California Sun Podcast: Recent Episodes
Jeff Schechtman
The California Sun presents conversations with the people that are shaping and observing the Golden State
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 proposed selloffs and budget cuts.
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.
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, provides essential insights into America's character and future.
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 journalists to navigate truth in an age of digital deception.
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, and what's lost when filmmaking becomes primarily about algorithms and franchises rather than human stories.
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.
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.
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.
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 influence and economic importance to California.
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 former employer.
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 trade pressures and growing climate vulnerabilities.
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 presidency to modern reality television-style governance.
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 national level.
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 consent, incomplete record-keeping, and environmental contamination that plagues redevelopment efforts today. The former shipyard remains a Superfund site marred by cleanup fraud scandals, while surrounding communities face potential health impacts that remain largely unstudied.
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 resources.
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 pandemic when it became a "containment zone" for homelessness and drug problems, and his hopes that Mayor Daniel Lurie will fulfill promises to improve safety and support local businesses.
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 challenging conventional wisdom, Dr. Rab's work has become a model for how to approach the intersection of mental health and homelessness.
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 nature of literary persona, and the price of artistic ambition.
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 dropped out restart their studies.
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 traditional approaches to disaster response.
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 lessons and Australia's experience, he warns that without fundamental changes in our approach, California's fire conditions will only worsen.
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 against the inferno.
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 a burn area of roughly 60 square miles — may reshape Southern California's future.
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 writings and his own work with the Eames organizations, Ostroff talks about the design team's moral vision and multidisciplinary impact in the year of the 75th anniversary of the Eames House.
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 universal access to all knowledge. We begin the year by looking back.
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 roughly $300 billion in cargo annually, the port represents both tremendous economic success and significant environmental transformation.
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 roughly $300 billion in cargo annually, the port represents both tremendous economic success and significant environmental transformation.
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 and Dominic Gill, about a story that offers insights into how environmental activism has changed over 50 years, revealing the powerful connection between how we treat each other and how we treat our planet.
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, policy hurdles, and gentrification paradox while arguing that reimagined architecture can be more beautiful and meaningful than new construction, carrying within it the patina of human experience.
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 increasingly crucial. Drawing from his international expertise, Mathews outlines how California's communities could learn from places all over the world.
San Francisco Chronicle columnist Emily Hoeven examines Gov. Gavin Newsom's heightened relevance following the Democrats' stunning presidential defeat. As the party searches for new leadership, California's ambitious governor seems poised to step onto the national stage. But can the telegenic leader of the world's fifth-largest economy translate his West Coast progressive agenda into a winning formula for Democrats nationwide? Hoeven offers her sharp insights on whether Newsom has what it takes to become the kind of Democrat America would embrace.
Elsa Devienne takes us behind the iconic beaches of Los Angeles to reveal a hidden history of transformation, conflict, and reinvention. The author of "Sand Rush," Devienne discusses how L.A.’s shores went from eroding, polluted strips in the 1920s and '30s to expansive public spaces that defined the city’s image and culture. She details the social and political forces that played out, from the exclusion of minority communities to today’s ongoing battles over coastal access. With echoes of "Chinatown" and insights into today’s wealth-driven coastal fights, Devienne’s work helps illuminate Los Angeles' evolving identity.
In a wide-ranging conversation, Los Angeles Times columnist Gustavo Arellano dismantles the myth of a monolithic "Latino vote." Through his recent 3,000-mile journey across the Southwest, Arellano discovered communities far more focused on local concerns than national political narratives. He explores how Latinos navigate the complex dynamic of assimilation, while often maintaining a distinct cultural identity. Most striking was their passion for local politics, with leaders making their most significant impact far from the national spotlight.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning California poet Forrest Gander discusses "Mojave Ghost," his novel-poem blending personal grief with geological exploration. He explains how his background in geology shapes his writing, offering unique insights on landscape and emotion. Gander describes walking the San Andreas Fault to process loss, highlighting the desert's transformative power. He explores the connection between landscape and psyche, challenging conventional views of time and grief. Gander emphasizes the importance of presence in writing and life, reflecting on poetry's role in our media-saturated world.
