Booked Up with Jen Taub

Today nearly three years after the attack on the US Capitol my guest is American hero, Aquillino Gonell, author of the new book American Shield: The Immigrant Sergeant Who Defended Democracy. You know Staff Sergeant Gonell as one of the brave members of the Capitol Police who defended our country and our constitution when insurrectionist mobs attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, 2021. 

You saw Sergeant Gonell testify in July of 2021 at a televised Congressional hearing. At the witness table with him was his friend and fellow U.S. Capitol Police Sgt. Harry Dunn. And also with them were Washington Metropolitan Police Department officers Michael Fanone and Daniel Hodges. 

As I wrote in the Washington Monthly at the time, “These four heroes and their colleagues defended the U.S. Capitol from an angry mob hell-bent on murdering Vice President Pence and Speaker Nancy Pelosi and stopping the House and Senate from officially counting electoral votes to declare Joe Biden and Kamala Harris the winners of the November presidential election.”

Gonell was born in the Dominican Republic and came to the United States in 1992. The first member of his family to attend college, he became a U.S. citizen just before his 21st birthday. He praised “this country” for giving him the opportunity to “become whatever I wanted.”

In his testimony, Gonell said he was more fearful on January 6 than when he was deployed in Iraq. In Iraq, he was scared to go in convoys or supply missions to Iraqis, but he knew the risks. At the Capitol, he didn’t. How could he? “I did not recognize my fellow citizens,” he said. He heard threats against Pelosi and Pence, and realized his own life was at risk. “The rioters called me ‘traitor,” he said. They shouted that he should be “executed.” These were not peaceful protesters: “The mob brought weapons to try to accomplish their insurrectionist agenda.” These included hammers, rebar, knives, batons, bear spray, and pepper spray. They wore tactical gear. Some seized officers’ batons and shields. One rioter attacked an officer with an American flag.

Rioters pulled Gonell by his leg, shield, and gear. “My survivor’s instincts kicked in,” he said. He hit a rioter who was grabbing him. Then he stood and fended off “new attackers as they kept rotating and attacking me again and again.” It was “like a medieval battle, fighting hand to hand.” The rioters were shouting “Trump sent us. Pick the right side. We want Trump.” Gonell heard an officer near him, whom he later learned was Hodges, scream in pain. He thought “this is how I’m going to die.”

Gonell wiped away tears as he described learning later on that his family had been texting him frantically because they saw the turmoil. Returning home in the middle of the night, he had to tell his wife not to hug him because of the chemicals on his uniform. His body was burning. He showered, barely slept, then returned to work at Capitol around 8 am.

“I’m still trying to recover from my injuries,” Gonell said. Both of his hands, his left shoulder, and his right foot were injured. He needed surgery on his right foot and now needs it on shoulder, too. He’ll likely require rehab for at least a year. He wants to know why the U.S. Capitol Police had all the support it needed during Black Lives Matter protests but not on January 6. “We don’t want medals,” he said. “We want justice and accountability.”

Today I am honored to have Aquillino Gonell as my guest to talk about his new book American Shield, how his recovery is progressing, and what is to come.

You can email Jen & the Booked Up team at: [email protected] or by writing to: 

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Twitter | Website | Author of AMERICAN SHIELD

Twitter | Money & Gossip  Substack | Author of BIG DIRTY MONEY 

Welcome back to Booked Up, a podcast that features you, me and our favorite authors. We release a new episode every Sunday morning. 

Today for the December book club, we are discussing Norman Lear, the Hollywood legend who passed this month at the young age of 101. There are gazillion people who have a thing or two to say about this ground-breaking writer, director, producer, activist.  So, to anchor our conversation, Jen selected his best-selling memoir Even This I Get to Experience, published by Penguin Books in 2014.

With a blend of sheer luck, immense creativity, and epic perseverance, Lear created programs for television and film that transformed television for the better. Known best for situation comedies: All in the Family, The Jeffersons, Maude, and Good Times, Norman Lear brought diverse, complicated families into our living rooms night after night, year after year. 

