial plunder ever.

0:24:31 > 0:24:35When the Central Pacific reached the Sierra Nevada mountains,

0:24:35 > 0:24:39the new chief engineer, James Strobridge, was faced with his most daunting task yet -

0:24:39 > 0:24:42getting iron rail up a 12,000-foot summit

0:24:42 > 0:24:45and drilling a tunnel into granite.

0:24:45 > 0:24:47He didn't have nearly enough people.

0:24:48 > 0:24:53Charles Crocker's idea was to hire Chinese labourers from San Francisco.

0:24:53 > 0:24:56Foreman Strobridge thought that was stupid.

0:24:56 > 0:24:59"They built the Great Wall of China," said Crocker.

0:24:59 > 0:25:02So reluctantly, Strobridge agreed.

0:25:02 > 0:25:06Crocker hired 50 Chinese workers, at the rate of a dollar a day.

0:25:06 > 0:25:09Put them on a flat car, brought them up into these mountains

0:25:09 > 0:25:10and dumped them off.

0:25:10 > 0:25:13Pretty safe to say the Chinese were fatalistic about the whole thing.

0:25:13 > 0:25:16They didn't even look around at their surroundings.

0:25:16 > 0:25:18They just pitched their tents, cooked up some cuttlefish and rice

0:25:18 > 0:25:22and went to bed. Next morning, got up, picked up an axe and shovel

0:25:22 > 0:25:23and started busting rock.

0:25:23 > 0:25:26Strobridge waited for them to pass out from exhaustion

0:25:26 > 0:25:29but 12 hours later, they were still going at it.

0:25:29 > 0:25:31Damnedest thing he'd ever seen.

0:25:31 > 0:25:33So Crocker sent for more Chinese.

0:25:33 > 0:25:34Then more Chinese.

0:25:34 > 0:25:38By the end of 1865, almost every able-bodied

0:25:38 > 0:25:42Chinese man in California was working on this railroad.

0:25:44 > 0:25:48Meanwhile, as the Union Pacific was pushing westward across the plains,

0:25:48 > 0:25:50covering 10 miles a day,

0:25:50 > 0:25:54the Central Pacific of California was bogged down at the Donner Summit,

0:25:54 > 0:25:56averaging ten inches a day.

0:25:56 > 0:25:58The granite was impossible.

0:25:58 > 0:26:03Fortunately, good old nitroglycerine saved the day.

0:26:03 > 0:26:06It dramatically sped up the construction,

0:26:06 > 0:26:08at the expense of a few Chinese labourers.

0:26:08 > 0:26:11OK, not a few. A lot.

0:26:13 > 0:26:16The two companies become so subsumed with laying track

0:26:16 > 0:26:20and snaffling up land, that they actually bypassed each other.

0:26:20 > 0:26:23For a while, they were building tracks in opposite directions,

0:26:23 > 0:26:25side by side.

0:26:25 > 0:26:28Finally, Congress has enough of the absurdity and decrees

0:26:28 > 0:26:30that on May 10th 1869,

0:26:30 > 0:26:33the tracks will meet at Promontory Summit, Utah.

0:26:38 > 0:26:41A golden spike is hammered into the ground,

0:26:41 > 0:26:45everyone celebrates, and then the spike is put away for safekeeping.

0:26:45 > 0:26:47Obviously, who's going to leave a golden spike

0:26:47 > 0:26:51laying in the ground in Utah. They're not stupid.

0:26:54 > 0:26:57Nine years after that seminal meeting of shopkeepers

0:26:57 > 0:27:00in that hardware store, the greatest engineering feat

0:27:00 > 0:27:02of the 19th century was complete.

0:27:04 > 0:27:07Oh, brass bands played and newspapers rejoiced

0:27:07 > 0:27:10and people crowed and beat their chests,

0:27:10 > 0:27:13and then they all went back to shipping stuff by boat.

0:27:13 > 0:27:16That's right. No-one used the fucking railroad.

0:27:16 > 0:27:19No-one knew how to use the railroad.

0:27:19 > 0:27:21There was no commercial interest in the railroad,

0:27:21 > 0:27:25no-one knew how to transport goods, no-one knew how to regulate tariffs.

0:27:25 > 0:27:30It was still much cheaper to ship stuff by boat around South America.

0:27:33 > 0:27:36Quite simply, the railroad had been built before its time.

0:27:36 > 0:27:40Within five years, a good portion of it was ripped up and relocated.

0:27:40 > 0:27:44Collis Huntington eventually bribed the shipping companies

0:27:44 > 0:27:47to raise their rates so the railroads could compete.

0:27:47 > 0:27:50For the next 25 years, these four men, the Associates,

0:27:50 > 0:27:52would become astoundingly wealthy.

0:27:52 > 0:27:56They controlled almost all of the track in the American West.

0:27:56 > 0:27:59They built communities or destroyed communities,

0:27:59 > 0:28:02and they literally defined the space and the shape of California.

0:28:02 > 0:28:06They were an octopus - four fat guys in one corpus,

0:28:06 > 0:28:10spreading their slimy tentacles of influence throughout the West.

0:28:12 > 0:28:16So do you see these guys ultimately as heroes or as conmen?

0:28:16 > 0:28:21I see them as Californians, which means they're both those things.

0:28:21 > 0:28:24That's what California always is. It's the dream of

0:28:24 > 0:28:27there it is, take it, exploit it,

0:28:27 > 0:28:32and buy yourself a Ferrari and swagger about.

0:28:36 > 0:28:39The true legacy of the Associates isn't a 1,000-mile stretch

0:28:39 > 0:28:44of iron and steel. Their true legacy is the economic concept

0:28:44 > 0:28:45of creative destruction.

0:28:45 > 0:28:49Overbuild it, overhype it, manage it wretchedly

0:28:49 > 0:28:53and leave a wake of environmental and human destruction behind you.

0:28:53 > 0:28:57Most importantly, make your profit not from selling any real product,

0:28:57 > 0:29:02like transportation, but from financial finagling and insider contracts.

0:29:02 > 0:29:04Empty technology.

0:29:04 > 0:29:07These guys wrote the blueprint for economic disaster

0:29:07 > 0:29:10still embraced by California today.

0:29:10 > 0:29:13California is currently suffering a horrendous drought.

0:29:13 > 0:29:17It diverts its water from the Owens Valley 400 miles south

0:29:17 > 0:29:19to feed the lawns of people in Hollywood.

0:29:19 > 0:29:22It built a nuclear reactor on a fault line.

0:29:22 > 0:29:27It's got a 60 billion high-speed rail line in Los Angeles

0:29:27 > 0:29:28that people just stare at.

0:29:28 > 0:29:30Right?

0:29:30 > 0:29:33But of all the boneheaded civil engineering projects

0:29:33 > 0:29:36ever perpetrated on the people of California,

0:29:36 > 0:29:40nothing matches the corruption and ineptitude of the Associates.

0:29:40 > 0:29:45MUSIC: "California" by Joni Mitchell

0:29:50 > 0:29:54Despite this greed and corruption,

0:29:54 > 0:29:57Californians are always looking forward.

0:29:57 > 0:30:01This positive attitude has created an eternal optimism.

0:30:01 > 0:30:06Are you cynical about California or, as a native, are you hopeful?

0:30:06 > 0:30:07Very hopeful.

0:30:07 > 0:30:12California is wonderfully entrepreneurial,

0:30:12 > 0:30:15it's endlessly expansive in its ideas.

0:30:15 > 0:30:19That's the whole point, right? People come here,

0:30:19 > 0:30:21it's the repository of the nation's dreams.

0:30:21 > 0:30:25They run out of space, of the land, and then they look to...

0:30:25 > 0:30:30cyberspace, space. That next thing to conquer.

0:30:38 > 0:30:41Nowhere in California are people more optimistic

0:30:41 > 0:30:45than in San Francisco. When your city is constantly at risk

0:30:45 > 0:30:47from an earthquake, you have to be optimistic.

0:30:52 > 0:30:55San Francisco grew so fast it was called the Instant City.

0:30:55 > 0:30:57In fact it was called the Instant City six times,

0:30:57 > 0:31:00because that's how many times it burnt down.

0:31:00 > 0:31:03And every time, it came back quicker and more spectacularly,

0:31:03 > 0:31:07built on equal parts radicalism and guilt-driven philanthropy.

0:31:07 > 0:31:11In its earliest incarnation, it was known as Yerba Buena

0:31:11 > 0:31:14and it was controlled entirely by Australian ex-convicts

0:31:14 > 0:31:17who called themselves the Sydney Ducks.

0:31:18 > 0:31:21The Ducks were so ruthless that even the police

0:31:21 > 0:31:23didn't want anything to do with them.

0:31:23 > 0:31:26They basically terrorised the town

0:31:26 > 0:31:29and worst of all, they set fire to it,

0:31:29 > 0:31:32because the town was largely made out of wood,

0:31:32 > 0:31:36so one of the ways you could loot what wealth there was

0:31:36 > 0:31:38was by setting fire to it. In the resulting panic,

0:31:38 > 0:31:41they would basically loot the place.

0:31:41 > 0:31:44In 1851, a vigilante society was formed which, through

0:31:44 > 0:31:49a self-appointed process of kangaroo trials, lynchings and deportations,

0:31:49 > 0:31:53managed to restore some semblance of control to the place.

0:31:57 > 0:31:59San Francisco prospered.

0:31:59 > 0:32:02It was being called "the Paris of the West".

0:32:02 > 0:32:06So Huntington, Crocker, Stanford and Hopkins had parlayed

0:32:06 > 0:32:11their fortunes into mansions sitting side by side overlooking the town.

0:32:11 > 0:32:15The area was called Nob Hill, because that's what these men were.

0:32:15 > 0:32:19Seriously, though, where do you think the term "hobnob" comes from?

