Ojai: Talk of the Town

For nearly four decades, the Ojai Film Society has been bringing people together through the shared experience of watching great films outdoors, in community, and for free.

In this episode of Ojai Talk of the Town, Bret sits down with Ojai Film Society board members David Lawrence Bell and Natalia Iyudin to discuss the organization's upcoming Summer Series at Libbey Bowl, which begins July 2 with Taika Waititi's beloved adventure-comedy Hunt for the Wilderpeople and concludes August 27 with Steven Spielberg's blockbuster classic Jurassic Park. Along the way, audiences can enjoy documentaries, mockumentaries, science fiction, and special appearances by filmmakers including Selena y Los Dinos director Isabel Castro and Cookie Queens director Alysa Nahmias.

The conversation explores the art of film programming, the challenge of building community in the streaming age, memorable movie-going experiences, and why gathering under the stars at Libbey Bowl remains one of Ojai's most cherished summer traditions. The guests also offer insights into this year's lineup, from the emotional power of Arrival to the enduring appeal of Best in Show and Jurassic Park.

We did not talk about Coralie Fargeat's Revenge, Colin Farrell's Ojai misadventures, or the history of the 60-degree screw.

Whether you're a devoted cinephile or simply looking for a great summer evening in Ojai, this episode offers a behind-the-scenes look at one of the Valley's most successful cultural institutions.

For more information, and to get on their mailing list, check out https://ojaifilmsociety.org/

This special episode lives up to that designation.

Yesterday, Ojai lost one of its most accomplished and respected citizens, Al West, who passed away at the age of 94.

Today we're revisiting a conversation from our archives so that listeners can hear directly from a man who dedicated his life to caring for forests, watersheds, and communities. This is my conversation with Al West.

When Al West arrived in Ojai as a young District Ranger in the 1960s, few could have imagined the impact he would have on our valley — or on America's public lands.

Born in England and immigrating to North America in the early 1950s, Al built a distinguished career in forestry and natural resource management that eventually carried him all the way to Washington, D.C., where he served as Deputy Chief of the U.S. Forest Service, the agency's second-highest position. Along the way, he helped shape national policy on forestry, fire management, aviation, watersheds, and conservation.

Yet despite his national accomplishments, Al never lost sight of the communities and landscapes he loved. Ojai remained one of those places. After retirement, he devoted countless hours to local service through organizations including the Rotary Club of Ojai, where he served as president, as well as numerous environmental and civic groups dedicated to protecting forests, watersheds, and open spaces.

In 2005, Al was recognized as an Ojai Living Treasure, an honor reserved for individuals whose lives have enriched our community in extraordinary ways.

Al West passed away yesterday at age 94. In tribute, we're reposting this conversation from our archives — a chance to hear directly from a man whose life embodied stewardship, leadership, humility, and service.

Thank you, Al. Ojai is better because you were here.

At 88 years old, Joan Virginia Allen has little interest in slowing down.

In this episode of Ojai Talk of the Town, Bret Bradigan sits down with the author of Navigating Dynamic Aging to explore what it means to remain engaged, curious, and purposeful throughout every stage of life.

She will be signing copies of her book at an event at the Ojai Library on Saturday, June 13th at 2 p.m.

Joan shares lessons drawn from a lifetime of reinvention — as an attorney, performer, teacher, coach, and author — and explains why aging doesn't have to be a story of decline. Instead, she argues that curiosity, courage, movement, and commitment can continue to open new doors long after many people believe their most meaningful adventures are behind them.

Together, Bret and Joan discuss overcoming fear, embracing change, maintaining vitality, finding purpose after retirement, and cultivating the mindset needed to navigate life's inevitable transitions.

We did not talk about Manu Masa's 1324 pilgrimage to Mecca, RNA drug delivery systems or the joys of falconry.

Whether you're entering retirement, caring for aging loved ones, or simply wondering what comes next, this thoughtful conversation offers wisdom, perspective, and encouragement for the journey ahead.

Learn more about Joan at her website ... https://dynamicaging4life.com/this-is-me-life-coach/

On this episode of Ojai Talk of the Town, Bret Bradigan welcomes returning guest Mark Frost — bestselling author, co-creator of Twin Peaks, and author of the new historical work Yankee Sphinx.

The conversation begins with Frost’s remarkable great-uncle William D. Hassett, a close adviser to both Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Truman who kept meticulous diaries from inside the White House during some of the twentieth century’s defining moments. Frost discusses what those journals reveal about FDR’s leadership, how Roosevelt’s battle with polio shaped his empathy and political vision, and the lessons modern America may have forgotten about resilience, communication, and democratic leadership.

Frost took Hassett's diaries and turned them into a page-turning, compelling work of fiction that shows the machinery of power up close and very, very personal.

But the discussion ranges much further — into Eleanor Roosevelt’s influence, the hidden structures beneath political power, the enduring mysteries woven through American history, and why places like Ojai continue to attract artists, seekers, and unconventional thinkers.

