Beverly Hills Mayor Sharona Nazarian fled Iran with her family during the revolution to escape religious persecution, learning English as her third language before building a career in clinical psychology. Now the first Iranian American woman to lead the city, she governs a diverse community where roughly 20% of the population trace its roots to Iran. As war unfolds in the Middle East, she's tells us how she's become the de facto voice of a diaspora caught between American dreams and a longing f...
Jun 26, 2025•19 min•Season 1Ep. 288
Josh Jackson, author of the new book " The Enduring Wild, " found a hidden refuge in the mountains and prairies of California's 15 million acres of Bureau of Land Management lands. In times of crisis and uncertainty, we often turn to nature for solace and perspective. These overlooked "commons," dismissed as leftover lands too harsh for homesteaders and too ordinary for national parks, offer free camping, wildlife corridors, and democratic access to wilderness. They now face threats from propose...
Jun 20, 2025•31 min•Season 1Ep. 287
Gustavo Arellano, the longtime Los Angeles Times columnist and chronicler of the Latino community, brings his deeply personal perspective to the immigration crackdown unfolding in Los Angeles. He shares observations from the epicenter of protests that have drawn President Trump's National Guard deployment. Born to a Mexican father who snuck across the border as a teenager, Arellano's voice carries both the weight of historical context and the urgency of someone who sees his community under siege...
Jun 12, 2025•32 min•Season 1Ep. 286
Michael Hiltzik, the author of " Golden State: The Making of California ," examines five centuries from the Spanish conquistadors to Silicon Valley, challenging the enduring mythology that has shaped both California and America. Rather than offer another celebration of the California dream, Hiltzik reveals how the state has served as America's testing ground — where national ideals about opportunity, innovation, and reinvention were both realized and betrayed. The state's true history, he argues...
Jun 05, 2025•32 min•Season 1Ep. 285
Eleni Gastis, the journalism department chair at Oakland's Laney College, was shocked to discover that half her students weren't human. California's community colleges are under siege by sophisticated "ghost students" — bots designed to steal financial aid money. What started as a $3 million-a-year problem exploded to $13 million over the last 12 months, with fraudsters exploiting system vulnerabilities. Gastis is now leading the fight for transparency while teaching the next generation of journ...
May 29, 2025•25 min•Season 1Ep. 284
Matthew Specktor, in his new memoir " The Golden Hour ," offers a unique perspective on Hollywood's transformation — as both the son of legendary talent agent Fred Specktor and a thoughtful cultural observer. He explores how the movie industry shifted from a close-knit "family business," where art and commerce balanced, to today's corporate-dominated landscape. Specktor reflects on how this mirrors broader American cultural changes, the diminishing role of movies in our collective imagination, a...
May 22, 2025•28 min•Season 1Ep. 283
Adam Nagourney, a veteran New York Times reporter based in Los Angeles, wrote recently about whether the California Dream had become a mirage. Even as the state has grown into the world's fourth-largest economy, the promise of reinvention that defined the Golden State feels increasingly elusive. As young people flee, wildfires destroy neighborhoods, and a hostile White House turns its back, Nagourney believes California is still resilient and capable of that dream....
May 15, 2025•27 min•Season 1Ep. 282
Joe Kloc spent nine years immersed with Richardson Bay's "anchor-outs," a community living on abandoned vessels just offshore from multimillion-dollar Sausalito homes. In his book " Lost at Sea, " Kloc chronicles their struggles against the authorities and residents who ultimately dismantled the century-old floating community. Kloc captures the anchor-outs' resilience amid displacement, exploring what happens when society pushes its most vulnerable members to the margins....
May 08, 2025•28 min•Season 1Ep. 281
Laurie Kirby, the founder of FestForums, brings insider expertise on what makes music festivals succeed. She explores California's vibrant festival scene from Coachella and Stagecoach to BottleRock and Outside Lands, examining how these events reflect the state's economic trends and cultural influence. She discusses how California's festivals function as economic indicators of changing consumer habits and whether the state's market has reached saturation.
May 01, 2025•31 min•Season 1Ep. 280
Ben Fritz, who covers the entertainment industry for The Wall Street Journal, explores Hollywood's perfect storm of existential threats — empty theaters, streaming wars, production flight, artificial intelligence. If that wasn't enough, as Fritz has reported : audiences today seem to be rejecting both franchise tentpoles and original films. He discusses whether Hollywood can reinvent itself as it has done in the past and adapt to technological change while maintaining its global cultural influen...