0:32:19 > 0:32:23And because occasionally, rarely, this is a perfect world,

0:32:23 > 0:32:27all four of the mansions were destroyed by the earthquake of 1906.

0:32:27 > 0:32:30Unfortunately, so was most of the rest of San Francisco.

0:32:34 > 0:32:37The resultant fires that followed the earthquake

0:32:37 > 0:32:39did tonnes more damage than the quake itself.

0:32:39 > 0:32:44It's the only place I know of in which you had terraced houses

0:32:44 > 0:32:46built cheek by jowl made out of wood, and so it was

0:32:46 > 0:32:49a very dangerous situation.

0:32:49 > 0:32:54It took six days for the bankers' and insurance companies' safes to cool down.

0:32:54 > 0:32:58But once they did, San Francisco sprang up even more fervently,

0:32:58 > 0:33:02so quickly that, within nine years, it reintroduced itself

0:33:02 > 0:33:06to the world at the 1915 Pan-American Exhibit.

0:33:06 > 0:33:09In 1937, it unveiled one of the most remarkable

0:33:09 > 0:33:12engineering feats in the world.

0:33:15 > 0:33:19The Golden Gate Bridge is the orangest structure ever built.

0:33:19 > 0:33:22In fact, if you took all the women of Newcastle and put them

0:33:22 > 0:33:25side by side, the Golden Gate Bridge would be the second-orangest

0:33:25 > 0:33:28thing on the planet. Critics said it couldn't be built,

0:33:28 > 0:33:32that its orange-to-weight ratio would cause it to collapse,

0:33:32 > 0:33:34but those critics were wrong.

0:33:34 > 0:33:38OK, it's not really orange at all. It's kind of reddish-brown, ochre.

0:33:43 > 0:33:47San Francisco's geography, its workers' rights' history,

0:33:47 > 0:33:49its achievements, have fostered a romanticism

0:33:49 > 0:33:52that it's always fought hard to protect.

0:33:52 > 0:33:55Its open, tolerant attitude has roots in the longshoreman's

0:33:55 > 0:33:57labour movements of the 1800s.

0:33:57 > 0:34:00San Franciscans are proud of their spaces.

0:34:09 > 0:34:12The writer Jerry Kamstra... probably said it best,

0:34:12 > 0:34:15"San Francisco is what's left of America."

0:34:15 > 0:34:16That works on a lot of levels.

0:34:16 > 0:34:20In fact, old Karl Marx himself visited the place in 1880,

0:34:20 > 0:34:24and he remarked, "Rising out of the feverish swirl of the gold rush,

0:34:24 > 0:34:30"nowhere has the upheaval of shameless capitalism arrived with greater speed."

0:34:30 > 0:34:32Well, Karl Marx should have stuck around

0:34:32 > 0:34:36because this town has embraced his radical polemics like no other.

0:34:36 > 0:34:39It's always attracted weirdos, non-conformists,

0:34:39 > 0:34:43people with a nothing-to-lose attitude, hippies,

0:34:43 > 0:34:47freaks and a guy named Jerry Kamstra.

0:34:53 > 0:34:58San Francisco has always accommodated the so-called alternative lifestyle.

0:34:58 > 0:35:01In 1950, while the rest of the country basked in conformity,

0:35:01 > 0:35:05the gay rights movement was founded by Harry Hay,

0:35:05 > 0:35:07a communist workers' rights advocate.

0:35:07 > 0:35:13Hay founded the Mattachine Society, the first LGBT society in America.

0:35:13 > 0:35:15Actually, that was in Los Angeles,

0:35:15 > 0:35:18but as soon as they heard the clang, clang, clang of the trolley,

0:35:18 > 0:35:20they headed for San Francisco.

0:35:20 > 0:35:23Why today, it's estimated that upwards of three dozen gays

0:35:23 > 0:35:26either reside in or are visiting San Francisco.

0:35:26 > 0:35:31Oscar Wilde once said that, "Whenever anybody disappears in any part of the world,

0:35:31 > 0:35:34"they're almost certain to show up in San Francisco." And he did too.

0:35:34 > 0:35:37And, of course, he was quite a sensation when he did.

0:35:39 > 0:35:44Something else remarkable happened in San Francisco in 1955.

0:35:44 > 0:35:47Something that will never happen again.

0:35:47 > 0:35:49People got worked up over a poem.

0:35:49 > 0:35:53I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness

0:35:53 > 0:35:57Starving hysterical naked

0:35:57 > 0:36:00Dragging themselves through the Negro streets at dawn

0:36:00 > 0:36:03Looking for an angry fix.

0:36:03 > 0:36:07Only in San Francisco could a poem start a cultural revolution.

0:36:07 > 0:36:10Allen Ginsberg's Howl was first performed at the Six Gallery,

0:36:10 > 0:36:14and then subsequently broadcast on radio station KPFA.

0:36:14 > 0:36:17The poem was a glorious mess.

0:36:17 > 0:36:19It championed sexual liberation,

0:36:19 > 0:36:23it savaged the very norms of society and good taste and even poetry.

0:36:23 > 0:36:27It kicked off an obscenity trial. The one thing San Franciscans

0:36:27 > 0:36:31won't tolerate is being told they can't say what they want to say.

0:36:31 > 0:36:36Who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists

0:36:36 > 0:36:38And screamed with joy.

0:36:41 > 0:36:44San Francisco had always been noted for being rather lively

0:36:44 > 0:36:47and unconventional.

0:36:47 > 0:36:49We didn't know anything but that.

0:36:49 > 0:36:51It was just... It was natural.

0:36:51 > 0:36:55It was like a fireplace, you know?

0:36:55 > 0:37:00I was there in the midst of it. One didn't think of themselves...

0:37:00 > 0:37:02But not seeing yourself within that?

0:37:02 > 0:37:06All we saw was a group of like-minded strugglers.

0:37:10 > 0:37:14The free speech movement essentially just explodes at Berkeley,

0:37:14 > 0:37:16at the University of California.

0:37:17 > 0:37:20They were like-minded strugglers with strong leadership

0:37:20 > 0:37:22who got themselves organised.

0:37:22 > 0:37:26People like Mario Savio, and he knew what he was fighting for.

0:37:26 > 0:37:30..that you can't take part. You can't even passively take part

0:37:30 > 0:37:34and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears, upon the wheels,

0:37:34 > 0:37:37upon the levers, upon all the apparatus

0:37:37 > 0:37:39and you've got to make it stop.

0:37:39 > 0:37:41Unlike those students in 1964,

0:37:41 > 0:37:45today's activists, like the Occupy Sacramento group,

0:37:45 > 0:37:48seem to have no idea why they're occupying.

0:37:48 > 0:37:51..is why are they here? So, why are you here?

0:37:53 > 0:37:54I'm here...

0:37:54 > 0:37:57- Right now it's kind of vague. - Anthony Bondi says Occupy Sacramento

0:37:57 > 0:38:00has what he calls a message team, working on the answer

0:38:00 > 0:38:04- to why they're here.- As it stands right now, that message team

0:38:04 > 0:38:07will reveal that tomorrow morning.

0:38:07 > 0:38:11So you guys are in the process of forming the reasons why you're here?

0:38:11 > 0:38:13That is correct.

0:38:13 > 0:38:15And you've got to indicate to the people who run it,

0:38:15 > 0:38:18to the people who own it, that unless you're free,

0:38:18 > 0:38:20the machine will be prevented from working at all!

0:38:20 > 0:38:23I'm here to support...

0:38:23 > 0:38:26- People!- People, of course.

0:38:26 > 0:38:29Here's something to try and remember when you're starting a revolution.

0:38:29 > 0:38:33Try to occupy a space that actually means something to you.

0:38:33 > 0:38:39The Occupy movements of St Paul's Cathedral and Zuccotti Park in New York

0:38:39 > 0:38:43fizzled out because those spaces had no incipient meaning

0:38:43 > 0:38:45to the people gathered there.

0:38:45 > 0:38:48So it turned into a big Facebook party and everyone got

0:38:48 > 0:38:51a souvenir glow-in-the-dark key-chain and went back

0:38:51 > 0:38:55to occupying the one thing that does mean something to them - cyberspace.

0:38:55 > 0:38:57There's not going to be a revolution

0:38:57 > 0:39:00until Twitter starts charging 25p a pop to tweet.

0:39:00 > 0:39:03That's when the shit will hit the fan.

0:39:03 > 0:39:06The free speech movement that began here on Telegraph Avenue

0:39:06 > 0:39:10in Berkeley in 1964 did start a cultural revolution.

0:39:14 > 0:39:16The University of California was the largest

0:39:16 > 0:39:18institute of learning in the world.

0:39:18 > 0:39:21It also ran the government's nuclear weapons lab.

0:39:21 > 0:39:24It's safe to say the administration was at increasing odds

0:39:24 > 0:39:26with its students.

0:39:28 > 0:39:32Students would gather in places like People's Park to set out tables,

0:39:32 > 0:39:35hand out literature, or organise support for their causes.

0:39:35 > 0:39:40People's Park was the equivalent of Speakers' Corner, times a thousand.

0:39:40 > 0:39:43These young people believe they are working on behalf

0:39:43 > 0:39:48of a nationwide crusade for social justice.

0:39:48 > 0:39:51It's linked with the civil rights movement in the South,

0:39:51 > 0:39:54many people were getting involved with that,

0:39:54 > 0:39:58and then it really grows with the opposition to the Vietnam War.

0:39:58 > 0:40:02The adult world might also be thankful that these young people

0:40:02 > 0:40:05are here and that they care.

0:40:05 > 0:40:09In 1964, The Berkeley administration came down heavy on the students.

0:40:09 > 0:40:12They told them they could no longer organise

0:40:12 > 0:40:14outside-campus activities.

0:40:17 > 0:40:20They thought the students would acquiesce,

0:40:20 > 0:40:23but they didn't count on Joan Baez showing up.