Along the way, Frost reflects on storytelling, mythology, creativity, and the connective thread running from Twin Peaks to the Roosevelt White House: the idea that beneath every public story lies another deeper and stranger reality.

We did not talk about Ty Cobb's counter-intuitive racial views, marble trout fishing in Croatia or tomato season.

Listen in for a thoughtful, wide-ranging conversation about leadership, art, history, and the unseen forces that shape American life.

https://www.amazon.com/Yankee-Sphinx-FDR-Novel/dp/1250876893

What if grief isn’t something to “get over,” but something that reshapes how we see, feel, and move through the world?

In this episode, returning guest Lila Glasoe Francese discusses her new book Life Amplified: The Search for Resilience After Loss and the deeper terrain that follows profound loss. We move beyond the familiar language of resilience and into something more nuanced: grief as a motivating force — one that can sharpen empathy, deepen understanding, and bring new clarity to what matters.

Lila will be celebrating the launch of this, her second book, at Bart's Books on May 30 at 6 p.m. with a reading and more. It is also the 10th anniversary of the founding of the Carolyn Glasoe Bailey Foundation.

Our conversation explores how loss can heighten awareness rather than diminish it, and why art plays such a central role in that process — not just as personal expression, but as something essential to families and communities. Francese also shares a simple but powerful practice: writing letters to loved ones who are gone, a way of maintaining connection and finding unexpected peace.

This is a conversation about grief not as an endpoint, but as a transformation — one that, in the right light, can amplify life itself.

Learn more about the foundation and Lila's work at https://www.cgbfoundation.org/upcoming

In this episode of Ojai Talk of the Town, Bret Bradigan sits down with Richa Badami — actor, director, and founder of the Living Theatre Academy of Dramatic Arts in Ojai — whose journey runs from the intensity of the Indian film and television industry to the intimate, exacting work of training young actors in a small but culturally ambitious town.

Badami’s career began in India, where she worked in film and television before turning her focus toward directing and teaching. That evolution — shaped by mentors, artistic rigor, and a search for deeper meaning — eventually led her to Ojai, where she has built something rare: not just a youth program, but a working theatre company. At the Living Theatre Academy, young performers are held to professional standards, immersed in ensemble practice, and challenged to engage with material that demands emotional truth and intellectual depth.

In this conversation, Badami reflects on the teachers who shaped her, the influence of Jiddu Krishnamurti on her approach to art and education, and the role theatre can play in developing life skills — discipline, empathy, collaboration — that extend far beyond the stage. She also shares candid thoughts on her experiences within the Indian film world, including projects like Rise, Roar & Revolt and Monsoon Wedding, and what it means to navigate identity across the global Indian diaspora.

The discussion comes at a moment when her company is mounting an ambitious Spring season featuring The Wolves and The Outsiders — two works that, on the surface, could not be more different, yet converge on a central question: how young people find their place in the world. The Academy’s production of The Wolves, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, demands precision, vulnerability, and true ensemble work, while The Outsiders channels the enduring story of Ponyboy and the Greasers with a cast close in age to the characters themselves, bringing unusual immediacy and authenticity to a generational classic.

Performances run May 22–24 (The Wolves) and May 29–31 (The Outsiders) at Matilija Auditorium — an opportunity for Ojai audiences to witness the kind of serious, youth-driven theatre typically associated with far larger cities.

If you think of student theatre as light fare, think again. What Badami is building is disciplined, emotionally resonant, and unmistakably alive —and for young people in Ojai, it’s an extraordinary gift.

Go see it.

We talked about her membership in the Rotary Club of Ojai, navigating a move from the East Coast to Ojai with teen-aged children, her recent visit to London where her daughter performed with the Royal Academy of the Dramatic Arts. We did not talk about mahseer fishing, Bengal tigers or the films of Alejandro Jodorowsky.

For more information, check out https://www.livingtheateracademy.com/

What does it take to finish a record that’s been living in your head for two decades?

In Episode 284, Jim Exon traces the long arc of Nashville Sessions — a country-leaning album shaped by time, persistence, and a deep bench of collaborators, including Jeff Silbar, Ron Wallace, and lyrics by Gay Hendricks. Alongside Martin Young, Exon brings a distinctly Ojai-rooted project into authentic Nashville form.

Before the studio, there was the road — years managing and representing Maynard Ferguson — and before that, the Sunset Strip grind as a working musician.

We talk about how the music business has changed, what collaborators really contribute, and the rare discipline it takes to finally finish what you started. We did not talk about Canary Islands' whistle language, Ernest Shackleton or the impact of Charlemagne's missi domenici.

A conversation about craft, time, and getting it done. You can listen to Jim - "James Eddy Exon" and his album on Spotify here ...

https://open.spotify.com/album/0SdlGgUXvvPb6Yzj6iBLFT

There are lives that flicker. And there are lives that catch—passing their light from one person to the next until you can no longer trace where it began.

