Ojai: Talk of the Town

Kelley D'Angelo, founder of Lark Ellen Farms, has seen her business increase dramatically during the pandemic. Her line of sprouted, low-carb, high-protein granolas, trail mixes and vegan patés have found a growing list of devoted customers over the past few years and it all began, and remains, here in Ojai. 

She got her start as "Granola Girl" at local farmers markets and, with encouragement from Ernest Niglio, manager of Rainbow Bridge  an enthusiastic proponent of local products, decided to go big into grocery chains. Then she took her show on the road, taking orders from other retail grocers, starting with Lazy Acres, then adding Whole Foods and branching out regionally then nationally. It's a family affair for Kelley, working with sister, mother and father, selling products at the Ojai Farmers Market, manufacturing at their facility on Bryant Street and ramping up online sales.

It was a steep learning process, figuring out the stores' internal "category review," getting meetings with buyers, giving out big amounts of free product to jump start the process. We also talk about the "shelf wars" that go on at grocery stores, "it's a product of who has the most money to get their product on the shelf." That Lark Ellen Farms has succeeded in this ruthless space says a lot about Ojai as a laboratory for product launches, its openness to new flavors and food experiences, and the inspiration a supportive community can provide a young entrepreneur.

We did not talk about Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak, the hardiness of Mongolian ponies or the coming new season of "The Things We Do in the Shadows."

Few performances on the big screen are as memorable as Malcolm McDowell's portrayal of ultraviolent Alex, who terrorizes the night with his Droogs. The film catapulted McDowell to international stardom and firmly entrenched Stanley Kubrick in the pantheon of world's most interesting and innovative directors.

An endless repository of fascinating stories, we learn from Malcolm about the serendipitous collaborations that made the film come alive, the futuristic design and eccentric costumes that brought sharp relief to the movie's dystopian message. Malcolm also says that what made Alex such a compelling villain was "his joie de vivre. He really enjoyed life." McDowell also talks about how the fascist subtext and corrupt authorities make the film seem so timeless, and how after a half century it speaks so directly to our present moment.

Besides gem-like observations about working so closely with Kubrick, a director known to be difficult with actors, we also spend a fair bit of time talking about director Lindsay Anderson, "If," and "O Lucky Man." Anderson was a director known to be fond of his actors, so the contrast gave the young actor the resiliency and durability for which he is justly famous. We also talk about current projects of McDowell's, his case of Covid, living in Ojai and Kubrick's "Napoleon," known as the "Greatest Movie Never Made."

We did not talk about McDowell's passion for golf, blood diamonds or Rupert Murdoch.

When the Ojai's 2,300 public school students were sent home last March, we had no idea how long until those students would be back in their classrooms. Turned out it would take more than a year before the schools could safely reopen. 

One of our earliest guests on the Ojai: Talk of the Town podcast was Tiffany Morse, superintendent of the Ojai Unified School District, to talk about the extraordinary measures the district was taking to make sure that the students (and parents) could meet the terrific challenge of remote learning. Not to mention the hundreds of meals each day being served by the district as many families struggled to get enough to eat. We talked about the entire cohort of student athletes, dramatists and musicians who lost these important rituals of passage, including their graduation ceremonies.

This time, the news was a little better. The schools reopened, with safety measures including outdoor classrooms, earlier this month. Among the good news was that Dr. Morse had been recently selected as the Superintendent of the Year for the tri-county region, in large part because of public-private initiatives during the pandemic, as seen in the overwhelming support for a $45 million bond measure, which is already being put to use building public spaces like a community pool and a massive solar project.

Morse talked about the measured responses to the tremendous pressures exerted on one side by parents who worried about how far their kids would get behind in their education, and teachers, who worried about losing their lives. It has been a time of great challenge and uncertainty, and now it's time for reflection and taking what lessons we can from this lost year. This deep and wide conversation explores the role of teachers, students and key insights into what makes a community work.