Oisin Heneghan, a Stanford engineering graduate and real estate developer, sees opportunity in San Francisco's challenges. His company N17 leads the Bay Area in pending planning applications for new housing. Heneghan explains San Francisco's cyclical nature, emphasizing the need to look five to seven years ahead, as conditions change by project completion. He’s focused on addressing the housing crisis, leveraging political support for new housing, and using new laws for faster approvals. Heneghan remains confident in San Francisco's strong fundamentals, citing its tech industry, natural beauty, and ability to attract top talent.
Wall Street Journal reporter Zusha Elinson takes us through his reporting on the tragic encounter at a San Francisco Walgreens on April 27, 2023, when security guard Michael Anthony fatally shot Banko Brown, a homeless transgender man, over $14.64 worth of stolen candy. The story unfolds against a backdrop of shifting attitudes towards crime and policing in San Francisco. Both Anthony and Brown were at tumultuous points in their lives when their paths crossed. The confluence of personal struggles, corporate policies, and urban challenges culminated in a moment that sparked outrage and debate about justice, race, and transgender rights in San Francisco.
Sasha Abramsky, author of the new book "Chaos Comes Calling," talks about how America's deep polarization has cascaded from national politics down to local levels of governance. Abramsky reveals that even in small rural communities, once-mundane local issues like library policies, road repairs, and child care have become ideological battlegrounds. A quintessential example of this phenomenon is Shasta County, California, where far-right politicians won control of government. Abramsky illuminates how the pandemic, social media echo chambers, and talk radio amplified partisan voices, transforming school boards and city councils into microcosms of the broader red-blue divide.
Elizabeth Rosner discusses the importance and difficulty of deep listening in our noisy, information-saturated world. The Berkeley author's new work "Third Ear: Reflections on the Art and Science of Listening" draws in part from her experience as a child of Holocaust survivors. Rosner weaves personal narratives with insights from various fields to illustrate how listening can enhance empathy and connection, and posits that listening is a transformative act with the potential to heal individuals and bridge societal divides.
Del Seymour, a former homeless addict known as the "mayor of the Tenderloin," and his biographer, Alison Owings, offer a raw, street-level view of San Francisco's most notorious neighborhood. Seymour, the subject of Owings' book, "Mayor of the Tenderloin," pulls no punches, exposing the paradoxical allure of homelessness and the failings of well-meaning nonprofits. His insights challenge conventional wisdom about addiction and urban poverty, while his Tenderloin walking tours and Code Tenderloin jobs programs demonstrate his enduring hope.
Los Angeles author Carol Mithers discusses her new book, "Rethinking Rescue," which explores a groundbreaking approach to animal welfare pioneered by Lori Weise, the founder of L.A.’s Downtown Dog Rescue. Known as the "Dog Lady," Weiss focuses on preventing pets from entering shelters by addressing the root causes of surrender, particularly in underserved communities. Mithers highlights the complex interplay between poverty, pet ownership, and animal welfare, challenging traditional rescue paradigms and emphasizing community support and education to keep pets with their loving owners.
Patt Morrison, a veteran Los Angeles journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner, takes us on a journey through the city's ever-evolving landscape. With over five decades of experience chronicling L.A. across print, television, and radio, Morrison shares unique insights into the city's transformation, from its complex power structures to its diverse communities. She shares anecdotes about iconic figures, and discusses her role in reviving interest in the Los Angeles River. As the city prepares for the 2028 Olympics, Morrison's reflections on L.A.'s past and present offer an invaluable perspective on its future.
Roger BelAir and Dan Ostroff are bringing hope to California's toughest prisons through an unlikely source: pickleball. Their upcoming documentary, "Pickleball in Prison," explores how the simple paddle sport is transforming life behind bars, bridging gaps between inmates and staff, and fostering teamwork in high-security environments. From San Quentin to Folsom, the film captures wardens facing off against inmates across the net, revealing moments of shared humanity.
Zoë Bernard's recent story in Vanity Fair looks at El Segundo, California's emerging tech scene, where young entrepreneurs are rejecting Silicon Valley's software focus in favor of hard tech and defense tech. These predominantly male founders emphasize bro culture, patriotism, religion, and traditional values while developing drones, nuclear reactors, and military weaponry. With more than $100 billion invested in defense tech since 2021, they see themselves as "saving America." The war in Ukraine has helped legitimize their efforts, while concerns about China drive their mission.
Kevin Fagan, a veteran San Francisco Chronicle reporter, discusses the state's evolving homelessness crisis. After the Supreme Court's recent Grants Pass decision, cities are taking more aggressive action on encampment sweeps. Fagan explores these sweeps, the state of homelessness, and the political implications as elections approach. With decades of experience, he provides unique insights into the human impact of homelessness, the challenges facing policymakers and communities, and how years of coverage have affected him personally.