0:40:23 > 0:40:29We're going to march in, singing We Shall Overcome.

0:40:29 > 0:40:34# We shall overcome... #

0:40:34 > 0:40:36In reaction to the pressure put on them by

0:40:36 > 0:40:40the university administration, the students increased their activity.

0:40:40 > 0:40:43These were college students, and they wanted not to be clamped down

0:40:43 > 0:40:47in terms of the kinds of events they did, and what kind

0:40:47 > 0:40:49of speakers they had on campus.

0:40:51 > 0:40:55The following years saw tensions between the university

0:40:55 > 0:40:59and the students, the government, the police and the army escalate.

0:40:59 > 0:41:04By '68, clashes between students and police were a common sight on American TV.

0:41:05 > 0:41:07It came to a head in early 1969.

0:41:07 > 0:41:10The university president banned speeches, rallies

0:41:10 > 0:41:13and any disruptive events on the central campus.

0:41:13 > 0:41:17He threatened to have any student arrested who participated in protests.

0:41:17 > 0:41:20California Governor Ronald Reagan declared a state

0:41:20 > 0:41:23of extreme emergency at UC, Berkeley.

0:41:23 > 0:41:27I was at Berkeley in 1969 when Governor Reagan

0:41:27 > 0:41:31sent military helicopters over the university

0:41:31 > 0:41:34to dispense tear gas onto the students.

0:41:36 > 0:41:39The National Guard came in with drawn bayonets.

0:41:39 > 0:41:45We got to see the real, vicious face of state power.

0:41:49 > 0:41:52The movement wasn't suppressed. It mushroomed.

0:41:52 > 0:41:55And within five years, it exerted a gravitational pull

0:41:55 > 0:41:59over dozens of disparate movements and organisations.

0:41:59 > 0:42:03The Yippies, the hippies, the SDS, the Chicago 7,

0:42:03 > 0:42:07the Weathermen, Angela Davis, the Black Panthers,

0:42:07 > 0:42:10and Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine.

0:42:10 > 0:42:12Not sure about that last one.

0:42:12 > 0:42:16At no other time in history has America's fashion, music

0:42:16 > 0:42:19and lifestyles and culture changed more dramatically

0:42:19 > 0:42:23than in those five years between 1964 and 1969.

0:42:25 > 0:42:29A worldwide confluence of people trying to change things

0:42:29 > 0:42:32was eventually rolled into one unifying word - hippies.

0:42:41 > 0:42:44The one tiny thing hippies didn't manage to change was basic,

0:42:44 > 0:42:46shitty, evil, human behaviour.

0:42:46 > 0:42:48Let it rain, baby.

0:42:55 > 0:42:57On February 4th 1974,

0:42:57 > 0:43:00Patty Hearst was kidnapped from her Berkeley campus apartment

0:43:00 > 0:43:05by the Symbionese Liberation Army, a militant group that claimed

0:43:05 > 0:43:08it wanted to feed the poor and free the planet from suppression.

0:43:08 > 0:43:12The SLA fed Patty a lot of LSD, brainwashed her

0:43:12 > 0:43:14and forced her to rob banks.

0:43:16 > 0:43:20On April 28 1975, Patty Hearst, the granddaughter

0:43:20 > 0:43:24of William Randolph Hearst, drove the getaway car when the SLA

0:43:24 > 0:43:27robbed the Crocker Bank of California,

0:43:27 > 0:43:29owned by the grandson of Charles Crocker.

0:43:29 > 0:43:32So, in some weird kind of way, the greed and corruption of California

0:43:32 > 0:43:35had come around full circle.

0:43:35 > 0:43:38Nowadays, the people of People's Park probably aren't

0:43:38 > 0:43:42sitting around discussing Herbert Marcuse or thinking of starting up

0:43:42 > 0:43:45an underground newspaper or a revolution.

0:43:45 > 0:43:48But no-one says they're not allowed to.

0:43:48 > 0:43:51# Which side are you on, boys?

0:43:51 > 0:43:55# Which side are you on?

0:43:55 > 0:43:57# Which side are you on, boys?

0:43:57 > 0:43:59# Which side are you on? #

0:43:59 > 0:44:02They call me Mayor Of The Streets for the whole town,

0:44:02 > 0:44:04because I stand up for the people on the streets.

0:44:04 > 0:44:07But I'm definitely associated with People's Park.

0:44:07 > 0:44:09This is still a radical People's Park?

0:44:09 > 0:44:12There is still... Not to the degree it was,

0:44:12 > 0:44:15and for me it's really important to bring in the young radicals.

0:44:15 > 0:44:17That's the history.

0:44:17 > 0:44:21It seems like, astrologically, the '60s is kicking in

0:44:21 > 0:44:24on a bigger level right now. That's the whole prophecy

0:44:24 > 0:44:26the native people talk about.

0:44:26 > 0:44:29They're the second generation. There's a lot of despair here,

0:44:29 > 0:44:32but I'm like, "No, we can turn this around."

0:44:32 > 0:44:36I know they're bringing everything down, ecological destruction...

0:44:36 > 0:44:39Like they took down the oak trees there,

0:44:39 > 0:44:46but for me, this was about people and this was what needs to happen.

0:44:46 > 0:44:50You know, don't wait for some leader in Washington that's going to bring you hope!

0:44:50 > 0:44:53That's not the way it works.

0:44:53 > 0:44:55# ..Which side are you on?

0:44:55 > 0:44:58# Which side are you on? #

0:44:58 > 0:45:01- Do you still maintain hope for California?- Everything.

0:45:01 > 0:45:06Just to commit a creative gesture,

0:45:06 > 0:45:08no matter how gloomy dark it is,

0:45:08 > 0:45:14is hope. Dissidence is based on hope, for transformation,

0:45:14 > 0:45:19and the belief that something that you can do can effect

0:45:19 > 0:45:22some kind of change for the better.

0:45:34 > 0:45:37# I'm so much cooler online

0:45:37 > 0:45:40# Yeah, I'm cooler online... #

0:45:40 > 0:45:44The next generation of Californians trying to change the world

0:45:44 > 0:45:47are only 40 miles south, in Palo Alto.

0:45:50 > 0:45:52The gateway to Silicon Valley,

0:45:52 > 0:45:54nexus of nerd-ulence,

0:45:54 > 0:45:58the great basin of propeller-headed Poindexters and start-up pioneers.

0:45:58 > 0:46:01Apple, Google, Facebook, Intel,

0:46:01 > 0:46:06eBay, AOL, Yahoo, they're all here.

0:46:06 > 0:46:10This is the Google campus - "campus" implying that they're all

0:46:10 > 0:46:15happy little academics, when in fact they're just worker bees

0:46:15 > 0:46:19and drones, forced to demean themselves by driving around

0:46:19 > 0:46:21on multicoloured bikes.

0:46:21 > 0:46:23Why don't you put them in little clown cars?

0:46:26 > 0:46:29Silicon Valley is an area of non-descript buildings.

0:46:29 > 0:46:31Inside is a workforce taught to believe that work

0:46:31 > 0:46:34should be play, not duty,

0:46:34 > 0:46:38so they just keep tap dancing on their keyboards all day long.

0:46:38 > 0:46:40Looks like they're having a normal conversation

0:46:40 > 0:46:44but they're talking in binary code, actually.

0:46:44 > 0:46:48Everybody here having a conversation is just going...

0:46:48 > 0:46:51"0-0-11-00-11,"

0:46:51 > 0:46:53and the other guy's going, "I know what you mean, yeah.

0:46:53 > 0:46:56"0-1-011." "No, 01-11-0-0."

0:47:00 > 0:47:03There are more millionaires per capita here than anywhere else on Earth.

0:47:05 > 0:47:09If you've got an idea for the next search engine, social media site

0:47:09 > 0:47:13or an app for finding your nearest drug-dealer,

0:47:13 > 0:47:15you can become rich overnight.

0:47:15 > 0:47:19And if you're looking to do the next big deal,

0:47:19 > 0:47:21you come down to Buck's in Woodside

0:47:21 > 0:47:23and over a nine-pound omelette,

0:47:23 > 0:47:26sign a contract that'll make you millions.

0:47:26 > 0:47:32Back in the '90s, we saw Hotmail, we saw Netscape, PayPal.

0:47:32 > 0:47:35- You saw those fulminate right here at these tables?- Yeah.

0:47:35 > 0:47:38They come here and get a cup of coffee and form a multi-million-dollar...

0:47:38 > 0:47:42There was the pitch, and you never know what's big, just a couple of guys talking.

0:47:44 > 0:47:48It was here that venture capitalists Steve Jurvetson and Sabeer Bhatir

0:47:48 > 0:47:51joined forces to create Hotmail,

0:47:51 > 0:47:56a company they would eventually sell for 400 million.

0:47:56 > 0:47:58Who's in here right now?

0:47:58 > 0:48:03Well, Tim Kugel's over there, he was the first president of Yahoo.

0:48:03 > 0:48:06He took them to greatness. All these firms, they were here.

0:48:06 > 0:48:11Steve Jobs. I used to work for Steve Jobs. I was his home remodelling contractor in '79.

0:48:11 > 0:48:14- Is he a slave-driver?- He was tough.

0:48:14 > 0:48:18He was mean but he wasn't the cruel Steve he became later.

0:48:18 > 0:48:21When he grew into himself and got confidence, then you had to

0:48:21 > 0:48:23really stay out of his way. I knew him when he was still not sure

0:48:23 > 0:48:27if he was right about what he was telling me to do.

0:48:32 > 0:48:36Maybe you've asked yourself, "Hey, how come the Silicon Valley

0:48:36 > 0:48:39"is the hi-tech rock star of the universe?"

0:48:39 > 0:48:42Why not Boston? Or Singapore, or that decrepit-looking cluster

0:48:42 > 0:48:46of buildings by the roundabout at St Agnes Well shopping centre

0:48:46 > 0:48:48in London, right where City Road crosses Old Street?

