Arroe Collins Like Its Live Unplugged And Totally Uncut

America is divided and at a crossroads. Are its best years behind it or ahead? How can we raise a new generation of leaders to make our nation strong, healthy, and successful?

One inspiring man, who has seen people at their most courageous in the military and their most vulnerable as an emergency physician, is raising a young family of three children and wants to see them and our country’s youth have a bright future. He encapsulates his motivational prescription for the United States in an award-winning, best-selling book, Be The Weight Behind The Spear.

It outlines the leadership ethos of author Dr. (Colonel) Josh “Blackjack” McConkey. With over 20 years of working in the trenches of America's emergency rooms and with two decades of decorated military service, Dr. McConkey combines lessons of leadership and poignant examples of how we can move American forward. 

From the battlefields of Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom to the death and destruction right here at home caused by the opioid crisis, Be the Weight Behind the Spear encourages a national dialogue on the importance of motivating all Americans to be the weight behind the spears of America's heroes, and focuses on developing our youth into the future heroes and leaders America really needs.

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Their names and the details of the crimes are often forgotten with the latest outrage. I know he's dirty, but what did Paul Manafort do again? Why did Bob Menendez have gold bars in his home? Remind me, who's Greg Craig? But as journalist Casey Michel shows in his page-turning and infuriating new book, FOREIGN AGENTS: HOW AMERICAN LOBBYISTS AND LAWMAKERS THREATEN DEMOCRACY AROUND THE WORLD (St. Martin's Press; August 27, 2024), these men are part of the same story. With some working in the shadows and some working at the most esteemed lobbying and law firms in the world, they are part of a billion-dollar bipartisan industry that influences politicians and whitewashes political violence on behalf of some of the world's most autocratic regimes. With each seemingly disparate case, Michel pieces together a damning narrative of greed and institutional failure.

In FOREIGN AGENTS, Michel lays out the long history of foreign governments paying for access and puts today's unprecedented levels of lobbying in historical context, beginning with Ivy Lee, one of the founding fathers of political PR and a man both Hitler and Mussolini paid to shift American views of fascism in the 1930s. Every step along the way, we see examples of despotic and murderous leaders paying for reputation management from white-collar professionals, with little oversight or public attention. Each erosion of norms leads inexorably to 2016 and the eye-popping reality of Donald Trump's campaign being run "for free" by Paul Manafort, an amoral fixer who was both deeply in debt to Kremlin-backed oligarchs and had worked for years at the highest levels pushing anti-democratic Russian interests in Ukraine.

FOREIGN AGENTS reveals a sordid throughline of American politics-one that serves as an urgent call for action to prevent foreign powers from using unscrupulous Americans to hijack US democracy.

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Thank you for being part of the conversation.  This is Play It Forward.  Real people. 

Where One Hears the

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Crooked Smile details one man's journey that left him homeless on Skid Row, and what it took to escape a decade of addiction.

"Darkly humorous" is an understatement when it comes to this poignant tale of addiction, homelessness, incarceration, and eventually, redemption. Jared Klickstein, the child of two heroin addicts who eventually became addicted himself, takes readers on a raw and personal journey from his unsettling and secretive childhood in the suburbs to the slums of Skid Row. Through tales of violence, relapse, and deep inner struggle, Klickstein provides a harrowing account of his personal encounter with near-death-including what he calls dying in "slow motion."

But this story is not just about one man's life-it's about the hundreds of thousands of homeless and drug-addicted Americans who are on the streets right now. It's about those who need help the most, and what can be done to address the growing addiction and homelessness problems we face. In this moving memoir, Klickstein offers a fresh take and solutions to both epidemics, providing firsthand experience and insight into what policies should be put in place to mitigate the suffering. Crooked Smile recounts one man's escape from a hellish life-and carves a valuable path for others.

Comprising the Brothers Kinnon (Chris on vocals and guitar; Jeff on drums), riff-master Sean Casey (guitar), and classically educated bass player Enzo Figliuzzi, the Canadian/California-based band has played with everybody from garage legends like the Dirtbombs to arena stars Kings of Leon, making SXSW best-of lists numerous times, and in between hanging out with the Rolling Stones’ legendary manager Andrew Loog Oldham. But putting integrity first had a cost: obscurity.

Lions in the Street began their career by signing and then walking away from the troubled TVT Records (NIN, Pitbull, Little Jon), Nickelback’s 604 Records (Carly Rae Jepson), and legendary manager Allen Kovac (Motley Crue, The Cars, Blondie, The Bee Gees), earning them a spot on the music industry’s blacklist. Years in the wilderness resulted—working as a garbageman for almost a decade, surviving cancer, serious workplace injuries, and almost deadly car accidents, and going back to school.

Yet, despite experiencing the best and worst of the of old music business—from hanging out with Todd Rundgren, Bob Ezrin, and R.E.M.’s Peter Buck, to seeing an A&R guy almost fired just for going to see them play—the band somehow kept going, releasing music piecemeal. 
For example, Lions in the Street released an EP in 2013 on British legend Sandy Roberton's label. Roberton ran Blue Horizon, the English label that launched the 60s British Blues rock movement with John Mayall, Fleetwood Mac, and Rory Gallagher. 

Now the streaming platforms revolution has given Lions in the Street a new life an audience, allowing them to release largely-unheard music—finally finished and remixed/remastered.