Like Something Out of the Movies--He Hopes

When you think of it, Rachael Ortiz’s life does sound like a movie.

Born in San Diego’s Barrio Logan, one of California’s oldest Latino neighborhoods. A school dropout. Early dreams to be a singer dashed by heroin addiction. Thievery to support her habit. Eight years in prison.

Then a parole from prison, success in kicking heroin, and work as an organizer in the 1960s with Cesar Chavez and political activists in the San Francisco Bay area.

And for 17 years since returning to San Diego, she has been the tireless and politically

savvy force behind Barrio Station, a recreation and social service center offering an alternative to the destructive spiral of drugs and violence.

When Ortiz, 48, spoke at a recent anti-drug rally in downtown San Diego, her challenge, as always, was clear and uncompromising: Gangs, drugs and “this turf thing” are everybody’s business.

“It’s not enough to come to a rally, applaud and then kick back and see yourself on television,” she said.

Movie and stage actor Mike Gomez (whose film credits include “Zoot Suit,” “The Milagro Beanfield War” and “Heartbreak Ridge”) met Ortiz at a Barrio Station fund-raiser a few years ago and quickly envisioned her life as a movie.

He has now finished a first draft of a screenplay, tentatively titled “Angel Baby,” and will soon begin trying to interest Hollywood in the project, including talking to Robert Redford (who directed “Milagro”) and Edward James Olmos (the star of “Zoot Suit”).

Gomez reasons that Hollywood has shown interest in strong Latino male characters--”La Bamba,” “Born in East L.A.,” “Stand and Deliver”--and may finally be ready for a movie about a strong Latina woman.

“I’m impressed not only by Rachael’s honesty but also by her energy,” said Gomez. “She’s one of the strongest people I’ve ever met--she bowled me over with her intensity. She’s had to be strong to beat poverty, drugs and prison, and then return to her community to do what she’s done.”

Only a fraction of the screenplays circulating in Hollywood are ever made into movies. Gomez knows the odds are long, but he is undeterred.

Ortiz has beaten long odds before.

A Lot of Good Men

North County notes:

* The talk of Camp Pendleton:

A female lieutenant has asked to resign her commission rather than face a possible court-martial for being overly friendly with enlisted men. The military term for it is “fraternization” and top brass frowns on it.

* San Marcos parents are angry about a fall schedule that has high school classes starting at 7:20 a.m. and bus pickups as early as 6:12 a.m.

There is talk of petitioning the school board to provide students with flashlights for winter months.

* One of seven former athletes at San Dieguito High School in Encinitas convicted in a series of bloody off-campus beatings in 1987 appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show Friday to discuss violence by teen-agers.

He blamed the victims for provoking the clash and throwing the first punch. Winfrey asked what happened after that.

“One of ‘em got fairly messed up,” he said matter-of-factly. “It wasn’t a good scene.”

A Jerk Like Me

Remember the Woody Allen movie where his vision of cruel and unusual punishment is being incarcerated with a talky insurance agent?

That’s the kind of deadly image Allstate agent Glenn Erath of El Cajon is trying to dispel. Here’s a new warm-up letter he’s trying out on prospective customers:

“Is your insurance agent a jerk? Chances are, he or she may be. I know. I’m an insurance agent and a lot of my peers are jerks.

“So here’s the question: Why keep paying too much money to a jerk like that, when you may be able to pay less to a jerk like me?”

Erath says the letter has yet to pay off, but at least it puts a dent in the tedium of talking all day about death and double indemnity. Erath has yet another gimmick: He sings to would-be policyholders:

“ Sing a song of premiums, pocketful of clauses . . . “