0:48:48 > 0:48:51Why isn't that technological ground zero?

0:48:51 > 0:48:55Well, the simple answer is...blimps.

0:48:59 > 0:49:02Blimps were a key World War II defence component

0:49:02 > 0:49:07against the Japanese invasion of California that never happened.

0:49:07 > 0:49:09They were stored in hangars like these,

0:49:09 > 0:49:12here at Moffett Airfield in Sunnyvale.

0:49:15 > 0:49:19The idea was, supposing you had an airborne aircraft carrier,

0:49:19 > 0:49:22something that could carry a bunch of fighter planes,

0:49:22 > 0:49:24that could go fairly quickly

0:49:24 > 0:49:26and patrol up and down the coast.

0:49:26 > 0:49:29Then they built two operational airships.

0:49:29 > 0:49:33The trouble was, at the time we didn't really understand wind shear

0:49:33 > 0:49:37and other weather problems, and within a couple of months,

0:49:37 > 0:49:40both airships went down. At that time, it was decided

0:49:40 > 0:49:43this isn't the way to patrol up and down the coast.

0:49:43 > 0:49:48A number of technology firms, mostly involved in radio technology,

0:49:48 > 0:49:50soon located nearby.

0:49:50 > 0:49:55After the war, the blimps left, those companies stayed.

0:49:55 > 0:49:58In the ensuing years, Sunnyvale has given rise to new blimps.

0:49:58 > 0:50:02Atari comes to mind. Remember Atari? Right.

0:50:02 > 0:50:05But after World War II, a lot of these companies

0:50:05 > 0:50:08turned their attention to aerospace and technological research.

0:50:10 > 0:50:13Amongst the residents was a man named William Shockley,

0:50:13 > 0:50:16often called the father of Silicon Valley.

0:50:17 > 0:50:21Shockley went to work for Bell Laboratories in New York,

0:50:21 > 0:50:25and with John Bardeen and Walter Brattain invented the transistor.

0:50:25 > 0:50:29He relocated to California

0:50:29 > 0:50:34and set up an R&D lab. He came up with the idea of using

0:50:34 > 0:50:38silicon instead of germanium for conduction in electrical switches.

0:50:38 > 0:50:41He was awarded a Nobel prize.

0:50:41 > 0:50:45He hired eight highly trained, incredibly skilful assistants

0:50:45 > 0:50:49to help him develop and market semiconductors.

0:50:49 > 0:50:52Not a single one of them could stand working for Shockley.

0:50:52 > 0:50:55He had an irritating habit of berating them in public

0:50:55 > 0:50:58and occasionally hooking them up to lie-detectors to make sure

0:50:58 > 0:51:02they weren't withholding technical secrets. They all quit.

0:51:02 > 0:51:06These eight men would go on to found 65 different hi-tech companies,

0:51:06 > 0:51:09amongst them Intel, which invented the microprocessor.

0:51:09 > 0:51:12And that begat Hewlett-Packard which begat Dell,

0:51:12 > 0:51:15blah-blah-blah, until it all falls into place.

0:51:15 > 0:51:17Silicon Valley would not be what it is today

0:51:17 > 0:51:22if William Shockley had not been such an obstreperous douche bag.

0:51:23 > 0:51:26Shockley went on to become a professor at Stanford

0:51:26 > 0:51:30and managed to make himself one of the most despised men in America

0:51:30 > 0:51:33by going on TV and pointing out the difference in average IQ

0:51:33 > 0:51:37between whites and blacks, waxing at large on eugenics,

0:51:37 > 0:51:42and advocating that the government forbid less intelligent people to reproduce.

0:51:42 > 0:51:44My research leads me inescapably to the opinion

0:51:44 > 0:51:47that the major cause of the American Negro's intellectual

0:51:47 > 0:51:50and social deficits is hereditary

0:51:50 > 0:51:53and racially genetic in origin, and thus not remediable

0:51:53 > 0:51:57to a major degree by practical improvements in environment.

0:51:57 > 0:51:58Something tells me Old Man Shockley

0:51:58 > 0:52:02would have choked on one of his transistors when he realised one day

0:52:02 > 0:52:06Dr Dre would sell his Beats brand to Apple computers

0:52:06 > 0:52:09for 3 billion.

0:52:12 > 0:52:13Yep.

0:52:13 > 0:52:16That is the father of Silicon Valley,

0:52:16 > 0:52:19the place that's generally considered to be the home

0:52:19 > 0:52:22of the technological revolution that changed the world

0:52:22 > 0:52:27and catapulted California into the eighth-largest economy in the world.

0:52:27 > 0:52:29But let's get one thing straight.

0:52:29 > 0:52:34Silicon Valley did not invent the computer. Or the internet.

0:52:34 > 0:52:36Or the PC. Or Facebook.

0:52:36 > 0:52:41What Silicon Valley does is to exploit all those things

0:52:41 > 0:52:45invented in Singapore or China,

0:52:45 > 0:52:48or even that squirrely little roundabout in London,

0:52:48 > 0:52:50and then they make it more aerodynamic

0:52:50 > 0:52:54and sleek and user friendly and eye catching,

0:52:54 > 0:52:58and then they stuff it into the feedback loop

0:52:58 > 0:53:00of web-fingered, guppy-mouthed youths

0:53:00 > 0:53:07sitting around pining for the next new gadget or social media concept.

0:53:07 > 0:53:12"I'm going to invent a search engine for people

0:53:12 > 0:53:18"who are fans of Belinda Carlisle called Go Go Google."

0:53:26 > 0:53:27The people of Silicon Valley,

0:53:27 > 0:53:29whether they want to acknowledge it or not,

0:53:29 > 0:53:33are the children of the generation that wanted to change the world.

0:53:33 > 0:53:34You know, hippies.

0:53:34 > 0:53:37In the '60s, they thought they could do that through free love.

0:53:37 > 0:53:40Now it's through Match.com.

0:53:40 > 0:53:42But in both movements, the protagonists created

0:53:42 > 0:53:45their best ideas while they were young and reckless.

0:53:45 > 0:53:48If you're over 35 in Silicon Valley, you're done.

0:53:48 > 0:53:51Collect your Tesla and hit the road, Jack.

0:53:53 > 0:53:55Silicon Valley prides itself on taking chances

0:53:55 > 0:53:59and thinking outside the box and not being afraid to make mistakes,

0:53:59 > 0:54:03which happens to be true if you're a male, white 20-something.

0:54:04 > 0:54:0782% of the hi-tech companies in Silicon Valley

0:54:07 > 0:54:08are owned by white males,

0:54:08 > 0:54:1118% by Asians or Pacific Islanders.

0:54:11 > 0:54:13Of that number, 8% are women.

0:54:13 > 0:54:18Blacks, 0%. Yep, the great dream of eugenics is coming true

0:54:18 > 0:54:21here in Techville.

0:54:21 > 0:54:24Sometime this year, YouTube will register

0:54:24 > 0:54:26its one-billionth racist comment.

0:54:26 > 0:54:29It's quite possible, within our lifetime, that systematic

0:54:29 > 0:54:32Facebook bullying will prompt the inferior people on the planet

0:54:32 > 0:54:34to top themselves and do us all a favour,

0:54:34 > 0:54:38thus leaving a world of superior mental beings -

0:54:38 > 0:54:40just the way Shockley would have wanted it.

0:54:40 > 0:54:44MUSIC: "God Only Knows" by the Beach Boys

0:54:44 > 0:54:47It seems, here in California, the only way to run a business

0:54:47 > 0:54:51is to be an unflinching jerk. By dividing and conquering,

0:54:51 > 0:54:55poisoning the workplace, focusing your hostility on the less powerful,

0:54:55 > 0:54:58you will ultimately enrich the lives of Americans everywhere.

0:55:02 > 0:55:04So thank you, Collis P Huntington,

0:55:04 > 0:55:08even though you once ran over a woman with your own train

0:55:08 > 0:55:10travelling on your own railroad

0:55:10 > 0:55:14and then refused to pay her medical bill and subsequent funeral charges,

0:55:14 > 0:55:17because you didn't want to be perceived as a softie.

0:55:17 > 0:55:19And thank you, Steve Jobs.

0:55:19 > 0:55:22Even though you refused to acknowledge the paternity

0:55:22 > 0:55:25of your own daughter and forced her mom to live on welfare,

0:55:25 > 0:55:27you gave us the iPod.

0:55:27 > 0:55:29So thanks a million, dead guy!

0:55:48 > 0:55:50California is one continuous diaspora.

0:55:50 > 0:55:55Every day, people come here from Chicago, from Dayton, from Mexico.

0:55:55 > 0:55:59They move to Los Angeles to be actors, rappers, stand-up comedians.

0:55:59 > 0:56:03They move to the Silicon Valley to be techno-whizzes,

0:56:03 > 0:56:07but the people who arrived in California to escape the Dust Bowl

0:56:07 > 0:56:09weren't looking for hipster kudos.

0:56:09 > 0:56:11They were just looking for survival.

0:56:16 > 0:56:20The Dust Bowl was a tragedy in the most privileged,

0:56:20 > 0:56:22white American sense of the word.

0:56:22 > 0:56:25Already reeling from the financial crash of 1929,

0:56:25 > 0:56:29the states of Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri and Arkansas

0:56:29 > 0:56:34underwent a series of crippling economic and environmental disasters.

0:56:34 > 0:56:40In 1932, the Midwest suffered its worst drought in recorded history.

0:56:42 > 0:56:45That didn't look too staged, did it?

0:56:48 > 0:56:51It scorched the land from Texas to South Dakota.

0:56:51 > 0:56:55Farmers could do nothing but watch their crops die.

0:56:55 > 0:56:59And then, in the summer of 1935, the most devastating punch arrived

0:56:59 > 0:57:04in the form of dust storms that blackened the sky and roiled

0:57:04 > 0:57:09through farms, towns and houses, choking everything in their wake.

