Previous Guests & Stories
RON BREWINGTON is a well-known radio and television broadcaster and a 2007 inductee into the Broadcasters Hall of Fame. Brewington held positions as an anchor/reporter at various stations before settling as the Los Angeles bureau chief for American Urban Radio Networks, a job he held for seventeen years. Subsequently, he became a stringer for Associated Press Radio Network and also contributed to Chatbusters News Service in the United Kingdom as the Los Angeles correspondent. He has produced a number of nationally syndicated radio programs and also hosted and wrote the R&B Superstars Series. He is a U.S. Navy veteran and has degrees in Journalism and Broadcast Journalism. Read more about him on The HistoryMakers website. Mr. Brewington is also Historian & Vice-President of the LA Chapter of Tuskegee Airmen Inc.. The Tuskegee Airmen were the first African American military aviators in the United States armed forces. Formally, they were the 332nd Fighter Group and the 477th Bombardment Group of the U.S. Army Air Corps. Read extensive information about their history and their significant and ongoing accomplishments on their website.
BARBARA MORRISON - Popular vocalist Barbara Morrison’s long career includes performances at the Montreux, Monterey, Long Beach and North Sea jazz festivals, Carnegie Hall and probably every Southern California jazz venue of the last forty years. She has been featured on over twenty albums. In addition to performing, she is a tireless educator. She serves as the Creative Director of the Barbara Morrison Performing Arts Center in the Leimert Park neighborhood of L.A. Read more about the Center here. Her personal website is here.
LULA WASHINGTON - Award-winning choreographer Lula Washington has worked for most of her career in an Afrocentric dance idiom that merges modern, jazz and tap techniques. After earning a master’s degree in dance from UCLA, she went on, with her husband Erwin, to found her own dance company in 1980. The company evolved into the Lula Washington Contemporary Dance Foundation, a non-profit organization devoted to providing a creative outlet for minority dance artists in South Los Angeles. Read more here.
LAURENCE BERGREEN is the prizewinning author of MARCO POLO: FROM VENICE TO XANADU; LOUIS ARMSTRONG: AN EXTRAVAGANT LIFE; and CAPONE: THE MAN AND THE ERA. Tim Carpenter talks to Laurence Bergreen about his new book, COLUMBUS: THE FOUR VOYAGES. Read more about biographer/historian Laurence Bergreen at his website.
ELIZABETH AMINI is a social entrepreneur who founded Anti-Aging Games to help us improve our memory, concentration, and brain function. She worked as a scientist at JPL/NASA and her Anti-Aging Games business plan won the USC Business Plan contest as well as the YPO (Young Presidents' Organization) award for promising new companies. Tim Carpenter talks to Elizabeth Amini about games, brains and memory. Read more about anti-aging games here.
ANDREA GALLAGHER, Principal and Founder of Rethinking Your Future, is an experienced leader and change agent. Using her twenty-five years of executive leadership and transformation experience, Andrea developed an innovative business model that helps Boomers build life plans to prepare for their next thirty+ years. Andrea discusses “A New Life Plan for 50 and Beyond,” an event scheduled for December 6th at the Positive Aging Conference.
KATHLEEN SHOMAKER, Director of Gray is Green (the National Senior Conservation Corps), the leading environmental education, advocacy, and action organization for older adults, talks about keeping elder Americans informed on “green” consumer actions and offers the latest updates on environmental advocacy. Gray Is Green is the “go to” organization for members of America’s older generations who are interested in environmental sustainability. It serves as a clearinghouse for older adults interested in greening their lives, learning about sustainability, advocating for sound climate change policy, and serving as resources for younger people involved in sustainability.
PAUL CUMMINS - Paul Cummins is Executive Director of New Visions Foundation, founder of the New Roads School, Camino Nuevo Charter Academy, and the Center for Educational Opportunity. He also founded and served as headmaster of Crossroads School and founded P.S. Arts. Tim Carpenter talks to Paul Cummins about his new book, LOVE AND SQUALOR: MUSINGS ON CULTURE, LITERATURE AND THE ENVIRONMENT. To order the book, click here.
JOHN OUTTERBRIDGE - John Outterbridge has been called a “pivotal archeologist and architect” of the African-based aesthetic. A revered and well-known artist, he is also emblematic of Los Angeles art, where he was Director of the Watts Towers Cultural Center for more than 17 years. John’s art is currently being celebrated as part of Pacific Standard Time, an unprecedented collaboration of cultural institutions across Southern California coming together to celebrate the birth of the L.A. art scene. Our own Rebecca Novick met John Outterbridge at his Los Angeles studio, where stories and jazz music were served up.
LESTER STRONG - Lester Strong is the CEO of Experience Corps, an award-winning national program engaging people over 55 in meeting their communities' greatest challenges. 2,000 Experience Corps members tutor and mentor in 22 cities across the country, providing literacy coaching, homework help, consistent role models and committed, caring attention. He spent 25-years in the television industry as an executive, producer, reporter and anchor. For more information on Lester, go to the ExperienceCorps website.
DAVID BORNSTEIN - David Bornstein is a journalist who specializes in writing about social innovation and is the author of THE PRICE OF A DREAM and HOW TO SAVE THE WORLD . His articles have appeared in the Atlantic Monthly and the New York Times, and he co-wrote the PBS documentary "To Our Credit." He will talk about his new book, SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP. For more information on David, go to his blog.