Apr 24, 2025•29 min•Season 1Ep. 279
Erica Hellerstein's reporting for El Tímpano follows the story of Pedro Romero Perez, a survivor of the 2023 Half Moon Bay mass shooting that left seven people dead, including his brother Jose. The tragedy exposed deplorable conditions in San Mateo County's agricultural industry: farm workers earning less than minimum wage while living in shipping containers without running water. Perez, who survived five gunshot wounds, emerged as an unexpected voice for change through a lawsuit against his for...
Apr 17, 2025•29 min•Season 1Ep. 278
Olaf Groth, a futurist and professor at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, examines how global trade tensions, artificial intelligence advancements, and economic shifts are reshaping California's position in the world economy. He analyzes how intensifying tariff wars threaten the state's tech sector while driving up consumer prices. Groth explores AI's transformative effects on employment, the emerging defense-tech ecosystem, and California's strategic challenges as it navigates global tra...
Apr 10, 2025•29 min•Season 1Ep. 277
New York Times film critic Alissa Wilkinson discusses her new book, " We Tell Ourselves Stories : Joan Didion and the American Dream Machine," which explores the California author's prescient understanding of how entertainment would colonize American political life. Wilkinson examines Didion's work through the lens of a Hollywood insider and cultural critic, revealing how she anticipated our drift toward manufactured realities and endless performance — from Ronald Reagan's performative presidenc...
Apr 03, 2025•33 min•Season 1Ep. 276
Rep. John Garamendi, a Bay Area Democrat, draws on his experience during two terms as California's insurance commissioner to discuss the state's insurance challenges. Garamendi argues that the state's current insurance chief, Ricardo Lara, has surrendered much of his authority to industry, creating market instability while failing to require transparency. Garamendi also discusses farmers' concerns over tariffs and market access, and water issues that have become increasingly politicized at the n...
Mar 20, 2025•26 min•Season 1Ep. 275
Journalist Chris Roberts discusses the long-forgotten history of the U.S. Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory at San Francisco's Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. Following atomic bomb tests in 1946, the Navy towed radioactive ships to San Francisco, creating a research program that exposed more than a thousand people to varying levels of radiation. Roberts' seven-part series in the San Francisco Public Press, " Exposed ," details how the lab conducted human experimentation with questionable conse...
Mar 13, 2025•36 min•Season 1Ep. 274
In a two-part Fresnoland investigation , journalist Gregory Weaver exposed the false promise of California's Williamson Act, a tax break created in 1965 to protect agricultural lands from suburban sprawl. The program, tax records showed, now primarily benefits 120 mega-farms that collect roughly half of its $5 billion tax shelter, benefiting Wall Street investors and foreign pension funds. Weaver's reporting details how the system ultimately harms small farmers and depletes precious public resou...
Mar 06, 2025•35 min•Season 1Ep. 273
Randy Shaw is the director of San Francisco's Tenderloin Housing Clinic, founder of the Tenderloin Museum, editor of Beyond Chron, and author of the newly updated book " The Tenderloin : Sex, Crime, and Resistance in the Heart of San Francisco." For over 45 years, he has advocated for this unique neighborhood which has maintained its character and resisted gentrification. Shaw discusses the Tenderloin's rich history as a refuge for marginalized communities, its struggles during the Covid-19 pand...
Feb 27, 2025•22 min•Season 1Ep. 272
Dr. Shayan Rab, associate medical director at Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health, explains his revolutionary, if controversial, approach to helping mentally ill homeless individuals. As the county's first street psychiatrist, he created the Homeless Outreach and Mobile Engagement, or HOME Team, despite resistance from some quarters over concerns about liability and diagnostic protocols. His innovative program combines medical treatment, housing assistance, and human connection. While...
Feb 20, 2025•28 min•Season 1Ep. 271
Lili Anolik, author of the new book " Didion & Babitz ," delves into the complex and largely unexplored relationship between literary icons Joan Didion and Eve Babitz in 1960s Los Angeles. Through newly discovered letters and extensive research, Anolik explains how these contrasting personalities — Didion's calculated reserve and Babitz's uninhibited sensuality — shaped our understanding of them and the era. Their story illuminates broader themes about women's voices in American letters, the...
Feb 13, 2025•28 min•Season 1Ep. 270
As the first Latina chancellor of the California State University system, Dr. Mildred García is seeking to transform the nation's largest public university system. Beyond focusing on diplomas and graduation rates, she is emphasizing career success and employment outcomes for CSU's more than 460,000 students. Her vision includes integrating artificial intelligence education, allowing campuses to reflect their unique communities, and launching programs like Second Start, which helps students who d...