0:57:09 > 0:57:14I'll tell you, that looked like the worst storm you ever saw.

0:57:14 > 0:57:18The whole sky was just a black cloud,

0:57:18 > 0:57:20but it was all dirt.

0:57:23 > 0:57:2660 years later, geologists would discover that had any of these

0:57:26 > 0:57:30farmers sunk their wells deep enough, they would have found

0:57:30 > 0:57:31the Ogalalla Aquifer,

0:57:31 > 0:57:35the largest deposit of freshwater in the Northern Hemisphere.

0:57:38 > 0:57:41The collapse of the agricultural economy had seeped

0:57:41 > 0:57:44into everyone's life, so they grabbed their families

0:57:44 > 0:57:46and they came west - pushed, not pulled.

0:57:46 > 0:57:50There was never any question where they were heading,

0:57:50 > 0:57:54California. The question is, why?

0:57:54 > 0:57:56# Lots of folks back east they say

0:57:56 > 0:57:58# Is leaving home every day

0:57:58 > 0:58:00# Beating the hot, old dusty way

0:58:00 > 0:58:03# To the California line

0:58:03 > 0:58:04# Across the desert sands they roll

0:58:04 > 0:58:06# Getting out of that old Dust Bowl

0:58:06 > 0:58:10# They think they're going to a sugar bowl but here's what they find. #

0:58:10 > 0:58:13California has always pretty much sent out mixed signals

0:58:13 > 0:58:15to the rest of the country.

0:58:15 > 0:58:19The state government's bottom line was always one of migration control,

0:58:19 > 0:58:22but the tourist industry and the media have always tried to sell

0:58:22 > 0:58:25California as the land of opportunity

0:58:25 > 0:58:27or, more succinctly, luck.

0:58:27 > 0:58:31Those vacation ads in the '30s always came with fine-print warning.

0:58:31 > 0:58:35"Advise anyone coming to California to seek employment

0:58:35 > 0:58:37"to look elsewhere, lest they be disappointed."

0:58:37 > 0:58:41But those government pamphlets were never going to compete with Hollywood.

0:58:41 > 0:58:43You see, during the Depression, the one thing Americans never

0:58:43 > 0:58:45stopped doing was going to the movies,

0:58:45 > 0:58:48and all those feel-good comedies and horse operas

0:58:48 > 0:58:52and romantic musicals were always set in California.

0:58:52 > 0:58:55Midwesterners didn't read the fine print at the bottom

0:58:55 > 0:58:56of government pamphlets.

0:58:56 > 0:58:59They watched WC Fields inherit an orange grove

0:58:59 > 0:59:01and move his entire family to California

0:59:01 > 0:59:03and in the space of one reel,

0:59:03 > 0:59:06go from devastation to pure good fortune.

0:59:06 > 0:59:10That orange ranch, and 40...

0:59:10 > 0:59:1444,000. Mr Abernathy here's got to get his commission.

0:59:14 > 0:59:16That's a hold-up!

0:59:21 > 0:59:24- But it's a deal.- OK. Excuse me.

0:59:24 > 0:59:29It was stories like this that reaffirmed California's promise

0:59:29 > 0:59:31of dream fulfilment.

0:59:31 > 0:59:33You know, if you'd asked any of those Okies

0:59:33 > 0:59:35why they came to California, they'd probably have been

0:59:35 > 0:59:38as tight-lipped and stoic as possible.

0:59:38 > 0:59:41"Well, mister, I was just farming there in Oklahoma

0:59:41 > 0:59:45"and it's just getting droughtier and droughtier."

0:59:45 > 0:59:48But underneath this understatement was this vague notion,

0:59:48 > 0:59:50something they possibly couldn't even verbalise,

0:59:50 > 0:59:53but that they'd heard in a hundred songs.

0:59:53 > 0:59:56# They say, come on, you Okies

0:59:56 > 0:59:58# Work is easy found

0:59:58 > 1:00:00# Bring along your cotton pack

1:00:00 > 1:00:02# You can pick the whole year round

1:00:02 > 1:00:04# Get your money every night

1:00:04 > 1:00:07# And spread your blanket down

1:00:07 > 1:00:09# It's always bright and warm

1:00:09 > 1:00:11# You can sleep out on the ground. #

1:00:12 > 1:00:18Between 1935 and 1940, 250,000 Okies, Arkies and hillbillies

1:00:18 > 1:00:20had moved to California.

1:00:20 > 1:00:23They had no schools, no insurance, no health care,

1:00:23 > 1:00:26no union. Those who didn't find work were settled

1:00:26 > 1:00:29into farm security administration camps

1:00:29 > 1:00:31set up by the US government.

1:00:31 > 1:00:34- How are you doing? - Hello there, Cowboy.

1:00:34 > 1:00:36How are you, Cowboy? Good to meet you.

1:00:36 > 1:00:40- I'm doing pretty good for an old man.- Are you Earl?- I'm Earl.

1:00:40 > 1:00:44Have to look down every now and then.

1:00:44 > 1:00:46How are you doing? Rich.

1:00:46 > 1:00:49- WC Stamps.- WC, nice to meet you.

1:00:49 > 1:00:53Earl and WC are Okies. They were brought here

1:00:53 > 1:00:56by their parents to the Sunset labour camp in the 1930s.

1:00:56 > 1:00:59This picture here is an aerial view and it shows the camp.

1:00:59 > 1:01:02So how many buildings were there? This is huge.

1:01:02 > 1:01:05There were probably a good 100 or more families.

1:01:05 > 1:01:10WC and his family came to California from Oklahoma.

1:01:10 > 1:01:13This is a house that we lived in on a ranch.

1:01:13 > 1:01:16- Where's you?- Right there.

1:01:16 > 1:01:19About a year-and-a-half old, but you can see

1:01:19 > 1:01:22- the sun coming through the roof. - Yeah.

1:01:22 > 1:01:25So it was not too well put together.

1:01:25 > 1:01:28What did you imagine California was going to be like?

1:01:28 > 1:01:31I was just hoping things were going to be better.

1:01:31 > 1:01:33It was destitute where we were.

1:01:33 > 1:01:36But things didn't get better for everyone.

1:01:36 > 1:01:39Some of the migrants found work on the massive corporate-owned farms

1:01:39 > 1:01:42where they became a source of cheap labour.

1:01:42 > 1:01:45I started picking cotton when I was seven years old.

1:01:45 > 1:01:49I could pick 50lb a day.

1:01:52 > 1:01:54There were so many migrants available for work

1:01:54 > 1:01:58that they drove down wages and became a target for resentment.

1:01:58 > 1:02:02The great welcoming arms of California turned a white

1:02:02 > 1:02:06American subculture into a scapegoat for the state's problems.

1:02:06 > 1:02:09This was seen as an invasion by a lot of people in California.

1:02:09 > 1:02:12Police forces were organised to stop them at the border.

1:02:12 > 1:02:16Editorials ran, claiming that they were degenerates,

1:02:16 > 1:02:19just out for a free hand-out.

1:02:19 > 1:02:23People from Oklahoma didn't think anything of being called "Okies",

1:02:23 > 1:02:25but it was becoming a dirty word.

1:02:27 > 1:02:30Much like we were looked down on

1:02:30 > 1:02:33but people just didn't want to associate with us.

1:02:33 > 1:02:35- Why?- We were Okies.

1:02:35 > 1:02:37We were American citizens,

1:02:37 > 1:02:40born and raised in the United States of America,

1:02:40 > 1:02:44and we're like refugees. We're coming, trying to survive.

1:02:44 > 1:02:47And they were turning them around at the state border.

1:02:47 > 1:02:50If you didn't have so much money, or if there'd been supposedly so many

1:02:50 > 1:02:52come through this day, then no more.

1:02:52 > 1:02:55"You've got to go back to where you come from."

1:02:55 > 1:03:01What we lived through, you can't believe what it was.

1:03:01 > 1:03:06But I cherish my memories, that I'll grant you.

1:03:09 > 1:03:12Photographers and folklorists have made a field day

1:03:12 > 1:03:15of imprinting on us the harshness of the Okie migration.

1:03:15 > 1:03:19In 1935, the farm security administration hired

1:03:19 > 1:03:22photographer Dorothea Lange to document the growing number

1:03:22 > 1:03:24of homeless Dust Bowl refugees.

1:03:27 > 1:03:31She really strove to give a sense of dignity and power,

1:03:31 > 1:03:35self-reliance. You'll notice she often shoots from below.

1:03:35 > 1:03:39The person fills the frame and feels much more prominent

1:03:39 > 1:03:43instead of looking downward and making them appear pitiable and so forth.

1:03:43 > 1:03:46I think that's one of her strongest traits.

1:03:49 > 1:03:51They were trying to appeal to people's hearts

1:03:51 > 1:03:55and make a case for immediate action,

1:03:55 > 1:03:59and if photographs could be used to humanise these people,

1:03:59 > 1:04:02and make people aware that they were suffering unnecessarily,

1:04:02 > 1:04:05then that was a very good step.

1:04:05 > 1:04:07The writers and the photographers had a field day capturing

1:04:07 > 1:04:10this exodus in pitiable black and white,

1:04:10 > 1:04:12high definition, close up.

1:04:12 > 1:04:16You know, the gunnysack kids, and the hard-lived faces.

1:04:16 > 1:04:20But it wasn't a 1,200-mile road trip across Route 66

1:04:20 > 1:04:22that made people look like this.

1:04:22 > 1:04:24They looked like this before they left.

1:04:24 > 1:04:26I would venture to say the kids had a great time.

1:04:26 > 1:04:29They were on a road trip, for crying out loud.

1:04:30 > 1:04:35The Grapes Of Wrath has forever overwrought this tableau on our psyches.

