Ojai: Talk of the Town

The Ojai Storytellers Festival takes place October 26-29 with a full lineup of events from the nation's top practitioners of this ancient art form. We are joined by Kara, the festival's executive director and Antonio, one of the key storytellers.

Kara gives us the rundown on how the festival works, its place in our community and how it is integrated with local schools, and also, new this year, a Story Slam in which six local spoken word poets will compete.

Antonio talks about his upbringing in Miami and Boston as the son of a Cuban father and an Irish mother, and how those cultures, both renowned for their storytelling prowess, influences his own career. He talks about starting in public schools as an unpaid full-time puppeteer and theater director, then gradually building up his repertoire of fascinating stories from his colorful childhood, and becoming an actor, writer, and working the storytelling festival with the legends of the form. Among the stories he shared are how his dad considered him the "9th best storyteller in the family."

We did not talk about trout fishing with tenkara rods, heli-skiing or the textile industry in Nímes, France.

For more about the Storytelling Festival, and this year's schedule, check out OjaiStoryFest.org

Rick Ridgeway is a well-known adventurer, explorer, climber, naturalist, one of the original "Do Boys" with Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard and North Face founder Doug Tompkins.

In this reprise from several years ago, he joins the podcast to talk about his latest book of 25 adventure, "Life Lived Wild: Adventures at the Edge of the Map" as well as the climate crisis, extinction events and the many issues facing Ojai.

We did not talk about Papua New Guinea, deep-sea creatures from the Barents Sea or millennial uptalk and vocal fry.

Ojai's foremost serial entrepreneur and angel investor Bill Moses drops in for a spirited discussion about a range of issues facing Ojai, including the local economy, dealing with national companies when you own a local company, the Thomas Fire, his background growing up in rural Pennsylvania, moving and shaking on Wall Street, making the move to Ojai and the future of the world.

Bill is the co-founder, chairman/CEO for KeVita Probiotic Drinks, which was acquired by PepsiCo. He is also a leading strategist and innovator for companies in the food and beverage and skin-care industries.

We talked about his harrowing experience with Covid-19, founding Casa Barranca winery, the first certified organic vineyard in California, building an entrepreneurs' incubator in Ojai and much, much more. We did not talk about Emiliano Zapata, salmon farming or the value of Siberian sable pelts.

Check out more about Bill at FlyingEmbers.com.

Rebecca Simon, PhD, teaches at Oak Grove School and is the author of two popular books on the public's fascination with pirates. The first is "Why We Love Pirates: The Hunt for Captain Kidd and How it Changed Piracy Forever," and the second, just released this summer, is "The Pirate's Code: Life and Laws Aboard Ship."

She writes both for general audiences and as an academic, specializing in maritime law and how it has evolved and adapted, especially through the tumultuous period in the late 1600s and early 1700s, when popular conceptions of pirates, as seen in "Pirates of the Caribbean" were created.

We talk about the often-surprisingly egalitarian codes and laws under which pirates governed themselves, the differences between the reality and fantasy, the spark that pirates provided to oppressed people everywhere, including the American colonies, and much more. So strap on your flintlock pistol and cutlass and come onboard.

We did not talk about Shohei Ohtani's dream team, crayon color schemes, or competitive chess.

You can learn more about Dr. Simon on her website, rebecca-simon.com.

Welcome to another exciting episode of Ojai's podcast. Just in time for October's Adopt-A-Dog Month, we have a very special guest with us, Eric Knight, the executive director of the Humane Society of Ventura County. Eric is a passionate advocate for animal welfare, and he joins us to shed light on the incredible work being done at the shelter in Ojai.

Eric takes us on a journey through the Humane Society of Ventura County, sharing heartwarming stories of rescue, rehabilitation, and the commitment of his dedicated team. We explore the challenges and triumphs of running a shelter, discuss the importance of adoption, and discover the many ways in which this organization has made a profound impact on the lives of animals and the community it serves.

We also talk about the serendipitous twists and turns of his varied career, including his many years in the entertainment industry, and what brought him to Ojai. We did not talk about Arctic Tern migrations, the German concept of Fingerspitzengefühl, or the pigments of Renaissance-era paints.

Scott Johnson is one of California's leading architects and designers. He joins the podcast to talk about his first commission in California, the Fox Plaza in Los Angeles, which, before it opened, served as a major character itself in "Die Hard," one of the most successful action films of all time.

We also talk about his background, getting his undergraduate degree from Stanford and his Master's from Harvard, the place of architecture and design in defining our world, the Ojai Music Festival and his work as an abstract painter, and his recent publication of the book, "Uncommon Ground," about the conjunction of visual arts and architecture.

We did not talk about the explosion of Krakatoa, Thom Browne's latest collection or New York vs. Los Angeles as the food capital of the world. The episode is a re-release from 2021.

Here's a reboot of a fan favorite: Noel Paul Stookey, the Paul of Peter, Paul & Mary.

He not only rode the folk wave of the early 1960s with such indelible songs like "Puff the Magic Dragon," "If I Had a Hammer" and helping popularize a young Minnesotan bard who went by the stage name of Bob Dylan, but helped created it. He shares the iconic trio's origin story as well as his own, and the many memories of a life, well lived, in music.

