Posts by Live Talks LA
David Cay Johnston with Terrence McNally
8pm
David Cay Johnston
in conversation with Terrence McNally
It’s Even Worse Than You Think:
What the Trump Administration Is Doing to America
Ann and Jerry Moss Theatre
New Roads School
Herb Alpert Educational Village
3131 Olympic Boulevard
Santa Monica, CA 90404
PURCHASE TICKETS
$45 General Admission Seat + a copy of It’s Even Worse Than You Think
$55 Reserved Section Seat + a copy of It’s Even Worse Than You Think
$20 General Admission Seat
David Cay Johnston is a Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative reporter and bestselling author of The Making of Donald Trump. He writes a weekly column for The Daily Beast and Investopedia.com as well as frequent opinion pieces for other publications. Johnston teaches at Syracuse University College of Law. He has been a frequent guest on MSNBC, CNN, ABC World News Tonight, and NPR’s Morning Edition, among other shows, and was a consultant for the Netflix series House of Cards.
“One of America’s most important journalists” (The Washington Monthly), winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and author of the New York Times bestseller The Making of Donald Trump, David Cay Johnston examines the Trump Administration’s policies in its first one hundred days, showing how its actions affect our jobs, finances, safety, and much more.
No working journalist knows Donald Trump better than David Cay Johnston, who first met the forty-fifth president in 1988 and has tracked him ever since. Johnston chronicled much of Trump’s conduct in two books: Temples of Chance and the bestselling The Making of Donald Trump. He was also an uncredited source of documents and insight for major campaign reports by The Washington Post, The New York Times, Bloomberg, and network television. When Trump announced his campaign in June 2015, Johnston was the first national journalist to write about a potential Trump presidency.
Now Johnston examines the first one hundred days of Donald Trump’s presidency, including a close look at what the mainstream press stopped covering years ago: the workings of the federal government agencies and how that touches the lives of all Americans, from our wallets to our health care to our safety. He also provides unique insight about how our lives are affected by many actions that the new administration quietly approves without drawing the attention of the Washington press corps.
Terrence McNally is a communications consultant who helps organizations tell better stories. You may recognize him as the longtime host of Free Forum on KPFK. He now hosts a weekly interview show on the Progressive Voices Network on TuneIn and a monthly podcast for a science institute at Harvard. All his podcasts can be found at iTunes and TerrenceMcNally.net
Daymond John with Sam Rubin
8pm
Daymond John
in conversation with Sam Rubin
Rise and Grind: Outperform, Outwork, and Outhustle Your Way to a More Successful and Rewarding Life
Ann and Jerry Moss Theatre
New Roads School
Herb Alpert Educational Village
3131 Olympic Boulevard
Santa Monica, CA 90404
PURCHASE TICKETS
$45 General Admission Seat + a copy of Rise and Grind
$55 Reserved Section Seat + a copy of Rise and Grind
$95 Reception (6:30-7:30pm), + Reserved Section Seat + Book
$20 General Admission Seat (on sale Dec 29, 10am)
New York Times bestselling author of The Power of Broke and “Shark” on ABC’s hit show Shark Tank explores how grit, persistence, and good old-fashioned hard work are the backbone of every successful business and individual, and inspires readers to Rise & Grind their way the top.
Daymond John is CEO and founder of FUBU, a celebrated global lifestyle brand with over $6 billion in sales. He is one of the country’s most visible and respected entrepreneurs as one of the stars of ABC series Shark Tank. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Power of Broke, as well as the bestsellers Display of Power and The Brand Within. Daymond has received over 35 awards, including Brandweek Marketer of the Year and Ernst & Young’s New York Entrepreneur of the Year Award. He is CEO of The Shark Group, a premiere consulting firm whose clients range from Fortune 500 companies to new media businesses to celebrities. President Obama appointed Daymond a Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship, a position focused on promoting entrepreneurship around the world.
Daymond John knows what it means to push yourself hard–and he also knows how spectacularly a killer work ethic can pay off. As a young man, he founded a modest line of clothing on a $40 budget by hand-sewing hats between his shifts at Red Lobster. Today, his brand FUBU has over $6 billion in sales.
Convenient though it might be to believe that you can shortcut your way to the top, says John, the truth is that if you want to get and stay ahead, you need to put in the work. You need to out-think, out-hustle, and out-perform everyone around you. You’ve got to rise and grind every day.
In the anticipated follow-up to the bestselling The Power of Broke, Daymond takes an up close look at the hard-charging routines and winning secrets of individuals who have risento the challenges in their lives and grinded their way to the very tops of their fields. Along the way, he also reveals how grit and persistence both helped him overcome the obstacles he has faced in life and ultimately fueled his success.