Caroline Paul's youthful adventures began as one of the first women to join the San Francisco Fire Department back in 1989, a story she recounts in her bestselling memoir, "Fighting Fire." In her latest book, "Tough Broad: From Boogie Boarding to Wing Walking — How Outdoor Adventure Improves Our Lives as We Age," Paul demonstrates how a lifelong relationship with outdoor adventure enriches the lives of women well into their older years.
Sara Fenske Bahat, the former interim chief executive of San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, explores the interplay between art, politics, and institutional responsibility. Bahat, who is Jewish, explains the museum's mission and history leading up to a crisis in February involving pro-Palestinian protests, questions of free speech, and accusations of antisemitism that ultimately led her to step down. She reflects on that decision, her concerns about safety within the museum, and the broader implications for arts institutions nationwide.
José Vadi, author of "Chipped: Writing from a Skateboarder's Lens," explores skateboarding as a unique window into California culture, both northern and southern. He discusses how skating serves as a form of self-empowerment and artistic expression, intertwining with music and writing. Vadi examines skateboarding's evolution from a rebellious subculture to a global phenomenon. He reveals how skateboarding shapes public spaces, confronts mortality, and offers new perspectives on community and creativity.
Markos Kounalakis, a visiting fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and California's "second gentleman," married to Lieutenant Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, argued in a recent Washington Monthly piece that California, given its economic power and strategic location, is underrepresented in key U.S. Senate committees, including those on armed services, foreign relations, and intelligence. This limits the state's contributions on crucial foreign policy decisions, particularly in the Indo-Pacific.
Jan Sramek grew up enamored with the California dream. Today he tells us how he wants to transform that dream into the development of a new 21st-century city on 60,000 acres of rural Solano County. Dubbed California Forever, the project is designed, Sramek says, to reshape the Bay Area housing landscape by adding more than 25,000 homes, creating thousands of jobs, mitigating traffic congestion, and recapturing the spirit of a California that once dreamed big.
What were you doing at 22? Cecilia Lunaparra, a senior at UC Berkeley, was just elected to the Berkeley City Council at that age, making her the youngest and first undergraduate to hold the office. She's not new to activism and making a difference in her community, and thinks that the young people protesting on campus today may be at the forefront of a new revolution.238
Over the years, the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news reporting has typically been awarded to major legacy media brands. However, this year a hyperlocal online publication, the Santa Cruz Lookout, received the prestigious honor for its coverage of the once-in-a-century floods that devastated Santa Cruz in January 2023. Ken Doctor, who founded the Lookout in 2020, details how the newsroom covered the floods, and how it has emerged as a potential model for the future of local journalism.
California has often been identified with divorce, at least in the media. After all, California was the first state to introduce no-fault divorce in 1970 under then-Gov. Ronald Reagan, and celebrity divorces make lots of headlines. Our guest, Lauren Petkin, has been practicing family law in Los Angeles for 36 years. She lays out today's divorce landscape, including mediation vs. litigation, the rise in prenups, collaborative divorce, alimony reforms, and the use of private judges.
In his new book "Cast Out of Eden," Robert McNally removes John Muir from his pedestal and exposes his contempt for the Indigenous peoples whose homeland he helped expropriate. McNally contends that Muir, while rightly celebrated as a nature mystic who introduced the concept of wilderness to Californians and fought for the preservation of wild places, believed that Indigenous people had "no right place in the landscape." The author takes an unflinching look at the troubling aspects of Muir's legacy, arguing that his vision of a pristine wilderness erased the long history of Native Americans on the land.
Bay Area author Sylvia Brownrigg embarked on a captivating journey to uncover family secrets, set against the backdrop of California's allure of reinvention. In her new memoir, "The Whole Staggering Mystery," a lost package sparks an exploration that intertwines identity, hidden family histories, and the enduring influence of the past on the present. Through her evocative storytelling, Brownrigg juggles the essence of reinvention and the longing for self-discovery.
Max Podemski is an urban planner, writer, and illustrator who currently serves as a transportation planner for the city of Los Angeles. In his new book, "A Paradise of Small Houses," he traces the evolution of American housing types, from the Philadelphia row house and Chicago workers cottage to the California bungalow. Podemski argues that California's rich history of desirable multifamily housing could hold a solution to the state's housing crisis.