Nathan “Nate” Rhoades was the latter.

In Episode 283 of Ojai Talk of the Town, we sit down with his mother, Heidi Allison, to talk about a life that burned bright, faltered, recovered, and — far too soon — ended in a tragic car accident in 2022. Nate was 21. But the story doesn’t end there. Not even close.

Because what Heidi and her husband Larry discovered in the days after Nate’s death was something both devastating and clarifying: their son had been quietly carrying others. Checking in. Showing up. Driving miles just to sit beside a friend in a 12-step meeting. Calling twice a day when someone was slipping. Doing the hard, unglamorous work of keeping people alive.

This is the part we rarely see — the invisible scaffolding of recovery. The friend who won’t let go.

Nate knew that terrain intimately. Addiction found him early, at 14. Recovery came the long way — through treatment, counseling, meetings, discipline, and, critically, mentorship. A peer recovery coach helped him rebuild a life grounded in movement, music, and meaning. Nate was himself an athlete and fitness enthusiast, and he chose to become a personal trainer himself.

And then Nate did something remarkable.

He became that person for others.

After his death, stories poured in — friends, acquaintances, near-strangers — each with a version of the same truth: Nate showed up. Again and again. When it mattered most.

From that realization, Nate’s Place Wellness & Recovery was born.

Not as a monument. As a mechanism.

A working model for what actually helps: peer support, structure, activity, accountability, belonging. A place where teens and young adults — especially those who fall through the cracks — can find stability without stigma. Where services are free, transportation is provided, and recovery isn’t an abstraction but a daily practice.

It’s a deceptively simple idea. And in the current landscape of youth mental health and substance abuse, a radical one.

Nate’s Place offers one-on-one recovery coaching, group support, wellness programming, and something harder to quantify but easier to feel: a clubhouse energy. A place to land. A place to stay. A place to begin again.

In this conversation, Heidi speaks with clarity and grace about grief — not as something to “get over,” but something to build with. About the strange arithmetic of loss, where the subtraction of one life creates an obligation to multiply its meaning.

And about Nate — not as a cautionary tale, but as a blueprint.

A young man who fought his way back, then turned around and reached for others.

A son who, even in death, continued to give — through organ donation, through memory, through momentum.

This episode may not be the easiest listening. But you will be rewarded by doing so.

Because somewhere in your orbit — closer than you think — there’s a Nate. Or someone who needs one.

Listen to Episode 283.
Share it. And if you’re able, support Nate’s Place — because recovery, like community, is something we either build together ... or not at all. Learn more about Nate and his mission at https://www.natesplacewellnesscenter.org/

5 Years Later: Cassandra C. Jones and the Evolution of Taft Gardens

Five years ago, we sat down with artist and curator Cassandra C. Jones as she was beginning to shape a bold idea at Taft Gardens — an artist residency that would blur the line between studio, sanctuary, and experiment.

Listening back now, what’s striking is how fully that vision has taken root. Those roots have spread, too, to downtown Ojai where the provocative and compelling tiny-space, ironically named Mega Gallery draws crowds to witness how it transforms the notion of a gallery and what it means.

Today, the Taft Gardens Residency has become a highly coveted creative laboratory, drawing artists across disciplines — visual, musical, literary — into one of Ojai’s most singular landscapes. Set among rare South African and Australian plantings, the gardens don’t just inspire the work — they actively shape it.

In this conversation, Jones discusses her own practice — building visual worlds through digital collage and narrative layering — alongside bigger questions about place, process, and the evolving art market.

We also touch on the art world’s more surreal moments, including the now-infamous Comedian — a reminder that meaning and value in art are often constructed as much as they are created.

In this episode:

• The origins of the Taft Gardens Residency
• How landscape influences artistic output
• What makes a residency truly transformative
• Where the contemporary art market is headed

Whether you’re an artist, collector, or simply curious about how creative work actually happens, this episode holds up — and hits differently — five years on.

Learn more: https://www.cassandracjones.com/

What do a Napa Valley farm, Stanford University frat life, Fortune 500 boardrooms, and the Ojai stage have in common?

Clay Creasey.

In this wide-ranging and unexpectedly fun conversation, Clay traces his journey from early mornings on the farm to high-stakes corporate finance, navigating takeovers, turnarounds, and the slow, relentless shift of retail in the age of Amazon. Along the way, we dig into how he thinks about risk, decision-making, and the difference between problems you can fix — and forces you can’t.

But this isn’t just a business story. It’s about reinvention. About landing in Ojai, stepping onto the stage as Daddy Warbucks in Annie, and finding community in a completely different key.

We talked about corporate successes such as his time as CFO of Toys 'R Us, and a few failure that left lasting lessons. We did not talk about soil Ph for growing blueberries, Canadian provincial politics or Nelson Mandela.

Smart, candid, and full of great stories — this one covers a lot of ground.