1:04:35 > 1:04:39Steinbeck, himself a Californian, highlighted the mistreatment

1:04:39 > 1:04:43and the exploitation of the Dust Bowl workers by the farm owners.

1:04:43 > 1:04:47These farm owners dismissed the novel as a pack of lies.

1:04:47 > 1:04:49The truth of the matter is, for the majority of these people,

1:04:49 > 1:04:52old man Joad didn't cop it along the way.

1:04:52 > 1:04:55They didn't get chased and beaten up by vigilantes with sticks

1:04:55 > 1:04:59or succumb to consumption.

1:04:59 > 1:05:02The Dust Bowl migrants, for the most part, didn't really care

1:05:02 > 1:05:06for The Grapes Of Wrath, because it demeaned them, it humiliated them.

1:05:06 > 1:05:09And Steinbeck, for all his intentions,

1:05:09 > 1:05:12ended up debasing the very people that he meant to champion.

1:05:12 > 1:05:15The book, The Grapes Of Wrath, do you think that

1:05:15 > 1:05:16did you a favour...?

1:05:16 > 1:05:20No, no. I don't think so.

1:05:20 > 1:05:23I don't either. The thing is, it's a novel

1:05:23 > 1:05:26and it's fiction, and he made a tonne of money on that.

1:05:31 > 1:05:35I always felt that Steinbeck's characters

1:05:35 > 1:05:39were kind of ruthlessly honest. I found him very unsentimental.

1:05:39 > 1:05:44They didn't like him at all in his home town because of it.

1:05:44 > 1:05:48They celebrate him now but he got the cold shoulder from a lot of people,

1:05:48 > 1:05:53because he was showing a side of California nobody wanted to acknowledge.

1:05:53 > 1:05:57The whole time that people were looking at Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers

1:05:57 > 1:06:00and that manufactured world, he was also saying,

1:06:00 > 1:06:04"Hey, let's do something about not killing these people."

1:06:09 > 1:06:12The California government didn't really like the FSA camps

1:06:12 > 1:06:16because they thought they would foment union activity.

1:06:16 > 1:06:19And they did. Steinbeck published The Grapes Of Wrath in 1939

1:06:19 > 1:06:23and he quickly fell into the same trap as the sympathists before him.

1:06:23 > 1:06:26He politicised the problem, and suddenly this group

1:06:26 > 1:06:30of hard-working Protestant stock, rural people,

1:06:30 > 1:06:34were co-opted by a neo-populist left-wing movement.

1:06:34 > 1:06:38# I'm a-looking for a job at honest pay

1:06:38 > 1:06:40# I'm a-looking for a job at honest pay... #

1:06:40 > 1:06:43Woodrow Wilson Guthrie is defined by the music

1:06:43 > 1:06:47he produced at the time of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression.

1:06:47 > 1:06:51His songs earned him the nickname the Dust Bowl Troubadour.

1:06:51 > 1:06:55He wrote songs about the working man and hosted a radio show

1:06:55 > 1:06:58that allowed him to perform these protest songs.

1:06:58 > 1:07:01They would highlight the plight of the blue-collar worker.

1:07:01 > 1:07:04The listeners found in Woody something they could relate to -

1:07:04 > 1:07:06an imagined sense of community.

1:07:09 > 1:07:14Woody, of course, has inspired reams of musical scholarship.

1:07:14 > 1:07:16He's the god. The god of folk music,

1:07:16 > 1:07:18the guy with the guitar that killed fascists.

1:07:18 > 1:07:21But in 1937, he was just a hillbilly LA DJ

1:07:21 > 1:07:23playing train and minstrel songs

1:07:23 > 1:07:27and advertising his own headache pills over the air.

1:07:27 > 1:07:30But he understood the alienation of the blue-collar worker,

1:07:30 > 1:07:34the low-income guy, in a way that appealed to them emotionally.

1:07:34 > 1:07:37Woody's description of the kind of songs he despised

1:07:37 > 1:07:41could easily be ascribed to Steinbeck's novel.

1:07:55 > 1:07:58Woody is a populist hero. He would go on to invent Bob Dylan.

1:07:58 > 1:08:01And that, of course, would run its ugly course

1:08:01 > 1:08:05and eventually regurgitate something as synthetic and void of humanity

1:08:05 > 1:08:07as Mumford & Sons.

1:08:10 > 1:08:14Woody's greatest contribution to music was his DIY ethic.

1:08:14 > 1:08:17An untrained, unorthodox, personal perspective

1:08:17 > 1:08:19that was central to his work.

1:08:19 > 1:08:22And that ethic has carried over from Dylan to the Clash

1:08:22 > 1:08:25to Springsteen to God knows where next,

1:08:25 > 1:08:28but the people he was singing about probably never even heard

1:08:28 > 1:08:30of Woody Guthrie or his songs.

1:08:30 > 1:08:32Why? Because they were too goddamn busy picking lettuce

1:08:32 > 1:08:38in the San Joaquin Valley to be listening to radio!

1:08:38 > 1:08:41I don't know how much effect his songs had, really,

1:08:41 > 1:08:44on the Dust Bowl migrants.

1:08:44 > 1:08:46They wouldn't have been able to hear it.

1:08:46 > 1:08:51They probably wouldn't, but he certainly defined

1:08:51 > 1:08:54that era of California.

1:08:54 > 1:08:59Woody was what he was. He was an itinerant songwriter.

1:08:59 > 1:09:02He certainly didn't have the effect that Lefty Frizzell had,

1:09:02 > 1:09:05or Spade Cooley or Bob Wills.

1:09:05 > 1:09:08Those guys were the big stars out here.

1:09:08 > 1:09:10Now, friends, we're going to play an old breakdown,

1:09:10 > 1:09:14the kind that you can just roll up the rug, move back the chairs

1:09:14 > 1:09:18and turn on. You know, one of the old deep-in-the-heart-of-Texas tunes,

1:09:18 > 1:09:20here it is. Let's go, boys, a breakdown!

1:09:22 > 1:09:26On any weekend night in every FSA camp

1:09:26 > 1:09:30or on the outskirts of towns like Bakersfield, Fresno, Modesto

1:09:30 > 1:09:33or Tulare, there was a Pioneer Club, or a Texahoma Club,

1:09:33 > 1:09:36full of drinking, dancing, fist-fighting Okies.

1:09:36 > 1:09:38There was always a live band.

1:09:38 > 1:09:41Turns out, Americans don't turn to politics or religion

1:09:41 > 1:09:43to find their working consensus.

1:09:43 > 1:09:47Not on Saturday night anyway. They find it in music.

1:09:49 > 1:09:51Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys.

1:09:51 > 1:09:55Bob Wills. He'd go, "Aah-ha!"

1:09:55 > 1:09:59He was the first live band that I ever went to

1:09:59 > 1:10:04and we went 17 miles in the wagon to see Bob Wills.

1:10:07 > 1:10:12It was Western Swing led by Bob Wills that the California migrants

1:10:12 > 1:10:13felt belonged to them.

1:10:13 > 1:10:18It was made by people like them and it reminded them of home.

1:10:18 > 1:10:22And with others like Gene Autry, Rose Maddox,

1:10:22 > 1:10:25Spade Cooley and his Orchestra,

1:10:25 > 1:10:28the Light Crust Doughboys and Tex Ritter,

1:10:28 > 1:10:32Western Swing was having a huge influence on Californian music.

1:10:32 > 1:10:35# I've been working hard the whole week long

1:10:35 > 1:10:38# But I'm a-gonna have some wine, women and song

1:10:38 > 1:10:41# Got to work next week but that's all right

1:10:41 > 1:10:44# I've got five dollars and it's Saturday night. #

1:10:44 > 1:10:47Those Okies, 1,000 miles from home,

1:10:47 > 1:10:49didn't need to sift through the metaphors.

1:10:49 > 1:10:54The rest of California considered them to be pitiable, illiterate hillbillies.

1:10:54 > 1:10:57The California public schools instituted a programme

1:10:57 > 1:11:01to eradicate the accents of the migrant workers' children.

1:11:01 > 1:11:06They were scorned by the so-called sophisticated urban population.

1:11:06 > 1:11:10And their response was music. Real music.

1:11:12 > 1:11:14# Where's that gal with the red dress on?

1:11:14 > 1:11:16# Some folks call her Dinah

1:11:16 > 1:11:19# Stole my heart away from me down in Louisiana... #

1:11:19 > 1:11:21So a guy getting up on stage in a cowboy suit

1:11:21 > 1:11:25with an "aw, shucks" attitude and singing about open spaces,

1:11:25 > 1:11:28the dignity of hard work, the genuineness of friends and family,

1:11:28 > 1:11:32was their single most important source of group integrity.

1:11:32 > 1:11:35It was the language of their subculture.

1:11:37 > 1:11:40# I came here looking for something... #

1:11:44 > 1:11:46In the years following World War II,

1:11:46 > 1:11:49Bakersfield had tonnes of honky-tonks, most notably

1:11:49 > 1:11:53the Blackboard Cafe, where Western Swing was being played.

1:11:53 > 1:11:57But a new sound was emerging, the Bakersfield sound,

1:11:57 > 1:12:01and at the forefront would be Buck Owens and his Buckaroos.

1:12:01 > 1:12:05# And I've worn blisters on my heels

1:12:06 > 1:12:10# Trying to find me something better... #

1:12:13 > 1:12:17Owens' music was a response to Nashville, which was churning out

1:12:17 > 1:12:20soppy arrangements with strings and harmony singers.

1:12:20 > 1:12:25The Bakersfield sound was stewed in a big vat of roadhouse beer.

1:12:25 > 1:12:29Telecaster licks, pedal steel whines and a rockabilly attitude.

1:12:29 > 1:12:32When you hear the Beatles sing Act Naturally

1:12:32 > 1:12:34or the Stones sing Far Away Eyes,

1:12:34 > 1:12:37you're listening to the Bakersfield sound.