The California wine industry is under siege. A global wine glut, younger generations turning away from alcohol, and a contentious battle over the future of Napa County wineries have left the enemy inside the gates. As if this weren't enough, Justice Department investigators have subpoenaed dozens of wine industry figures, including a member of the Board of Supervisors, and in January the head of Napa County's farm bureau died by apparent suicide. Stu Smith, proprietor of Smith-Madrone Winery in St. Helena and a longtime small winery activist, joined us to tell the story.
Though Haiti may seem distant, it is arguably as relevant to us as Ukraine or Israel. The Caribbean country serves as a global example of failed governance rooted in tribal strife. Amy Wilentz, a prominent voice in bringing attention to the horrors endured by the people of Haiti, has been covering the nation since the 1980s. A long-time resident of Southern California, she is a recipient of a National Book Critics Circle Award and a frequent contributor to the Los Angeles Times. Wilentz also teaches literary journalism at the University of California, Irvine.
Bonnie Portnoy, granddaughter of celebrated California impressionist Tilden Daken, is the author of a new biography of his life, "The Man Beneath the Paint." Portnoy unveils the mysteries of an artist whose life was as colorful as his paintings of California's natural landscapes, filled with daring adventure, personal tumult, and a relentless pursuit of artistic expression.
Dr. Susan Partovi, a pioneer in street medicine, recounts her journey of providing compassionate care to the homeless on L.A.'s Skid Row in our conversation and in her recent memoir, "Renegade, M.D." With a career spanning decades, Dr. Partovi offers a unique perspective on results-based healthcare for the most marginalized. Her approach, shaped by early experiences and a commitment to treating patients as family, emphasizes the urgent need for listening to her patients on the streets to address the homelessness crisis. Her story is a testament to the power of caring and bravery in medicine.
Andrew Cockburn's cover story for the March issue of Harper's Magazine, titled “The Pentagon’s Silicon Valley Problem,” illuminates the longstanding and increasingly intricate relationship between Silicon Valley's tech leaders and the Pentagon. Cockburn, the Washington editor of Harper's and a distinguished figure in journalism, argues that the traditional "military-industrial complex" has evolved into a more contemporary "military high-tech complex." This transformation signals a deeper integration of technological advancements with military operations, occurring within our own backyard.
James Brosnahan is one of California's most distinguished litigators, with a career that spans the Robert Kennedy Justice Department, 55 years in private practice in California, and more than 150 jury trials. His cases have mirrored the issues of our times, tackling challenges like refugees, gender battles, sexual taboos, terrorism, government misconduct, wrongful imprisonment, free speech, legal work in war zones, poverty and murder on Native American Reservations, and hunger in America. He shares his story with us and in his memoir, "Justice at Trial: Courtroom Battles and Groundbreaking Cases."
The Berkeley Institute for Young Americans, part of the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley, examines the evolving generational dynamics of millennials and Gen Z. The institute serves as a hub for exploring the aspirations and challenges of young people, offering unique perspectives on their impact in the workplace and across cultural and political landscapes. Joining us on the podcast are Sarah Swanbeck, the institute’s executive director, and Erin Heys, its policy director. Together, they delve into how today’s generational shifts are influencing everything from labor markets to climate change policies, emphasizing the pivotal role of these younger cohorts in crafting our future.
Harold Bronson discusses his memoir "Time Has Come Today: Rock and Roll Diaries 1967-2007." The book chronicles Bronson's journey in the music industry from writing for UCLA's Daily Bruin to co-founding Rhino Records. He covers four decades of rock history, highlighting the shift from fun and rebellion to business. Bronson's story is rooted in California, where he developed his passion for music and witnessed the state becoming a hub for the music industry. He introduces readers to great music and underscores the enduring legacy of California's influence on the music scene.
Matthias Gafni, an investigative reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, delves into the darkest corners of the streets of San Francisco. For a recent project, he attempted to attribute names, faces, and families to 24 overdose deaths during a particularly harrowing week in 2023. They were not mere statistics but individuals with stories: a recent immigrant dreaming of a new life; a star student and athlete; a mechanic striving to escape his past, among others. Each narrative sheds light on the complex interplay of drug use, mental illness, and profound, systemic issues fueling the city’s drug crisis.