"The Morning Show," starring Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston, is Apple TV's flagship show this fall with its lightning-quick writing, superb acting and tense, plot-driven examinations of the cultural landscape. It is the brainchild of director and executive producer Leder, the latest project in her brilliant career.

Season Three debuts September 13th, and brings in a new featured actor (Jon Hamm) and several gripping storylines.

We talk about her growing up in New York and Los Angeles, her big breaks that got her and her talented pen into the industry, some of her mentors and the many obstacles she had to overcome, as a woman, to reach the success she has today.

The wide-ranging conversation also includes our favorite films and television shows, best directors, actors, the studio system and, with the writers/actors strike, missing the camaraderie of the promotional tours for the show. We also talk about the many twists and turns of the Morning Show plot, how "legacy media" is a great prism for looking at the schisms in American politics, the threat of Big Tech and the interpersonal dramas that afflict everyone from the lowest to the highest pinnacles of society.

Mimi's film "On the Basis of Sex" about the early career of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg also came in for discussion, as well as the connection to Ojai through "friend of the pod" Judith Hale Norris, the supervising attorney for the 10th District Court of Appeals, and the momentous shift of the Dobbs decision and its likely implications for years to come.

We did not talk about bottlenose dolphin migrations, the Chinese Warring States period or the latest fashion-forward shoe designs.

Check out "The Morning Show" below (the first episode is free).

https://tv.apple.com/us/show/the-morning-show/umc.cmc.25tn3v8ku4b39tr6ccgb8nl6m?mttn3pid=Google%20AdWords&mttnagencyid=a5e&mttncc=US&mttnsiteid=143238&mttnsubad=OUS2019800_1-670311437945-c&mttnsubkw=122311402254__Hvgufltl_&mttnsubplmnt=_adext_

Dr. J.B. Dyas joins the podcast with his partner Cynthia Allen to talk about his approach to management — a process to train leaders in this American art form's give-and-take, improvisation and collaborative insights. They tell us that jazz is all about listening, and how jazz can train you to be a better listener, "and a better listener is a better leader."

He and Cynthia has been to Ojai many times, and now is teaching workshops using the approach he's developed over the past few decades to enhance productivity and morale, foster better communications and happiness in the workplace.

Dr. Dyas is currently the VP for Education and Curriculum Development at the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz, where he oversees the Institute's celebrated education and outreach programs including Jazz in America (www.jazzinamerica.org), "one of the most significant and wide-reaching jazz education programs in the world." He has presented numerous jazz workshops, teacher-training seminars, and jazz "informances" worldwide with such renowned artists, including Dave Brubeck and Hancock.

His Youtube videos about jazz improvisation as a metaphor and method for corporations and organizations have been viewed hundreds of thousands of times. He has taught hundreds of classes and clinics as a teacher and performed more than a 1,000 gigs as a bassist and bandleader. He and Cynthia talk about Ojai's role in the jazz world, as home to Gene Lees, the jazz journalist and biographer who wrote the lyrics for the "Corcovado," the classic Jobim and Astrud song, "Quiet Nights & Quiet Stars," as well as legendary pianist Roger Kellaway, Dizzy Gillespie's band leader.

We talk about jazz' importance to American history as a confluence of influences from Africa and Europe, and its role as a cultural export, its wide applicability to teaching and leading, and much more about he and Cynthia's fascinating life stories. We did not talk about Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the future of wind power or the Mayan wars.

Check out Dr. Dyas' website, https://www.jbdyas.com/, and his Youtube videos at https://www.jbdyas.com/jazz-pedagogy-videos, "and What is Jazz and Why It's Important to the World."

As of posting time, SAG/AFTRA (actors) and WGA (writers) were still on strike. Our guest Hawk Koch has been through a few strikes in his six decades in the entertainment industry, on both sides of the table. The studios have their offer on the table, so do the writers and actors, and talks continue. Hawk has been heartened by the Barbenheimer phenomenon with people returning to the theaters after the isolation of the pandemic.

A key issue is the strange new world of streaming services, where no one knows how many people are seeing the shows, or how much revenue they are generating, thanks to the opaque nature of big tech companies like Netflix, Max, Amazon and Apple.

Hawk has produced more than 60 films (from Wayne's World to Chinatown) and was head of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science. He is the one half of the only father-son duo to head the Academy (Howard Koch Sr.) When he was head of the Producers Guild of America, he worked with partner Mark Gordon to professionalize the craft and instituted the Producers Mark.

Koch serves on the board of directors for AMC Entertainment, the Motion Picture and Television Fund, the Producers Guild of America, and the National Film Preservation Foundation. He lives with wife Molly in Ojai but still keeps himself busy with new projects.

We talked about the accelerating rate of change in the business, and whether the studios and creative talents are worried about each other, when the looming threat of Big Tech threatens their entire way of life, through Artificial Generated Intelligence and their general disregard and lack of love for the magic of films. Hawk is a return guest from 2020 when he published "Magic Time," his memoir about growing up on movie sets and his distinguished career.

We did not talk about Mack Sennett, the Lumiére Brothers or magic lantern shows.