His films include cult favorites like This is Spinal Tap and The Princess Bride. May his memory be a blessing. Less known is his work in founding the non-profit People for the American Way.

Here to talk about Norman Lear today on the Book Club are two friends of the show and a new for us here at Booked Up. First the new guy: David Kusnet. David was one of the first staffers hired by Norman for People for the American Way where he was the VP for communications.. After working there, David went on to chief speechwriter for former President Bill Clinton during the 1992 campaign.He is the author of Speaking American and Love the Work, Hate the Job and co-author 

Also returning to the show today are Dr. Bridgette Baldwin and Comedian Judy Gold. Bridgette teaches courses in criminal law and also Critical Race Theory. Her scholarly work has examined the intersection of the 9th Amendment and social movements, as well as, the convergence of race, class and gender on welfare reform legislation. She is a Professor of Law at the Western New England University School of Law.

Also joining the book club today is two-time Emmy-Award winning comedian Judy Gold. Judy is a comedian, actor, and writer. She’s the author of: Yes, I Can Say That: When They Come for the Comedians, We Are All in Trouble. You can see Judy live doing her stand up schtict in on January 12 at City Winery in New York. Then the next day, January 13 at City Winery in Philly. Of course there are more shows. Look them up yourself. What am I, her booking agent?

You can email Jen & the Booked Up team at: [email protected] or by writing to: 

BOOKED UP 

P.O. BOX 147

NORTHAMPTON, MA 01061

Facebook | Website | Author of WISCONSIN WORKS?

Twitter | Website | Author of YES, I CAN SAY THAT

Twitter | Money & Gossip  Substack | Author of BIG DIRTY MONEY 

Twitter | Money & Gossip  Substack | Author of BIG DIRTY MONEY 

Rob Verchick, author of the award-winning new book, The Octopus in the Parking Garage: A Call for Climate Resilience is Jen’s guest today.

Why this unusual title? As he describes: “One morning in Miami Beach, an unexpected guest showed up in a luxury condominium complex’s parking garage: an octopus. The image quickly went viral. But the octopus—and the combination of infrastructure quirks and climate impacts that left it stranded—is more than a funny meme. It’s a potent symbol of the disruptions that a changing climate has already brought to our doorsteps and the ways we will have to adjust.”

Replete with gorgeous writing and inspiring calls-to-action, The Octopus in the Parking Garage offers hope. Rob takes us on a journey with his words, including his description of kayak paddling with his law school class.  “A forty-odd-minute drive from New Orleans, Maurepas Swamp consists of about ninety-six square miles of flooded forest consisting mainly of water tupelo and bald cypress trees and the rootlike ‘knees’ of the latter poking out of the water like dragon’s teeth. Dripping with Spanish moss, their branches shade an understory of wax myrtle, pumpkin ash, and an abundance of things that slide and crawl.”

Rob is a leading climate law scholar who designed and implemented climate-resilience policies in the Obama administration. Before graduating from Harvard Law School, he  majored in English at Stanford where his senior thesis topic was “Mark Twain and Comic Theory.” Jen got to ask him about that. It’s not something you’ll see in his official buttoned up bio.

Rob holds the Gauthier-St. Martin Chair in Environmental Law at Loyola University New Orleans, is a senior fellow in disaster resilience at Tulane University, and serves as president of the Center for Progressive Reform. He has written four other books in addition to the Octopus in the Parking Garage of the podcast Connect the Dots.

You can email Jen & the Booked Up team at: [email protected] or by writing to: 

BOOKED UP 

P.O. BOX 147

NORTHAMPTON, MA 01061

Twitter | Website | Author of THE OCTOPUS IN THE PARKING GARAGE 

Twitter | Money & Gossip  Substack | Author of BIG DIRTY MONEY 

Today we are doing Jen’s favorite thing: following the big dirty money. This time the focus is on the world of private equity. Those two words together sound ever so restrained and elite, even contained.  In reality though the world of private equity is rough and destructive and affects all of us from patients seeking health care to workers losing their jobs. There are more than $10 trillion in private equity assets under management. And many public pension funds as well as ordinary members of the public are invested. Not private at all.