Sam Rubin is the entertainment reporter for the KTLA Morning News. Rubin hosts the Emmy-nominated “Live from the Academy Awards,” syndicated nationally by Tribune Entertainment, “Sneaks,” a series of movie preview shows produced in conjunction with the Los Angeles Times, as well as a show for the Reelz Channel. He is a recipient of a Golden Mike Award for Best Entertainment Reporter from the Radio & Television News Association and, as part of the KTLA Morning News team, earned an Associated Press Television-Radio Award for Best News Broadcast.
In addition to his activities at KTLA, he also reports for Tribune’s WGN-TV in Chicago. Nationally, Rubin provides reports for “On Air With Ryan Seacrest,” “Show Buzz,” and CNN. On the radio, Rubin reports for Los Angeles’ KNX-AM. Rubin has been previously at Live Talks Los Angeles interviewing Alan Cumming, Garry Marshall, Terry Gilliam and Aasif Mandvi.
James Syhabout with Roy Choi
8pm
James Syhabout
in conversation with Roy Choi
Hawker Fare:
Stories & Recipes from a Refugee Chef’s Isan Thai & Lao Roots
Ann and Jerry Moss Theatre
New Roads School
Herb Alpert Educational Village
3131 Olympic Boulevard
Santa Monica, CA 90404
PURCHASE TICKETS
$50 General Admission Seat + a copy of Hawker Fare
$60 Reserved Section Seat + a copy of Hawker Fare
$20 General Admission Seat
$30 Reseved Section Seat
James Syhabout was born in Oakland. He graduated from the California Culinary Academy in 1999 and headed to Manresa and the Fat Duck before working as commis at El Bulli, chef de partie at Alkimia, and chef de partie at Daniel Patterson’s Coi. In 2009 in Oakland he opened Commis, which holds two Michelin stars, and its casual sister restaurant Hawker Fare in Oakland and San Francisco in 2011 and 2015 respectively. He’s also co-owner of Old Kan Beer and Co. in Oakland.
Roy Choi was born in Seoul, Korea and raised in Los Angeles, California, Roy Choi is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America and later worked at the internationally acclaimed Le Bernardin. In 2010, Food and Wine named him Best New Chef. His cookbook/memoir L.A. Son was a NY Times Bestseller in 2013. He was included in the 2016 TIME 100 Most Influential People in the World list. And in 2017, LocoL received the first ever LA Times Restaurant of the Year award. Roy resides in Los Angeles where he is the co-owner, co-founder, and chef of Kogi BBQ, Chego!, A-Frame, Commissary, POT and LocoL.
“With Hawker Fare, Syhabout has done more than any other person in the world to get the word out about this unfairly, unnecessarily secret country and cuisine, and he’s done so with the most perfect invitation ever invented by mankind: spicy, fishy, MSG-y bowls of goodness. And BBQ. This book will make you a better person. That’s before you even try any of the recipes.”-Anthony Bourdain in the Preface of Hawker Fare
“James is a suspension bridge between form and flow, meticulous and laid-back, Thailand and Laos, chef and friend, awkwardness and confidence, technique and soul. He’s not one thing or another, and he’s probably going to be someone completely different than you though he was after you read this book. He’s a man of surprises.” –Roy Choi in the Foreword of Hawker Fare
James Syhabout’s hugely popular Hawker Fare restaurant in San Francisco is the product of his unique family history and diverse career experience. Born into two distinct but related Asian cultures—from his mother’s ancestral village in Isan, Thailand’s northeast region, and his father’s home in Pakse, Laos—he and his family landed in Oakland in 1981 in a community of other refugees from the Vietnam War. Syhabout at first turned away from the food of his heritage to work in Europe and become a classically trained chef.
After the success of Commis, his fine dining restaurant and the only Michelin-starred eatery in Oakland, Syhabout realized something was missing—and that something was Hawker Fare, and cooking the food of his childhood. The Hawker Fare cookbook immortalizes these widely beloved dishes, which are inspired by the open-air “hawker” markets of Thailand and Laos as well as the fine-dining sensibilities of James’s career beginnings. Each chapter opens with stories from Syhabout’s roving career, starting with his mother’s work as a line cook in Oakland, and moving into the turning point of his culinary life, including his travels as an adult in his parents’ homelands.
From building a pantry with sauces and oils, to making staples like sticky rice and padaek, to Syhabout’s recipe for instant ramen noodles with poached egg, Hawker Fare explores the many dimensions of this singular chef’s cooking and ethos on ingredients, family, and eating well. This cookbook offers a new definition of what it means to be making food in America, in the full and vibrant colors of Thailand, Laos, and California.
