| An Interview with Ed Begley Jr. |
Toronto Star Wheels - 05/10/08 |
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My first clue that Ed Begley Jr.'s a little different came when he stepped up to warmly shake my hand. The guy's pretty tall; tall and thin and seemingly grounded by a pair of large feet encased in a pair of equally large white vegan running shoes, -shoes that while not exactly in keeping with his three-button black suit were a perfect match to his white sweat socks.
My next clue came when it took the actor most of our allotted interview time to tell me about all the alternatively-fueled cars he's ever owned. The man is seriously into electric cars. "I bought my first electric car in 1970. It was a Taylor-Dunn", he explained hastening to add, "When I say 'car' I'm being quite grand. We're taking about a golf cart with a windshield wiper and a horn." |
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Though inexpensive, -he paid $950 for the Taylor-Dunn, it was slow (15-20 mph) with such a limited range that he soon abandoned it and, as he says, "moved up the transportation ladder to a Peugeot, -a Peugeot bicycle that is". Laughing, Begley admits that compared to the Taylor-Dunn, his bicycle went further and faster. "Not up hill it didn't go faster, but on the flat, being the young man I was, it went faster." Known for showing up to posh Hollywood events on his bicycle or in an electric car, it would be wrong to assume Begley does such things for the publicity. As his beleaguered wife will attest, the man simply wants to live an environmentally friendly life. Turns out, that long before Begley took on the role of Dr. Victor Ehrlich in the 1980's drama St. Elsewhere, long before he became the recognized character actor he is now toting up an impressive list of acting credentials on such shows such as Boston Legal, Veronica Mars and Arrested Development, long before he became a famous actor ("I'm a working actor, not a star") Ed Begley Jr. was a passionate environmental advocate. Which is precisely the reason the 58-year old Californian agreed to appear at Toronto's recent Green Living Show, well, that and the fact that he's hawking his book "Living Like Ed" which is an easy-to-read green living guide, a companion piece to his current eco-reality show on HGTV "Living with Ed". (www.edbegley.com) The man is definitely green. He's a composing, recycling, carbon offset buying, solar oven cooking, public transit promoting, electric car enthusiast, -but amicably so. His enthusiasm for living an environmentally-friendly life is infectious and encouraging; his green message delivered with humour in an upbeat, genteel and self-effacing manner. This is after all the man whose cartoon self appeared on a tree-hugging episode of The Simpsons driving a nonpolluting go-cart "powered by his own sense of self-satisfaction". While not exactly go-carts, some of Ed's early electric cars could hardly be described as powerful. Take for instance the 1973 converted-to-electric Subaru he bought in 1990 for $1,750, it had a range of about 25 miles and a top speed of 42 mph. "It took about two long blocks, two really long blocks to get up to 40 mph", grins Begley. After spending an additional $2,500 to rewire and modify the Subaru, Begley finally had what he considered a "real car", happily driving it around Los Angeles until the day he was rear-ended on the freeway by a vehicle that was in the midst of a high-speed chase with police. While the suspects' midsize car was destroyed in the impact, Begley notes, "My car was still drivable because I had something in the back, a 'passenger protection device', known as the batteries, the big old batteries in the back." Batteries which, as he smugly points out to naysayers who decry such things, remained perfectly intact. Next came a Volkswagen Rabbit, resurrected from a junk yard and converted to electric, which he drove until 1976 when he realized he wanted a car with a few more amenities. "I drove that car for four years. I paid $10,000 for it. I put in one set of batteries for $800-some-odd dollars. All the batteries were fully recyclable of course. I sold it for $10,000 and the sum total of what I spent on the car, fuel and everything, was $800. That's it! Because I was fueling with my solar panels". By that time Begley had installed solar panels on the roof of his modest two-bedroom Studio City home to power his home and cars; an eco-friendly solution that admittedly also appealed to his frugal side. Realizing not everyone can access solar energy, and acknowledging that the fuel source for many electric cars is hydro-electric power plants, Begley argues that it's much easier to control pollution at a power plant than it is in a million tailpipes and believes electric vehicles to be better, cleaner, and more fuel efficient.. Cognizant of the need for further development of alternative power sources such as geothermal and wind power, Begley himself installed a 500-watt vertical-axis wind turbine on the roof of his garage to supplement his solar panels.. His pleasure in owning electric cars increased considerably when he got a car with air bags, a 75-mile range and "incredible acceleration". "It was a General Motors EV1. That was my next electric car, and I drove that for the life of it through 2002", he says adding pointedly, "when I had to surrender it because they were crushing them." The Toyota Rav4 ("Pure electric, nothing hybrid about it.") Begley currently owns has 60,000 miles on it. When not walking, biking or using public transportation, he uses the Rav4 for trips that fall within the car's 80 mile range; longer distances require that he borrow his wife's Toyota Prius. He's also recently been driving an electric sport-utility truck from Phoenix Motorcars; a new 3,800 pound zero-emmission, five-seater SUT capable of 95 mph with a range of 100 miles. "We need to be in safe cars that have enough acceleration to meet our needs" says Begley acknowledging that electric cars aren't for everyone. "But all I would really ask people to do is to evaluate not what you want, but what you need." "The point of the electric cars for me is you don't need a sledge hammer to put in a carpet tack", he says using yet another quintessential Begley analogy. "Most people think they need a sledge hammer 365 days. What you really need is a tiny hammer." For those of us who insist on driving "sledge hammers" all the time, there are still environmentally-friendly things that can be done. A firm believer in purchasing carbon offsets, Begley is well aware they don't eliminate tailpipe emissions but insists: "They are putting new green electrons into the grid. If enough people buy carbon offsets you can shut down a dirty electric generating facility." He's also a great proponent of what he calls "picking the low-hanging fruit first" insisting that there are cheap and easy things absolutely everyone can do to live a more eco-friendly life. For gas-guzzling carbon-emitters that means putting an end to idling and ditching our cars as often as possible to walk, cycle or take public transportation; making a concerted effort to, -as Ed says: "Live simply so that others can simply live." |