We did not talk about taimen fishing on the headwaters of the Amur River, the 16-inning pitching duel in 1963 between Warren Spahn and Juan Marichal, or the novels of Sybille Bedford.

Ojai is celebrating this month, in however an abbreviated fashion, Ojai Pixie Tangerine Month. So Emily Thacher Ayala, whose family has been farming in the Ojai Valley for a century and a half, is the perfect guide to this sweet, petite fruit, which has become a key characteristic of Ojai.

Emily talks about her family's rich history in the valley - her father's side included Sherman Day and Edward Thacher, founders of Thacher School and the Ojai Tennis Tournament, on her mother's side the Friend family, the pioneers who began farming here in the 1870s and still operate Friends Packing House. Her depth of knowledge about the land - its peculiarities, vulnerabilities and beauty - is peerless. We talk about Emily's circular journey out into the world and back, including a stint in Central America, her stewardship of the family legacy, the farmers market circuit, the challenges of citrus ranching during a pandemic and the future of farming in the Ojai Valley.

Emily's entertaining anecdotes include bear encounters, the pixie motto contest (a non-winning entry went, "too delicious to throw at cars") and her son's surprise visit from famed cartoonist Sergio Aragones.

We did not talk about the Ming Dynasty, Hudson's Bay Company or the comic stylings of Nate Barzgate.

http://www.ojaipixies.com/

This episode we get personal, as I reach out to my brothers to talk about our father, Floyd John Bradigan, who died just over 40 years ago at age 60. We mark the moment that all three of his sons have outlived him. It seems like an opportunity to have a discussion about our memories of this singular man, who would have been 101 years old this year.

My brothers, Bruce and Bob, at ages 75 and 73, are 15 and 13 years old than me respectively. It felt as if they were a whole different generation, and in some ways they were. But interestingly, our memories of village life with our hard-working father are remarkably consistent. We spent many hard, sweaty hours in the garden plowing, cultivating, pulling weeds and harvesting the abundant crops of asparagus, strawberries, blueberries, rhubarb, corn, beans, peas and the most delicious tomatoes in the tri-state region.

If that wasn’t enough, our father also ran a mail route, drove school bus, and spent decades as the town’s gravedigger. His three sons spent many hours of hard labor in those cemeteries, with wheelbarrows, shovels, spades, lawnmowers, sickles and scythes with little to no pay. It gave all three of us a deeper sense of perspective than our peers.

It wasn’t all hard work. We had an enormous tribe of cousins to play with, and we all shared our dad’s love of fishing, hunting and sports - baseball especially. Our Bradigan tribe loved the routines and rhythms of small-town life, the parades, picnics, the great hunting and sport fishing in western New York and the rich history. It has served me well, living in Ojai, one of the country’s quintessential small towns.

Our father, a bombardier on a B-24 Liberator in the South Pacific, who served from 1941 (he signed up on Dec. 8th, 1941, putting on hold his professional baseball career, as he was playing Double A ball on a Brooklyn Dodgers’ farm team in Visalia) to just prior to the Korean War. He left the service as a Major in the newly formed U.S. Air Force. We talked about our own military service — and the fact that our father was very proud of the fact that four of his six children served in the military: three of them in the Army and yours truly in the Air Force. Brother Bruce - who jumped out of the first airplane he ever flew in - served in the Army’s Special Forces, and his career was cut short when he was wounded on a patrol in Vietnam. This is the first time I've ever heard him talk about his combat experiences.

It was a deep, meaningful and also fun conversation. We did not talk about the Chinese treasure fleet, the Dulles brothers or lost metallurgy technologies.

Fred Fisher, the internationally renowned architect and his wife, Jennie Prebor, could have chosen anywhere in the world to live. In fact, he recently spent two years in Rome as a Fellow with the American University, where he wrote a book, "Robert Venturi's Rome," with colleague Stephen Harby. They studied the Eternal City through the eyes of Venturi, the groundbreaking (literally) architect whose "Complexity & Contradiction in Architecture" has deeply influenced generations of architects.