Timing is everything. In early December, two U.S. senators launched a bipartisan investigation on the takeover of our nation’s healthcare by giant private equity firms. Today on Booked Up we  have the top experts on this topic,Joining Jen to discuss this topic are authors Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner. Their new bestseller These Are the Plunderers: How Private Equity Runs—and Wrecks—America is a must-read for anyone and everyone who wants to understand why and how the rich get richer and the rest of us are struggling to make ends meet.

You may recognize Gretchen and Josh from their first book, about the 2008 financial and related mortgage crisis. It was a great resource for me when I wrote about that dangerous period. Reckless Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed, and Corruption Led to Economic Armageddon. 

Gretchen is the senior financial reporter for the NBC News Investigative Unit. A former stockbroker, she won the Pulitzer Prize in 2002 for her “trenchant and incisive” reporting on Wall Street. Josh is managing director at independent research consultancy Graham Fisher and Co., advising regulators, policymakers, and institutional investors on banking and financial markets. 

You can email Jen & the Booked Up team at: [email protected] or by writing to: 

BOOKED UP 

P.O. BOX 147

NORTHAMPTON, MA 01061

Twitter | Website | Author of THESE ARE THE PLUNDERERS

Twitter | Website | Author of THESE ARE THE PLUNDERERS

Twitter | Money & Gossip  Substack | Author of BIG DIRTY MONEY 

Chuck Collins, author of several works of nonfiction including The Wealth Hoarders: How Billionaires Pay Millions to Hide Trillions is Jen’s guest today. They mostly discuss his debut novel, Altar to an Erupting Sun, a near-future story of one community facing climate disruption came out this May.

“My bologna has a first name, it’s O-S-C-A-R. My bologna has a second name, it’s M-A-Y-E-R….” Listeners of a certain age will remember that television ad jingle from their childhoods. Chuck Collins also has childhood and young adult memories as the great-grandson of Oscar F. Mayer, founder of the eponymous meat company, of giving up his fortune for the greater good. When he was 26, he received an inheritance of $500,000 (what would be around $1.4 million today). Instead of spending or investing the money, he donated it to various foundations.

Today, Chuck is the Director of the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies, where he co-edits the website Inequality Dot Org. He is an expert on U.S. inequality and the racial wealth divide and author of over ten books and dozens of reports about inequality, climate disruption, philanthropy, the racial wealth divide, affordable housing, and billionaire wealth dynasties.

Praise for Chuck’s work is voluminous. Truly a who’s who in politics, academia, and policy circles shared their admiration for The Wealth Hoarders. Senator Bernie Sanders said “Chuck's book reveals not only the inner workings of this elaborate scheme to hide more than $20 trillion in wealth, it offers us a blueprint for reversing this obscene inequality so we can take back our democracy and ensure that our government works for everybody—not just the billionaire class and wealthy campaign contributors.”

Brooke Harrington, Professor of Sociology at Dartmouth College and author of Capital without Borders: Wealth Managers and the One Percent said Chuck Collins  "Skillfully blends personal narrative with social scientific research to create unique insights into a world of privilege that is ordinarily out of sight and out of mind for the rest of us."

David Cay Johnston, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author of Perfectly Legal  said: “While government takes out taxes before we get paid, the wealthiest avoid taxes with trusts, evade taxes with help from tax haven governments and escape the IRS because Congress hobbles tax law enforcement. Collins, who rejected the privilege of his birth, explains in plain English how wealth hoarding works and shows how we can stop this costly corruption.”