Jessica Yu with Julie Hébert
8pm
Jessica Yu
in conversation with Julie Hébert
Garden of the Lost and Abandoned:
The Extraordinary Story of One Ordinary Woman and the Children She Saves
Ann and Jerry Moss Theatre
New Roads School
Herb Alpert Educational Village
3131 Olympic Boulevard
Santa Monica, CA 90404
This event is part of our Newer Voices Series.
General Admission tickets are complimentary, but we encourage you to support these newer authors and purchase their books.
RSVP HERE for free tickets to this event
>>> Pre-purchasing the book includes a Reserved Seat ($27+tax)
Purchase book/Reserved Seat
* a book signing follows the talk
In Garden of the Lost and Abandoned, Jessica Yu turns her keen filmmaker’s eye on the story of Gladys Kalibbala, a Ugandan “orphan sleuth,” who writes the Lost and Abandoned column for Uganda’s largest newspaper in an effort to reunite castaway children with their estranged families.
Jessica Yu is a prolific filmmaker known for both her scripted and nonfiction work, which includes the Academy Award-winning short Breathing Lessons. Jessica also directs episodic TV including Grey’s Anatomy, Parenthood, and most recently 13 Reasons Why. Her documentaries have focused on art, social justice, and the environment.
Julie Hébert is a writer/director of theater, film and television. Her plays have twice been honored with the PEN Award for Drama. Hébert adapted her play Ruby’s Bucket of Blood for Showtime with Angela Bassett, and her film Female Perversions, with Tilda Swinton, was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at SunDance. Her 9/11 documentary, In Their Own Words, co-directed with John Wells, was honored with the George Foster Peabody Award. Hébert has written and directed for several highly regarded television series including The West Wing, ER, and American Crime. Currently, she is developing a series with Universal and working on a new play. Hébert is also the Executive Director and creative force behind Look What SHE Did!, a non- profit organization creating video interviews promoting untold stories of amazing women.
In Uganda, millions of children lack parental support, and thousands roam the streets adrift—their plight often neglected. The problem by most lights is overwhelming: at least 5,000 children live on the streets of Uganda’s capital city of Kampala. Some forget the names of their villages. The youngest may not know the names of their parents. Moved by the harrowing stories of these “lost” children, Gladys Kalibbala—part journalist, part detective, part “foot soldier”—devotes the little money and time she has to her “Lost and Abandoned” column for Uganda’s largest newspaper, which features a heartrending profile of a lost child every week. While her means are humble, the indefatigable Gladys forges her own path and immerses herself in the complicated, occasionally risky circumstances she finds herself in to help these wayward children. Independently, she has sought hundreds of cases and achieved miraculous family reunions.
Jessica Yu chronicles Gladys’ journey as she travels to far-flung towns to bear the weight of these children’s tragic past and ultimately improve their lives for the better. Yu delivers an acutely observed story of this hardnosed and warmhearted woman, the children she helps, and the twists of fate they experience together. The subplot of Gladys’s garden—her precarious dream of providing a home and livelihood for her vulnerable charges—adds fascinating depth. Garden of the Lost and Abandoned chronicles one woman’s altruism, both ordinary and extraordinary, in a way that is impossible to forget, and impossible not to take to heart.
Michael Shermer with Adam Felber
8pm
Michael Shermer
in conversation with Adam Felber
Heavens on Earth: The Scientific Search for the Afterlife, Immortality, and Utopia
Ann and Jerry Moss Theatre
New Roads School
Herb Alpert Educational Village
3131 Olympic Boulevard
Santa Monica, CA 90404
PURCHASE TICKETS
$45 General Admission Section Seat + a copy of Heavens on Earth
$55 Reserved Section Seat + a copy of Heavens on Earth
$20 General Admission Seat
Michael Shermer is the publisher of Skeptic magazine, a monthly columnist for Scientific American, and a Presidential Fellow at Chapman University. He has authored several popular books on science, scientific history, and the philosophy and history of science, including:
Skeptic: Viewing the World with a Rational Eye; Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design; The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies—How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths; Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time; How We Believe: The Search for God in an Age of Science, and Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It? (with Alex Grobman).
“This book’s theme is the one of greatest practical importance to all of us: does some heaven or afterlife await us after we die? Most Americans, and even many atheists, believe that the answer is “yes.” If there is no heaven, how can we find purpose in life? Michael Shermer explores these big questions with the delightful, powerful style that made his previous books so successful – but this is his best book.”
—Jared Diamond, Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of Guns, Germs, and Steel
“Michael Shermer is a beacon of reason in an ocean of irrationality.”