As featured in the Spring 2021 issue of Ojai Quarterly by Jerry Dunn, Fisher and Prebor moved to Ojai for its excellent views, tight-knit community, world-class arts organizations like the Ojai Music Festival, and its congenial downtown, where Prebor's shop, Blanche Silvia, has brought a new and deeper layer of chic and sophistication to town. They also built their dream home "The Box on the Hill" on 9 acres of land an easy walk from downtown amid old olive groves, with sweeping sunset views of the Topa Topa Bluffs and Chief's Peak.

We cover a lot of ground in the talk. Growing up in the Rust Belt on Lake Erie, John D. Rockefeller and Frederick Law Olmstead, Michelangelo and Christopher Wren, having an architect father and instead studying art history before coming back to architecture and how those two disciplines inform each other, early clients for the prestigious firm, working with Frank Gehry, discovering Ojai and the meanings, both literal and metaphorical, of "palimpsest" and how ancient Romans left a blueprint for civilization upon which the Renaissance was built.

We did not talk about the Laurentian Shield, the Orinoco River or the Tunguska blast of 1908.

Kristen McGuiness is the author of the bestselling memoir, "51/50: The Magical Adventures of a Single Life" in which she recounts her adventures (and misadventures) of entering single life as she neared age 30 after a workaholic decade. In this book, she went on 51 dates in 50 weeks and found more than romance, she found herself. After the manic world of publishing, her next career in the nonprofit world seemed tame by comparison, but the experience of actually making a difference in children's lives, of raising money and spirits, has helped her enormously in her coaching practice.

She has more than 20 years experience in the writing game, including a stint working for the legendary Judith Regan at Harper Collins, helping usher into print enormous bestsellers such as Howard Stern's "Private Parts." She worked with many cultural figures such as Chris Matthews, Motley Crue and Neal Strauss of "The Game" fame. She has also had a lot of experience working for NGOs in Paris.

Now she's forged her own path, heading up her own editing, publishing, ghostwriting, coaching and teaching business here in Ojai, where she's lived for the past four years with her husband and children.

Krista talks candidly about her addiction and recovery, and her close relationship with a therapist/healer which led her to Ojai. For more information, check out her website at https://www.kristenmcguiness.com/

We did not talk about the birth of progressive rock, Standard Oil's early business model or the Great British Baking Show.

Dr. Tom Krause started Behavioral Sciences Technology in the 1980s with a partner, and from its modest beginnings in Ojai, it has become a global leader in the workplace safety field. Even beyond global, as one of their biggest contracts was from NASA, when they were hired on after the space shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003.

We talk about Tom's entry into psychology during the heated debates between devotees of two very differing philosophies - Carl Rogers' humanism and B.S. Skinner's behaviorism. Moving to Ojai to set up a private practice, Krause became interested in applying a scientific rigor to the psychology of workplaces, of its culture and its practices, and how the two interacted. He was able to measure safety improvements in a way that made dollars and sense for overburdened executives. The company thrived until Krause sold it in the 2000s, but he continues to work in the field.

Tom entered into St. John's College's Great Books program when he was in his 50s and had already achieved career success, and wanted to wrestle with the big questions of humanity - the role of religion and philosophy and the big "whys" of humanity. He spent time on campus in Santa Fé while continuing his busy travel schedule.

Tom served on the Krishnamurti Foundation of America's board and has a lifelong interest in community service, helping found the Agora Foundation, which brings the Great Books program to Ojai and beyond. One of the efforts of the Agora Foundation is the Ojai Chautauqua events, which bring together expert panelists to discuss and debate issues of national and local importance. He mentioned that the next Chautauqua will be a virtual event about the use of pesticides.

Sources: agorafoundation.org, sjc.edu and for more information about the Skinner v. Rogers debate https://www.bartleby.com/essay/Carl-Rogers-Vs-F-Skinner-Which-Perspective-P35G4TZAEPP