You can email Jen & the Booked Up team at: [email protected] or by writing to: 

BOOKED UP 

P.O. BOX 147

NORTHAMPTON, MA 01061

Website | Author of ALTAR TO AN ERUPTING SUN and THE WEALTH HOARDERS

Twitter | Money & Gossip  Substack | Author of BIG DIRTY MONEY 

Today Jen’s guest is Orly Lobel, author of the recent book THE EQUALITY MACHINE: Harnessing Digital Technology for a Brighter, More Inclusive Future. Orly just sold the film rights to her book on Barbie to CBS Studios. The book is called YOU DON’T OWN ME: How Mattel v. MGA Entertainment Exposed Barbie's Dark Side. The book and the CBS production will follow the parallel journeys of Barbie inventor Ruth Handler and Bratz creator Carter Bryant.

“Inspiration exists; it must find you working.” Picasso. You can find this gem and other fascinating details in Orly Lobel’s new book, THE EQUALITY MACHINE. She’s got it covered from virtual reality to sex robots.

If you don’t know Orly, you should. Beyond being an award-winning author she is the Warren Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of San Diego. Professor Lobel  is the Director of the Program of Employment and Labor Law as well as the founding faculty of the Center for Intellectual Property and Markets. In addition to the Equality Machine and You Don’t Own Me, Orly also authored Talent Wants to Be Free: Why We Should Learn to Love Leaks, Raids, and Free Riding. Orly’s work has been covered in The Economist, BusinessWeek, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fortune, Financial Times, Globe and Mail, NPR’s “Marketplace,” CNBC, and CNN Money.

You can email Jen & the Booked Up team at: [email protected] or by writing to: 

BOOKED UP 

P.O. BOX 147

NORTHAMPTON, MA 01061

Twitter | Website | Author of THE EQUALITY MACHINE and YOU DON’T OWN ME

Twitter | Money & Gossip  Substack | Author of BIG DIRTY MONEY 

For our special book club episode today, we are discussing the new bestselling memoir – THE WOMAN IN ME by pop icon Britney Spears. As you know, Britney is a multiplatinum, Grammy-Award winning entertainer. She has sold an incredible 100 million records worldwide. She released her new book THE WOMAN IN ME around two years after she got free from the abusive and legally questionable 13 year long conservatorship during which her father and his team controlled her every move, every morsel, and every dollar, paying themselves handsomely, and more than she earned off the product that this one-time child star had become.

Joining Jen to discuss this book are two legends in their own fields. 

Lisa Birnbach my long time idol, new time dear friend. Lisa is an award-winning journalist, cultural commentator and bestselling author. She also served as a witness at the E. Jean Carroll sexual assault trial against Donald Trump. If you are Gen X, you know Lisa from her runaway New York Times bestsellers: The Official Preppy Handbook and True Prep. Lis has published 20 other books, which have been translated into a dozen languages. I did not know The Preppy Handbook was a satire. It was my guide to life as a teenager.

Victoria Haneman is my brilliant legal academy colleague. She has a very fancy title: the Frank J. Kellegher Professor of Trusts & Estates at Creighton University School of Law. Victoria is the real nerdy deal.  She has authored four books related to estate planning and taxation, and also published more than twenty other works including among them law review articles, essays, and peer-reviewed book chapters. Victoria is a sought after expert, appearing on television, radio, and in print. 

You can email Jen & the Booked Up team at: [email protected] or by writing to: 

BOOKED UP 

P.O. BOX 147

NORTHAMPTON, MA 01061

Twitter | Website | Author of MAKING TAX LAW

Twitter | Website | Author of THE OFFICIAL PREPPY HANDBOOK and TRUE PREP

Twitter | Money & Gossip  Substack | Author of BIG DIRTY MONEY 

Today Jen’s guest is Taylor Lorenz, author of the new book, Extremely Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, and Power on the Internet. Together they discussed many topics including the controversy around mommy bloggers and the credit due to Julia Allison and other women social media pioneers.