—Neil deGrasse Tyson, Director of the Hayden Planetarium, host of Cosmos and StarTalk, author of Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
In his most ambitious work yet, Michael Shermer sets out to discover what drives humans’ belief in life after death. Heavens on Earth: The Scientific Search for the Afterlife, Immortality, and Utopia delves into humanity’s obsession with the afterlife and the quest for immortality.
Since the beginning of recorded history, and surely long before that, mankind has concocted numerous manifestations of heaven and the afterlife—where souls go after the death of the physical body. Religious leaders have toiled to make sense of this place that a surprising 74 percent of Americans believe exists. Since no one has ever returned to report what it is really like, we cannot know for sure what awaits us after death.
In Heavens on Earth, Shermer focuses on recent scientific attempts to achieve immortality by radical life extensions, extropians, transhumanists, cryonicists, and mind uploaders, along with the utopians who have attempted to create a literal heaven on earth while we continue to live here. The result is a kaleidoscopic overview of our hopes and dreams—and the scientific boundaries of what is actually possible—concerning the afterlife. Shermer concludes with an uplifting paean to purpose and progress and what we can do in the here and now, whether or not there is a hereafter.
Adam Felber is an American political satirist, author, radio personality, actor, humorist, novelist, television writer, and comic book writer. Felber attended Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, and graduated as an English major in 1989. He has lived in Brooklyn, New York, and now lives in Los Angeles, California.
He is a regular panel member (and occasional guest host) of the NPR radio quiz show, Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!. Felber is the author of the novel Schrödinger’s Ball, which uses as a conceit the concept of Schrödinger’s cat. He has also written for several television shows including Real Time with Bill Maher, Talkshow with Spike Feresten, Arthur, The Smoking Gun, and Wishbone.
Felber also wrote the second Skrull Kill Krew limited series for Marvel Comics in 2009 as part of the Secret Invasion event.
Pete Souza
Please note this is a morning event!
7:45-8:15am Continental Breakfast
8:15-9:15am Talk, followed by book signing
Breakfast with
Pete Souza
Obama: An Intimate Portrait
Cross Campus–Downtown Los Angeles
800 Wilshire Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90017
PURCHASE TICKETS
$65 General Admission Seating + book
* a book signing follows the event. Doors open at 7:45am
** Continental Breakfast, 7:45am-8:15am
Pete Souza was the Chief Official White House Photographer for President Obama and the Director of the White House Photo Office. Previously Souza was an Assistant Professor of Photojournalism at Ohio University, the national photographer for the Chicago Tribune, a freelancer for National Geographic, and an Official White House Photographer for President Ronald Reagan. His books include the New York Times bestseller The Rise of Barack Obama, which documents the president’s meteoric ascent, from his first day in the U.S. Senate through the 2008 Pennsylvania presidential primary. Souza is a freelance photographer based in Washington, DC, and a Professor Emeritus at Ohio University’s School of Visual Communication.
The best day of Barack Obama’s presidency. The worst day. Everyday moments of fatherhood and friendship alongside the singular moments of presidential power. Chief Official White House Photographer Pete Souza was there next to the president, capturing it all—nearly 2 million photographs in total.
Obama: An Intimate Portrait includes a foreword by President Obama, in which he writes, “Over those eight years, Pete became more than my photographer—he became a friend, a confidant, and a brother.” This is the definitive visual biography of the Obama presidency, including never-before-seen photos of the administration, the president, and his family. Souza’s photographs and poignant behind-the-scenes captions and stories that accompany them, communicate the pace and power of our nation’s highest office.
Of his time at the White House, Pete writes, “I have had the extraordinary privilege of being the man in the room for eight years, visually documenting President Obama for history. This book is the result of that effort; I gave it my all. I hope that the chronological photographs that follow, accompanied by my words, will show you the true character of this man and the essence of his Presidency, as seen through my eyes and felt through my heart.”
This book depicts major milestones in the administration but also intimate personal moments that provide a deeper understanding of Barack Obama, not just as president but as a man. No White House photographer has ever been granted such access to a sitting president, and the result is a moving, comprehensive book full of more than 300 extraordinary photographs. The special relationship Pete forged with President Obama is apparent in these pages. Whether he was hanging back in a door frame, perched on a ladder to snag the perfect shot, or in a freight elevator with the president and the First Lady, his images reveal the undeniable trust between the commander in chief and his photographer.
Souza’s photographs tell the true story of the presidency, from moments behind the scenes at the inauguration to negotiations with foreign leaders and encounters with ordinary citizens. They appear in chronological order, paired with captions to provide context and behind-the-scenes anecdotes.