This Sunday, Feb. 4, will mark the 50th anniversary of Patty Hearst's kidnapping, a saga that remains a captivating and perplexing chapter of California history. For those who lived through it, this event was more than a headline; it epitomized an era. Yet, regardless of how vividly we recall the saga, the full truth has remained elusive. Roger Rapoport helps bridge the gaps in our understanding in our conversation and in his new book, "Searching for Patty Hearst: A True Crime Novel."
Daniel Sokatch, a prominent figure in the Jewish community in California and across America, has served as CEO of the San Francisco-based New Israel Fund since 2009 and previously led in the Jewish Federation of San Francisco. His role became crucial on Oct. 7 when Hamas's attack on Israel reverberated around the world, including in American Jewish communities. Sokatch emerged as a voice of reason as protests roiled American cities. These protests not only mirrored global divisions but also highlighted deep-seated issues within American life.
Matt Mahan, the 66th mayor of San Jose, advocates for addressing a select number of specific issues rather than engaging in what he perceives as performative politics that aims to solve every problem for all constituents. During his first year as mayor, he has made some progress in tackling housing and homelessness. A Watsonville native and Harvard alumnus, Mahan's background includes heading student government at Harvard, constructing irrigation systems in Bolivia, teaching middle schoolers with Teach for America, and founding a company as a tech entrepreneur.
In his new book "Welcome to the O.C.," Rolling Stone's chief television critic, Alan Sepinwall, provides an oral history of a cultural phenomenon that became an example of unpredictable success. Despite many shows featuring attractive casts and glamorous California settings, "The O.C." managed to stand out — and change the formula for television teen dramas. Its story offers insights into the cultural context of California and Orange County in the early aughts and underscores the elusive nature of hits in entertainment.
As we usher in the new year, we talk with David Kipen about his latest work, "Dear California: The Golden State in Diaries and Letters." The anthology is a heartfelt ode to California, skillfully interweaving its diverse strands — from historic letters to contemporary tweets — creating a dialogue that transcends time. It reflects on California's evolving landscapes and captures the quintessence of what makes the state “a place apart.”
Ryan Bedsaul explores how Anthony Bourdain’s on-screen work, especially "Parts Unknown," helped him connect to and navigate the vast, enigmatic city of Los Angeles. In this week's podcast and in his recent article for Current Affairs, Bedsaul reflects on his experiences of living in Los Angeles and how Bourdain’s work has reoriented his attitude toward the city, and impacted his engagement with its people and places.
John King, urban design critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, explores how San Francisco’s Ferry Building mirrors the city's evolution and broader urban American challenges in his book new "Portal." More than a historic transportation hub, the Ferry Building's journey from glory to neglect and resurgence symbolizes San Francisco's shifting narrative. King delves into the interplay of preservation, development, and adaptation, while addressing existential threats like climate change and seismic risks. He reveals how a single landmark encapsulates a city's history, growth, and future uncertainties.
Jonathan Taplin, a film producer, scholar, and director emeritus of the Annenberg Innovation Lab, is a vocal critic of excessive techno-optimism. In his book, "The End of Reality: How Four Billionaires are Selling a Fantasy Future of the Metaverse, Mars, and Crypto," he argues that the California-centric billionaires Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Marc Andreessen are diverting public attention from critical issues. He criticizes the media's role in glorifying them and advocates for a cultural shift that emphasizes real solutions over escapist narratives.
The narrative in Katya Cengel's new memoir "Straitjackets and Lunch Money" is set in motion by her volunteer work at a juvenile detention facility in the Bay Area in 2012. The experience served as a catalyst, unearthing memories of her own past. In 1986, at the age of 10, Cengel was hospitalized in the now defunct psychosomatic unit of Stanford Children’s Hospital, battling an extreme eating disorder. At the time of her admission, she weighed a mere 55 pounds. Her story is a reflection on the evolving landscape of mental healthcare and support for young people facing similar challenges.
Conor Friedersdorf, a California-based staff writer for The Atlantic, joins us to discuss his recent article, "A Uniquely Terrible New DEI Policy." In it, he dissects controversial new diversity, equity, and inclusion mandates at California's community colleges, the largest higher education system in the U.S. These policies are not only sparking lawsuits but also raising questions about academic freedom and First Amendment rights. As Friedersdorf navigates this complex landscape, he sheds light on the historical context, the intentions behind the policies, and their broader societal implications.