Taylor Lorenz is the sometimes controvesial, never boring  technology columnist for the business section of the Washington Post, covering online culture and the content creator industry. She was previously a reporter for the New York Times and has written for numerous other publications including New York magazine and Rolling Stone. Taylor frequently appears on NBC, CNN, MSNBC, CBS, and the BBC. She was a 2019 Knight Visiting Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. 

In 2020, Taylor helped adapt a feature she wrote for the New York Times into the documentary Who Gets To Be An Influencer?, which ran on FX and Hulu. 

The New York Times said Extremely Online “aims to tell a sociological story, not a psychological one, and in its breadth it demonstrates a new cultural logic emerging out of 21st-century media chaos.”  The Washington Post said Taylor is  “Infectious in celebrating the tsunami of creative youth culture ... Lorenz gives us a clear and compelling history of how the money came to flow into amateur-made short video content.

You can email Jen & the Booked Up team at: [email protected] or by writing to: 

BOOKED UP 

P.O. BOX 147

NORTHAMPTON, MA 01061

Website | Author of EXTREMELY ONLINE

Money & Gossip  Substack | Author of BIG DIRTY MONEY 

Today Jen’s guest is journalist, filmmaker, author, and activist Andrea Chalupa. You know Andrea from her award-winning podcast Gaslit Nation that she founded with Sarah Kendzior. Fake populism. Demonizing the press. Scapegoating. Propaganda. Personal militia. All ingredients for a successful dictatorship and topics of their conversation.

Andrea and Sarah collaborated on the book we are discussing today called DICTATORSHIP: IT’S EASIER THAN YOU THINK. They describe DICTATORSHIP  as “a wild ride showing the perks and pitfalls of becoming a dictator, and how to overthrow one.”

Part of the book focuses on Soviet leader Joseph Stalin’s genocidal famine in Ukraine in 1933. Andrea is also the writer and producer of the award-winning journalistic thriller that was produced by MGM called Mr. Jones that came out in 2019. Mr. Jones was directed by three-time Academy Award-nominee Agnieszka Holland (known for her work on Europa Europa; The Secret Garden; House of Cards; The Wire) and starring James Norton, Vanessa Kirby, and Peter Sarsgaard.

You can email Jen & the Booked Up team at: [email protected] or by writing to: 

BOOKED UP 

P.O. BOX 147

NORTHAMPTON, MA 01061

Twitter| Money & Gossip  Substack | Author of BIG DIRTY MONEY 

Film star Illeana Douglas is Jen’s guest today. Ileana is the author of the gorgeous new book: Connecticut in the Movies: From Dream Houses to Dark Suburbia. This spans around 100 years from the silent film era up through the early 21st Century. This beautiful coffee table book is filled with delicious never-before-seen movie stills and back lot stories.

Illeana  has starred in too many films to mention. You know her from the movies including Cape Fear, Ghost of My Heart, Good Fellas, and To Die For, plus the many television shows like Entourage, Seinfeld, and Six Feet Under. Her first book, I Blame Dennis Hopper: And Other Stories from a Life Lived In and Out of the Movies was named Best Pop Culture book of the year in 2015 by Entertainment Weekly.

With Connecticut in the Movies, readers revisit classic films and are introduced to deep cuts. Illeana also places more contemporary films in context. My favorite chapter is Dark Suburbia Redux which focuses on more contemporary films like The Ice Storm 1997, directed by Ang Lee and starring Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver.  

I love it, but so do so many others. Here’s what Pulitizer-Prize winning investigative journalist Ronan Farrow had to say: “In Connecticut in the Movies, Illeana Douglas puts on her historian’s hat and takes readers on a compelling tour of her adopted state’s surprising, colorful, and sometimes dark history in cinema. Her adoration of the state, and the movies, leaps off of these pages—and it’s infectious.”

You can email Jen & the Booked Up team at: [email protected] or by writing to: 

BOOKED UP 

P.O. BOX 147

NORTHAMPTON, MA 01061

Twitter| Money & Gossip  Substack | Author of BIG DIRTY MONEY 

Twitter| Website  | Author of CONNECTICUT IN THE MOVIES