RUSSELL BANKS - Russell Banks is one of America’s most prestigious fiction writers, a past president of the International Parliament of Writers and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His books include THE RULE OF THE BONE, CONTINENTAL DRIFT, AFFLICTION and THE SWEET HEREAFTER. Tim Carpenter talks to Russell Banks about his new novel, LOST MEMORY OF SKIN.
DEBORAH KING - Deborah King works with people around the world and has an online energy medicine training program. She also hosts a weekly online radio show with Hay House. Her latest book is YOU CAN BE YOUR OWN SHAMAN: HEAL YOURSELF AND OTHERS WITH 21ST CENTURY MEDICINE and she will be doing a workshop at the Hay House I CAN DO IT program in Pasadena on Sunday, October 16. www.deborahkingcenter.com
ALICE and RICHARD MATZKIN - Alice and Richard Matzkin created an award-winning book called THE ART OF AGING: CELEBRATING THE AUTHENTIC SELF which features brilliant photos of their art and the stories behind them. They were chosen as finalists for Beautiful Minds in 2011. www.matzkinstudio.com
CHARLES OWENS - Bobbee Zeno interviews acclaimed musician and reed master Charles Owens, conductor of the Luckman Jazz Orchestra, about the performance tribute to jazz icon, pianist and composer Horace Silver, this Saturday, Sept. 24, 2011, at the Luckman Theater on the campus of California State University of Los Angeles at 8 PM. Read more about Mr. Owens' distinguised career at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music's Department of Ethnomusicality website here.
MARIE KELLIER - Caricabela Festival Organizer Marie Kellier talks with Bobbee Zeno about the 12th Annual Caricabela Celebration in Westchester, CA, Oct. 7th to Oct. 16th. The Los Angeles Carnival is the closing extravaganza of a 10-day Caricabela Caribbean Heritage celebration in Los Angeles, California. Whether you experience it as a parade, a Trini-style carnival or a Caribbean festival, Caricabela Los Angeles Carnival is a non-stop street party, ablaze with color, music, movement and pageantry. This living tradition moves on stage and gives voice to a heritage forged by a history of European influences blended with rich traditions of African, Asian and Indian peoples to create a synthesis of talent, vibrancy and creativity. The diversity in languages, foods and customs is truly unparalleled and within this diversity is a rhythm... a style...a sensibility that is unmistakably Caribbean.
LALO ALCARAZ - Lalo Alcaraz is the creator of the first nationally syndicated, politically themed Latino daily comic strip, "La Cucaracha," which is read in over 100 newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times. Lalo and his work have been featured often on TV and radio, and his work has appeared extensively in print. He has received four Southern California Journalism Awards for Best Cartoon in Weekly Papers, as well as numerous other awards and honors. His books include "Latino USA: A Cartoon History," "Migra Mouse: Political Cartoons On Immigration, and the first collection of his daily comic strips, "La Cucaracha." Lalo is also the co-host of KPFK Radio's wildly popular satirical talk show, "The Pocho Hour of Power." He has a BA degree from San Diego State University and an MA from UC Berkeley. Lalo was born in San Diego, California and grew up on the US/Mexico border. Read more at his website.
MAUREEN KELLEN-TAYLOR - Maureen has worked in the field of Arts and Aging for over 25 years, during which she was Founding Director of Artworks in San Francisco where she received Artist in Residence awards from the California Arts Council for 5 years. She earned a M.A. in Expressive Arts Therapy and a Ph.D. for conducting research in Learning and Change in Human Systems. In 2003 she was invited to be a Resident Artist at Boreal Arts and Ecology Center, Quebec, Canada to continue her explorations in Art, Nature and Spirituality through environmental installations. In 2005 she received the Directors Award from the California Arts Council for a life time commitment to the Arts. She has exhibited paintings in England and the U.S. Maureen is Chief Operating Officer of EngAGE, Inc. You'll also hear her regularly as the announcer on Experience Talks. Read more about Talk Story here.
KEVIN FLYNN - Journalist Kevin Flynn is co-author (with Jim Dwyer) of the book, "102 Minutes: The Unforgettable Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers." From publishers Henry Holt & Co.: "Drawing on hundreds of interviews with rescuers and survivors, thousands of pages of oral histories, and countless phone, e-mail, and emergency radio transcripts, New York Times reporters Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn tell the story of September 11 from the inside looking out, weaving together the stories of ordinary men and women into an epic account of struggle, determination, and grace. Hailed immediately upon its hardcover publication as the definitive account of that terrible morning, '102 Minutes' now contains a new Afterword that incorporates powerful firsthand material, including tapes and documents, that Dwyer and Flynn recently obtained after more than three years of litigation with the city of New York."
COUNCILWOMAN JAN PERRY - Los Angeles Councilwoman Jan Perry, represents the communities of the Ninth District on the Los Angeles City Council. In January 2010, she was reappointed by Mayor Villaraigosa to a third term on the LA County Air Qualitiy Management District Governing Board, where she represents the City of Los Angeles through January 2014. She has served on the Board since 2003. Perry has initiated and participated in numerous activities and events to promote clean air throughout the region. Her Annual Senior Luncheon Program at the LA Convention Center is co-sponsored by the LA-AQMD. The popular event includes guest speakers, award presentations, gifts and a performance art show.