Robert M. Sapolsky, a Stanford neurobiologist and MacArthur “genius” fellow, challenges our deeply ingrained beliefs about free will. Building on his seminal 2017 work "Behave," which explored the dynamics of nature and nurture, Sapolsky's latest book, "Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will," suggests that science, medicine, and philosophy may actually support determinism over free will. As societal discourse increasingly embraces a culture of victimhood, he questions the quintessentially Californian belief in personal agency.
Brian Conrad, the director of undergraduate studies in mathematics at Stanford University, recently broke down the proposal to overhaul of California's math curriculum in an article for the Atlantic. After reading the entire 1,000-page framework, Conrad criticized what he described as the document's reliance on questionable research and challenged its recommendations to do away with middle school algebra and introduce "data science" as an alternative to traditional math. He warns that the proposal's one-size-fits-all approach could limit career opportunities in quantitative fields and exacerbate educational inequities.
Rosanna Xia, a Los Angeles Times environmental reporter and Pulitzer Prize finalist, joins us to unravel a crisis that's reshaping California's iconic 1,200-mile coastline. But this isn't just a Golden State issue; it's a global wake-up call. Xia's frontline reporting and her new book "California Against the Sea," reveals that we're at a crossroads: either we hurtle headlong into environmental disaster or pivot toward a new paradigm of coastal stewardship. This episode dives into the urgent need to redefine "resilience" in the face of climate change. Forget seawalls and beach replenishment; Xia is talking about a seismic shift in our relationship with the planet.
Evelyn McDonnell is a storyteller, writing about a storyteller. Her tribute to Joan Didion, “The World According to Joan Didion,” places each of us at the moment we first became aware of the California author. The book delves into Didion’s roles as a woman, mother, spouse, and consumer, even as she remains a bit of a political enigma. All these facets contribute to the complex landscape of Didion's life and her work as a kind of cartographer for California.
Paul Carter ventures where few dare to go — into the California life of Richard Nixon. Not as the man marred by Watergate, but as California's native son. Author of "Richard Nixon: California's Native Son," Carter delves into the former president's youth, exploring how Nixon, born in Yorba Linda and educated in Whittier, was shaped by the stories, places, and people of Southern California. Moreover, he examines how California politics, even today, remain linked to Nixon's complex legacy.
Chris Tilly, a professor and labor studies expert at UCLA's Luskin School of Public Policy, recently garnered attention in a New York Times article that explored the constraints on California's economic expansion. In this episode, Tilly examines California's dynamic workforce and its potential to set a precedent for overcoming limited growth nationwide. He delves into key topics such as the ongoing labor unrest in the state, the proposed creation of a wage-setting board, and the adoption of a $20 minimum wage for fast-food workers. With his deep expertise in labor markets, inequality, and public policy, Tilly provides an insightful look at the shifting labor landscape in the Golden State.
Julie Johnson, a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, recently examined the overlooked health crisis facing California's firefighters. While the public takes precautions against wildfire smoke — from wearing masks to closing schools — firefighters are alarmingly unprotected. Her reporting revealed that, despite evidence linking smoke exposure to long-term health risks like cancer and dementia, there's a glaring absence of protective measures or federal studies.
Tony Platt, author of "The Scandal of Cal," peels back the layers of UC Berkeley's esteemed reputation. Beneath its status as a hub for innovation and progressive thought lies a troubling history of plunder, warfare, and white supremacy. Platt's research serves as a clarion call for the university to confront its original sins, from its role in the military-industrial complex to its large-scale hoarding of Indigenous remains.
Dashka Slater, in her recent New York Times Magazine story and in her new book, "Accountable." unveils a shocking discovery in liberal Albany, California. She delves into a high school student's private Instagram account filled with disturbing and hateful content. Who was involved? What were the consequences? And what does this reveal about online accountability, societal norms, and the dark side of digital culture? Slater's exploration exposes a complex puzzle that challenges our understanding of responsibility in the virtual world.
Pico Iyer gives us an end of summer lift in today's podcast. The long-time travel writer and philosopher reflects on the persistent human struggle to understand the world and find peace. Despite millennia of evolution, division and conflict remain central to civilization. While science offers definitive answers, understanding life and relationships is more complex, according to Iyer, a longtime California figure. He says we each search for solace, aiming to piece together life's puzzle to form an ideal picture, a theme that runs through his work, including, most recently, "The Half Known Life: In Search of Paradise."