1:12:38 > 1:12:41Just the sound of those records was influential.

1:13:09 > 1:13:12In the summer of 1969, the same year as Woodstock

1:13:12 > 1:13:15and the Summer of Love in San Francisco,

1:13:15 > 1:13:17the same year that man first walked on the moon,

1:13:17 > 1:13:21the same year that the Beatles gave their last live performance

1:13:21 > 1:13:25and the Stones played Altamont and hired Hell's Angels as security guards,

1:13:25 > 1:13:30and 150,000 people packed the Isle of Wight to see Jimi Hendrix,

1:13:30 > 1:13:35a marginally popular country singer walked up onto a tiny stage

1:13:35 > 1:13:36in Fort Bragg, North Carolina,

1:13:36 > 1:13:39to perform for a handful of non-commissioned officers.

1:13:39 > 1:13:44Well, that fella's name was Merle Haggard.

1:13:44 > 1:13:47He was born in California to migrant parents.

1:13:47 > 1:13:51He'd spent his youth in prison, reformed and become a musician.

1:13:51 > 1:13:54The audience gave him a pretty lukewarm reception,

1:13:54 > 1:13:57not really buying what he had to say, so he decided to try out

1:13:57 > 1:14:00a new song that he'd been working on on the way to the gig.

1:14:00 > 1:14:03That song was called Okie From Muskogee.

1:14:03 > 1:14:08# I'm proud to be an Okie from Muskogee... #

1:14:08 > 1:14:13To this day, Okie From Muscogee is one of the most polarising songs ever recorded,

1:14:13 > 1:14:17and it catapulted Merle Haggard into the ranks of superstardom

1:14:17 > 1:14:22along with Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings.

1:14:23 > 1:14:29# The place where even squares can have a ball... #

1:14:29 > 1:14:33You can view Okie From Muskogee as an ode to simple American living,

1:14:33 > 1:14:34or as an anti-protest song

1:14:34 > 1:14:38meant to anger the counterculture of its time.

1:14:38 > 1:14:42Few songs have ever created such a shit storm of misinterpretation

1:14:42 > 1:14:44or misappropriation.

1:14:44 > 1:14:47Whatever you think of the song Okie From Muskogee,

1:14:47 > 1:14:51what it achieved was to open up a reservoir of group pride

1:14:51 > 1:14:54amongst the migrant California culture.

1:14:54 > 1:14:58What did you think when you first heard Okie From Muskogee?

1:14:58 > 1:15:00I thought it was pretty great, myself!

1:15:00 > 1:15:03When we first came in, "Okie" was a dirty word.

1:15:03 > 1:15:07They called you an Okie and you just wanted to...

1:15:07 > 1:15:09"OK, let's draw a line and we'll just get it on."

1:15:09 > 1:15:13Now we look at it, you know, we're proud of it.

1:15:13 > 1:15:18# I'm proud to be an Okie from Muskogee... #

1:15:19 > 1:15:23Haggard tried to point out that he had meant for it to be satirical,

1:15:23 > 1:15:26but the right wing cloaked themselves in the song.

1:15:26 > 1:15:30George Wallace, the bullet-headed race-baiting Governor of Alabama,

1:15:30 > 1:15:32used it as his re-election anthem.

1:15:32 > 1:15:36Richard Nixon invited Haggard to come to the White House to sing it.

1:15:39 > 1:15:44By 1969, the Okies were absorbed into the California hustle and flow.

1:15:44 > 1:15:47Nowadays, the Okie just seems like an invention,

1:15:47 > 1:15:52a collective work of shared trauma and real fiction.

1:15:52 > 1:15:55But it was country music that bridged that gap.

1:15:57 > 1:16:00APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

1:16:00 > 1:16:03The original lyrics to Okie From Muskogee are on display

1:16:03 > 1:16:05at the Smithsonian Institute. And there's a copy of the song

1:16:05 > 1:16:08buried in a time capsule on the moon.

1:16:08 > 1:16:13Not bad for a three-chord ditty from a California ex-con guitarist.

1:16:13 > 1:16:18# Tonight the bottle let me down... #

1:16:18 > 1:16:23Merle was born right out of that Dust Bowl refugee period

1:16:23 > 1:16:26that Woody Guthrie wrote about, so he's the descendant of that.

1:16:26 > 1:16:30And all that stuff gave California a certain kind of musical soul

1:16:30 > 1:16:33that maybe it didn't have before.

1:16:34 > 1:16:38Once California musicians realised that their music could take on

1:16:38 > 1:16:41all kinds of overtly critical manifestations,

1:16:41 > 1:16:43they headed in a myriad of directions.

1:16:43 > 1:16:46Gram Parsons and the Flying Burrito Brothers

1:16:46 > 1:16:48emulated the Bakersfield sound, but in a way

1:16:48 > 1:16:51that both countered the right-wing mentality of those singers,

1:16:51 > 1:16:53and paid tribute to them as well.

1:16:53 > 1:16:56They were Buck Owens' hippie doppelgangers.

1:16:56 > 1:16:59MUSIC: "Christine's Tune" by the Flying Burrito Brothers

1:17:00 > 1:17:03Gram Parsons just took the Bakersfield sound

1:17:03 > 1:17:07to another direction. Cos it was kind of open for that out here.

1:17:07 > 1:17:09He couldn't have done what he did in Nashville.

1:17:09 > 1:17:11He could do it out here.

1:17:11 > 1:17:15So then you started getting groups that grew up out here,

1:17:15 > 1:17:20that had really less concern about being genre-specific.

1:17:20 > 1:17:23So you had, you know, groups like the Grateful Dead or Quicksilver,

1:17:23 > 1:17:25that could mix all those things together.

1:17:27 > 1:17:31Unlike Haggard, Gram Parsons smoked a LOT of marijuana.

1:17:31 > 1:17:33Then he took too much heroin and died.

1:17:33 > 1:17:36They buried his body in Joshua Tree, California,

1:17:36 > 1:17:38then his fans dug it up and hid it somewhere.

1:17:38 > 1:17:41Out of the Burrito Brothers came the Byrds,

1:17:41 > 1:17:46then Crosby, Stills and Nash, Neil Young, and finally the Eagles...

1:17:46 > 1:17:50# Welcome to the Hotel California... #

1:17:52 > 1:17:56..who would eventually distil the California Country sound

1:17:56 > 1:18:00into the ultimate all-time fuck-you valentine to this state -

1:18:00 > 1:18:03Hotel California.

1:18:05 > 1:18:08# ..Any time of year... #

1:18:08 > 1:18:10Now, the Eagles, of course,

1:18:10 > 1:18:13would become so big that they were basically their own corporation.

1:18:13 > 1:18:15The rest of pop music didn't fare so well,

1:18:15 > 1:18:19and country music became so homogenised that it began to

1:18:19 > 1:18:22resemble those giant farm factories from the '30s.

1:18:22 > 1:18:26And out of this faux-hillbilly cesspool crawled

1:18:26 > 1:18:29Billy Ray Cyrus singing Achy Breaky Heart,

1:18:29 > 1:18:33and HIS loins begat a cloacal combination

1:18:33 > 1:18:37of sperm and mucus and synthesised slime that is

1:18:37 > 1:18:40Miley Cyrus, Hammer Licker.

1:18:40 > 1:18:43It's all gone to shit, people.

1:18:43 > 1:18:47But it all began in the San Joaquin Valley.

1:18:47 > 1:18:49And the music that came out of those fields

1:18:49 > 1:18:53is still the most important source of Okie integrity.

1:18:53 > 1:18:55Almost to a person, anyone who moves to California

1:18:55 > 1:18:57lets the prevailing culture shape them.

1:18:57 > 1:18:59But every once in a while,

1:18:59 > 1:19:03someone in California shapes the culture itself.

1:19:03 > 1:19:06# How many of you that sit and judge me

1:19:07 > 1:19:10# Ever walked the streets of Bakersfield?

1:19:10 > 1:19:13# Yeah! #

1:19:15 > 1:19:17APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

1:19:28 > 1:19:33# I'd like to rest my heavy head tonight

1:19:33 > 1:19:38# On a bed of California stars... #

1:19:39 > 1:19:43In the beginning, people came to California in search of gold.

1:19:43 > 1:19:46Now it's hammered into Oscar statuettes

1:19:46 > 1:19:50and the Golden State welcomes you to come and try your luck in Hollywood.

1:19:51 > 1:19:53Hollywood, of course,

1:19:53 > 1:19:55is the universal centre of mainstream cinema -

1:19:55 > 1:19:58home of the epic and the blockbuster

1:19:58 > 1:20:01and the bromance and the romcom and pretty much 99%

1:20:01 > 1:20:05of all the cinematic turds foisted upon mankind.

1:20:05 > 1:20:08But in the beginning, every film made in Hollywood

1:20:08 > 1:20:10was actually an indie film.

1:20:10 > 1:20:12That's right - made by renegades and upstarts.

1:20:12 > 1:20:16And weirdest of all, the birth of cinema can be traced back

1:20:16 > 1:20:18to the same guy who fleeced California

1:20:18 > 1:20:20for everything it was worth.

1:20:20 > 1:20:22Good ol' Leland Stanford.

1:20:22 > 1:20:25# ..Crash, bang, wallop What a picture... #

1:20:25 > 1:20:29To win a bet, Stanford paid the photographer Eadweard Muybridge

1:20:29 > 1:20:32to prove that all four hooves of a galloping horse

1:20:32 > 1:20:34left the ground at the same time.

1:20:35 > 1:20:39They did, and this event led to the first motion picture projector.

1:20:39 > 1:20:44But you'll already know that from other BBC Four documentaries.

1:20:48 > 1:20:51But what this bet did was give rise to the birth of Hollywood.

1:20:55 > 1:21:01Hollywood was built by a couple named Harvey and Daeida Wilcox.