Feb 06, 2025•25 min•Season 1Ep. 269
Daniel Swain , a climate scientist at UCLA and the University of California's Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources reveals why Los Angeles' recent devastating fires weren't just another disaster, but a harbinger of California's volatile future. Swain explains how climate change created the conditions for unprecedented destruction, and how " hydroclimate whiplash " — or dramatic swings between wet and dry periods — is reshaping our understanding of extreme weather events and challenging ...
Jan 30, 2025•42 min•Season 1Ep. 268
Stephen Pyne, a renowned fire historian, discusses how climate change is creating unprecedented conditions for "mean fires" that overwhelm traditional firefighting approaches. He challenges the "war on fire" mindset, arguing instead for viewing fire as a biological force requiring public health-style interventions. Pyne talks about the need to distinguish between urban and wildland fire management, advocating for both hardened cities and controlled burns in wild areas. Drawing from historical le...
Jan 23, 2025•37 min•Season 1Ep. 267
Jim Carlton, reporting for the Wall Street Journal, takes us beyond the headlines and into the thick of Los Angeles’ wildfire battles. For a recent article , he embedded with a wildfire strike team in Topanga Canyon, where he witnessed the harsh realities faced by the men and women fighting flames in some of the most punishing terrain. From the relentless grind of hand crews to the life-saving precision of aerial bombardments, Carlton gives us an unforgettable look at what it takes to stand agai...
Jan 20, 2025•20 min•Season 1Ep. 266
David Ulin, one of Los Angeles's most perceptive chroniclers and an editor of Joan Didion's collected works, reflects on the city's unprecedented urban wildfires through the lens of history, identity, and belonging. Ulin talks about how disasters in Los Angeles paradoxically forge deeper connections between Angelenos and their landscape. Drawing parallels to 9/11 and the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, he explores how this watershed moment — with its destruction of thousands of structures across ...
Jan 16, 2025•26 min•Season 1Ep. 265
From their Venice Beach studio, Charles and Ray Eames revolutionized design in post-war Los Angeles, shaping the modernist ethos of California and beyond. Known for their groundbreaking Case Study House No. 8 , furniture, and films, their work seamlessly blended art, science, and functionality. In this week's conversation, Daniel Ostroff, editor of " An Eames Anthology ," shares fresh insights into the married couple's philosophy and enduring relevance. Drawing from four years of curating their ...
Jan 09, 2025•39 min•Season 1Ep. 264
Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive, housed in a former San Francisco church with Greek columns that echo the ancient Library of Alexandria, discusses his three-decade mission to preserve humanity's digital knowledge and culture. Now facing unprecedented challenges, including a major cyberattack and legal battles with publishers over the site's distribution of copyrighted materials, Kahle reflects on the growing threats to digital preservation while reaffirming his commitment to univ...
Jan 02, 2025•32 min•Season 1Ep. 263
James Tejani discusses his new book " A Machine to Move Ocean and Earth, " which reveals the untold story of how the Port of Los Angeles was carved from 3,400 acres of marshland to become the Western Hemisphere's busiest container port. Unlike San Francisco's natural harbor, this massive engineering project defied both nature and expert opinion. Tejani explores how Civil War generals, Mexican landowners, railroad barons, and government scientists shaped the port's development. Now handling rough...
Dec 12, 2024•32 min•Season 1Ep. 261
After a devastating oil tanker collision in San Francisco Bay in 1971, John Francis made an extraordinary decision that would reshape environmental activism. He chose to stop using motorized transportation and took a vow of silence that would last 17 years. His remarkable journey, captured in the new short documentary " Planetwalker ," evolved into a profound meditation on human connection and environmental consciousness. In this conversation, we talk with Francis and the film's directors, Nadia...
Dec 06, 2024•37 min•Season 1Ep. 260
Architectural critic Aaron Betsky challenges conventional thinking about our built environment in his new book " Don't Build, Rebuild ," in which he makes the case for transforming existing structures rather than constructing new ones. From San Francisco's empty offices to Los Angeles's historic core, Betsky explores how this approach can not only address housing shortages and climate change but also preserve the soul and stories embedded in our buildings. He discusses the economic challenges, p...
Nov 21, 2024•31 min•Season 1Ep. 259
Veteran journalist Joe Mathews offers a post-election analysis of California's future, arguing that the state's path lies not in isolation but in building global alliances — particularly at the local level. While many focus on tensions between the state and federal governments, Mathews suggests California's cities should forge connections with counterparts worldwide who face challenges from authoritarian forces. As national governments falter globally, he argues, local governance becomes increas...
Nov 14, 2024•32 min•Season 1Ep. 258