Kate Flannery takes us back to the glamorous haze of early 2000s Los Angeles, where she embarked on a tumultuous journey with American Apparel, a company once synonymous with hipster chic but later a textbook case of financial mismanagement and “me too” behavior. Her story, captured in her provocative and candid memoir "Strip Tees," explores the salacious euphoria of youth, the ideals of feminism, and the gritty reality of exploitation and ethical ambiguity.
Faith Pinho, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, created and hosted a new nine-part podcast series, called "Foretold," that delves into the rich history of the Romani community in California, with a focus on Los Angeles. The narrative unfolds through the perspective of a young Romani American woman, Paulina Stevens, who defies her predestined path as a fortuneteller to rewrite her own story. Pinho's storytelling takes us beyond the neon glow of "psychic" signs and the allure of trendy tarot card shops, challenging us to confront our preconceptions about fortunetellers and the Romani people.
Dr. Margot Kushel is the co-author of a recent groundbreaking report by the UC San Francisco Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, which represents the largest study on homelessness since the 1990s. Offering a sobering portrait of societal failures, the study underscores homelessness as perhaps the state's most compelling and pervasive crisis. An authority on homelessness and health, Kushel discusses the mosaic of factors contributing to the struggles of roughly 171,000 individuals experiencing homelessness on California's streets.
Joe Hagan, a Vanity Fair special correspondent, holds a mirror up to California today. In his recent story "Can Anyone Fix California," and on this week's podcast, Hagan talks about the fears and lost dreams in the world's fifth largest economy. Even with all of its economic assets, its beauty and its geographic magic, the state is a far cry from the future it once represented. He wonders if we can really say we want to make America into California.
Sports executive Andy Dolich, co-author of the new book "Goodbye Oakland: Winning, Wanderlust, and a Sports Town’s Fight for Survival," discusses Oakland's bad sports luck. He talks about the exhilarating highs of victory and the painful lows of abandonment as the Raiders, the Warriors, and now the A's, all depart for ostensibly greener pastures. Once a celebrated sports hub, Oakland boasted a remarkable collection of national titles, star athletes, and colorful personalities. So, what led to this decline? Furthermore, does Oakland hold any potential for a future in sports?
Greg King has dedicated his life to the appreciation and protection of California's majestic redwoods. Sadly, only 4% of the original 2 million acres of redwood ecosystem remains intact. Witnessing the devastation first-hand in the 1980s was a life-changing experience for King. In 1987, he discovered and named the Headwaters Forest in Humboldt County, the largest remaining ancient redwood habitat outside of parks. This sparked a decade-long struggle that led to its protection by state and federal governments. In his new book, "The Ghost Forest," he tells the story of the exploitation of California's redwoods going back to 1849.
From the Bay Area to commanding the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, Brett Crozier's 30-year naval career was a journey defined by dedication, discipline, and courage. These qualities proved to be pivotal when he faced a crisis in the spring of 2020: a raging coronavirus outbreak aboard his ship. In these extraordinary circumstances, Crozier made the choice to stand up for his crew, embodying the power of kindness in a tussle against Washington politics. He tells his story in this week's podcast and in his new book, "Surf When You Can: Lessons in Life, Loyalty, and Leadership from a Maverick Navy Captain."
Maureen Ryan, known for her tough commentary as a film and television critic and contributing editor at Vanity Fair, puts Hollywood under a critical lens in this week’s podcast and in her new book, "Burn It Down."
Often called "high school with money and power," the industry has embraced unsettling norms – abuse, poor etiquette, and a culture of complicity — for nearly a century. According to Ryan, long before the #MeToo movement highlighted sexual misconduct, a sinister underbelly was already lurking beneath Hollywood's glitzy façade.
Clare Frank has bravely battled fires in California for three decades, as she details in her new memoir "Burnt." Her experience spans local fires in Santa Cruz to the infamous wildfires that have left indelible marks on our collective consciousness. Beginning her firefighting journey at just 17 years old, she climbed the ranks to become the first and only female state chief of fire protection. In this conversation, she shares her passion for her work, the personal risks involved, the evolving conditions she has witnessed over her 30-year tenure, and her childhood fascination with the firefighting profession.
Kevin Kelly, the influential founding editor and defining voice of WIRED Magazine, played a pivotal role in its establishment in San Francisco during the advent of the internet era. Known for his unwavering advocacy of technology optimism and the recognition of fundamental truths, Kelly has championed California as a hub for embracing change with minimal resistance. In our latest podcast, we delve into these topics and much more.