1:21:01 > 1:21:04They bought 160 acres in 1887

1:21:04 > 1:21:08when there was nothing here but peach and apricot groves.

1:21:08 > 1:21:10Harvey tried to farm it, but he failed.

1:21:10 > 1:21:12Then he carved it up into little plots

1:21:12 > 1:21:14and tried to build a Christian Utopia.

1:21:17 > 1:21:19His wife named it Hollywood.

1:21:19 > 1:21:23Harvey envisioned a place where teetotallers could worship their god

1:21:23 > 1:21:24without outside interference.

1:21:24 > 1:21:26Yeah, you can see how that worked out.

1:21:26 > 1:21:29The place quickly went to shit, filled up with hookers,

1:21:29 > 1:21:31down-and-outers, actors...

1:21:31 > 1:21:36pretty much the same group of people who live here now.

1:21:36 > 1:21:38The replacement of a real god with a preferred god

1:21:38 > 1:21:41is one of the don't-go-theres in the Bible.

1:21:41 > 1:21:43But don't tell that to Hollywood,

1:21:43 > 1:21:45because the Bible didn't invent the close-up.

1:21:45 > 1:21:46Movies did.

1:21:46 > 1:21:51And when moviegoers first saw a close-up, some of them passed out.

1:21:51 > 1:21:54It's still the greatest special effect ever.

1:21:55 > 1:21:58See, God is a very far-off concept.

1:21:58 > 1:22:03But this face is right in front of you, just like Theda Bara.

1:22:05 > 1:22:08Never mind that she was really Theodosia Goodman,

1:22:08 > 1:22:11a nice Jewish girl from Cincinnati.

1:22:11 > 1:22:13Hollywood transformed Theda Bara

1:22:13 > 1:22:16into the love child of a French artist and an Egyptian princess,

1:22:16 > 1:22:20conceived on the Nile, born in the shadow of the Sphinx.

1:22:20 > 1:22:23The damn girl had barely ever been out of Ohio.

1:22:23 > 1:22:26She became the greatest screen vamp of early films.

1:22:26 > 1:22:29Hollywood had discovered it could create a goddess

1:22:29 > 1:22:32out of nothing but pure hype.

1:22:34 > 1:22:36The greatest trick of Hollywood

1:22:36 > 1:22:38was to invent a participatory religion.

1:22:38 > 1:22:41It's like we have an intimate relationship with these "gods".

1:22:41 > 1:22:45We sit at the altar and eat sacramental popcorn,

1:22:45 > 1:22:49while worshipping at the foot of Matthew McConaughey.

1:22:49 > 1:22:52And we're given plot information that even the gods aren't aware of.

1:22:52 > 1:22:55We get to fill in the narrative gaps.

1:22:55 > 1:22:57It's like we're controlling the story.

1:22:57 > 1:23:01We get to reward or punish these gods with box-office receipts.

1:23:01 > 1:23:03We dress them up and put them on the red carpet.

1:23:03 > 1:23:06We humiliate them by putting them on the cover of People magazine.

1:23:06 > 1:23:08We cry for them when they're in rehab.

1:23:08 > 1:23:13We breathlessly await the arrival of the Messiah god child

1:23:13 > 1:23:17delivered onto Earth by Brangelina - a child so special

1:23:17 > 1:23:20they closed down the borders of an entire African nation

1:23:20 > 1:23:21to give birth to it.

1:23:21 > 1:23:24The hell is wrong with mankind?!

1:23:24 > 1:23:28# I feel pretty Oh, so pretty... #

1:23:28 > 1:23:29It shouldn't surprise you

1:23:29 > 1:23:34that the Barbie doll was invented in El Segundo, California.

1:23:34 > 1:23:37Cos in California, if you look perfect, you are perfect.

1:23:37 > 1:23:41So Southern Cal types slice and dice themselves up, they hit the gym,

1:23:41 > 1:23:44they dine at the Ivy, they climb behind the wheel

1:23:44 > 1:23:46of a precision German-made chariot

1:23:46 > 1:23:49so they can look just like their idols.

1:23:51 > 1:23:55In 2004, California passed Proposition 71,

1:23:55 > 1:23:57legalising therapeutic cloning.

1:23:57 > 1:24:00I think you can replace the word "therapeutic" with "cosmetic".

1:24:00 > 1:24:04So there you go - just replace the middleman, the face-lift guy,

1:24:04 > 1:24:06and just go right to creating

1:24:06 > 1:24:11your own blue-eyed, blonde-haired, perfectly eugenicised Aryan

1:24:11 > 1:24:13David Hasselhoff knock-off.

1:24:13 > 1:24:16The kind of god child that would make William Shockley himself

1:24:16 > 1:24:19want to go out and get a face-lift.

1:24:19 > 1:24:23California used to mine gold. Now they mines genes.

1:24:23 > 1:24:25Do you see this face, people?

1:24:25 > 1:24:27This is the kind of face that has

1:24:27 > 1:24:30kept me out of the Hollywood big time for 40 years.

1:24:30 > 1:24:36This is a BBC face - a BBC Four face,

1:24:36 > 1:24:40the kind of face you can't even see in the daytime, only at night.

1:24:42 > 1:24:46# They're gonna put me in the movies

1:24:46 > 1:24:52# They're gonna make a big star out of me

1:24:52 > 1:24:58# We'll make a film about a man that's sad and lonely

1:24:58 > 1:25:02# And all I gotta do is act naturally... #

1:25:02 > 1:25:06California will always be selling itself,

1:25:06 > 1:25:09to quote Jed Clampett, as "the place you oughta be".

1:25:09 > 1:25:12But Californians aren't drinking that Kool-Aid any more.

1:25:12 > 1:25:16The government is currently 35 billion dollars in the hole.

1:25:16 > 1:25:20For the first time, California is losing population.

1:25:20 > 1:25:23But it will always consume more than it produces,

1:25:23 > 1:25:26and mostly what it consumes is history.

1:25:27 > 1:25:30The most memorable films about California

1:25:30 > 1:25:33have almost always been film-noir -

1:25:33 > 1:25:37Chinatown, LA Confidential, Sunset Boulevard.

1:25:37 > 1:25:41They use a historical context - the Owens Valley water scandal,

1:25:41 > 1:25:46rampant LAPD corruption in the '50s, the faded Hollywood star system -

1:25:46 > 1:25:49and then mine them for cynicism and sexual predation.

1:25:49 > 1:25:50Why?

1:25:52 > 1:25:56Because it's more entertaining than real history.

1:25:56 > 1:25:59California has always hated its past.

1:25:59 > 1:26:02True reality has never been good enough for Californians,

1:26:02 > 1:26:05who are always vaguely dissatisfied with things -

1:26:05 > 1:26:09their bodies, their cars, their history, their government.

1:26:09 > 1:26:12If you want to watch the definitive film about California,

1:26:12 > 1:26:18forget Sunset Boulevard or Chinatown or LA Confidential.

1:26:18 > 1:26:20Two epic airheads.

1:26:20 > 1:26:22Who was Joan of Arc?

1:26:22 > 1:26:24Noah's wife?

1:26:24 > 1:26:27We are in danger of flunking most heinously tomorrow, Ted.

1:26:27 > 1:26:28Woah!

1:26:28 > 1:26:30Bill And Ted's Excellent Adventure

1:26:30 > 1:26:35states simply that the California attitude trumps everything.

1:26:35 > 1:26:39Two high school students are in danger of flunking history.

1:26:39 > 1:26:43They find a phone booth that's actually a time machine,

1:26:43 > 1:26:46and they transport the world's most notable historical figures

1:26:46 > 1:26:47back to San Dimas, California,

1:26:47 > 1:26:50to appear in their high school assembly.

1:26:50 > 1:26:54It's based on a true story, just like Gravity.

1:26:56 > 1:26:59Thus Socrates, Genghis Khan, Billy the Kid,

1:26:59 > 1:27:01Beethoven and Abe Lincoln

1:27:01 > 1:27:04are snatched out of any historical context,

1:27:04 > 1:27:07their philosophies and achievements are manipulated

1:27:07 > 1:27:11to serve Bill and Ted's mission - to pass a history course.

1:27:11 > 1:27:14In the end, the historical figures, not Bill and Ted,

1:27:14 > 1:27:16learn the true meaning of life.

1:27:16 > 1:27:18Party on, dude!

1:27:18 > 1:27:23MUSIC: "California" by Joni Mitchell

1:27:25 > 1:27:27# Will you take me as I am

1:27:27 > 1:27:29# Strung out on another man?

1:27:29 > 1:27:33# California, I'm comin' home... #

1:27:33 > 1:27:36Well, that's California, dudes.

1:27:36 > 1:27:39The scariest thing is that we're all becoming Californians,

1:27:39 > 1:27:43who've always known that the myth is more important than the history,

1:27:43 > 1:27:46and that the image is more important than the word.

1:27:46 > 1:27:47Some of you watching this thing

1:27:47 > 1:27:50will take this as a definitive history of California.

1:27:50 > 1:27:52Well, it's not - it's just another

1:27:52 > 1:27:55digitally stored piece of television pop culture.

1:27:55 > 1:27:58Eventually, you'll forget it was even about California.

1:27:58 > 1:28:01You'll just remember this mug. And that's fine.

1:28:01 > 1:28:04Let me put it to you another way. Do you know who San Dimas was?

1:28:04 > 1:28:09He was the guy beside Jesus on the cross when they got crucified.

1:28:09 > 1:28:13But no-one remembers that, because people only remember the headliner.

1:28:16 > 1:28:21# We came out west together with a common desire

1:28:23 > 1:28:29# The fever we had might have set the West Coast on fire

1:28:30 > 1:28:34# Two months later got trouble in mind

1:28:34 > 1:28:37# Oh, my baby moved out and left me behind

1:28:37 > 1:28:41# But it's all right cos it's midnight

1:28:41 > 1:28:44# And I got two more bottles of wine. #