The writers' strike seems like it has no end in sight. The directors are next. The "streaming wars" have produced financial losses for all of the studios; the pandemic drove a dagger into theaters; nationalism is impacting American movies overseas; and Hollywood leadership is lacking. Richard Rushfield, a long-time Hollywood journalist and founder of The Ankler, shares his analysis of how bad it really is.
Erik Davis has long recognized the deep intersection of technology, spirituality, mysticism, transcendence, and the power of California. In his works "TechGnosis" and "The Visionary State," and in this week's podcast, he talks about how all of these things are integrated, and how that impacts all Californians, each and every day.
Nicholas Goldberg has spent more than 20 years at the Los Angeles Times. As the editorial page editor and more recently as a columnist and associate editor, he has witnessed remarkable changes both at the paper and in the city. He shares his thoughts on the role of the Times as a local paper, keeping an eye on politicians, L.A.'s long-standing law enforcement problems, rooting out the recent wave of city corruption, and why local politics still
Victoria Chang, the author of six collections of poetry, was recently awarded USC's prestigious 2023 Chowdhury Prize in Literature. Her work covers a wide range of subjects, including art, film, history, and grief and she gives particularly insight into the elusive nature of identity. A graduate of the University of Michigan, Harvard, and Stanford, she shares some of her history and words with us.
Dean King, in his new book, Guardians of the Valley, shares the origin story of John Muir, which equally involves his editor Robert Underwood Johnson. Through a powerful personal relationship Muir and Johnson combined Muir’s vision of nature, his elegant writing and Johnson’s penchant for action. Together they got people to come journey to the wilderness, founded the Sierra Club and saved Yosemite. All with a humanity that got people to appreciate nature, more than just preserving it.
Eric Porter, the author of "A People's History of SFO," sees the nation's No. 1 ranked large airport, San Francisco International, as a metaphor for the Bay Area. He explores how SFO and other airports mirror their cities' art, culture, and values. While emphasizing the significant role public art plays in enhancing the airport experience, he explains how just observing people at any airport reveals much about the community, its workforce, and class structure.
California is on the verge of becoming the 4th largest economy in the world. Its economic and cultural impact ripples around the globe, and taxes on its tech economy provide a large portion of our state's budget. The city of Palo Alto, home of Stanford University, sits at the epicenter of this modern world. Yet Malcolm Harris, author of the new book "Palo Alto," argues on this week’s podcast that it’s an economy he thinks we should be ashamed of, built on misery and inequity.
Southern California is often associated with beaches, bungalows, and opulence, but there is more to the region than Los Angeles and Hollywood. Riverside, San Bernardino, and other often-overlooked areas reveal a Southern California of warehouses, workers, farms, and freeways that is home to diverse and deeply connected communities. In her latest book, "Mecca," the celebrated novelist Susan Straight tells an epic story that captures these communities and explores the lives of native Californians navigating race, history, and family. Straight, who was born and raised in Riverside and still lives there, has been writing about Southern California and the Inland Empire for over 40 years. She shares some of that story with us.
Kanishka Cheng, an urban planner, served 15 years in housing and community development in San Francisco government. In this week’s podcast, she shares why she resigned from city government to lead TogetherSF, an organization she co-founded with Mike Moritz, whose recent New York Times op-ed on San Francisco's political dysfunction set off a vigorous debate. TogetherSF is dedicated to activating citizens to address what Cheng says are the issues that San Francisco politicians have been unable or unwilling to solve.
Lila LaHood discusses her work as the Publisher of the San Francisco Public Press, an online, radio, and streaming news outlet. Her efforts are part of a growing group of nascent but thriving local news initiatives in the San Francisco Bay Area. From time to time we have taken a look at these efforts and how they are contributing to community news and cohesion.
Mark Rozzo, journalist and the author of "Everybody Thought We Were Crazy," shares with us a glimpse of the cultural and cinematic revolution that defined Los Angeles in the 1960s. Rozzo acts as a time machine, taking us back to the era when Dennis Hopper and Brooke Hayward played significant roles in birthing a new cultural and Hollywood movement. One that would ultimately shape both Los Angeles and the film industry for decades to come.
Peggy Orenstein, the Bay Area author, took advantage of her time during the pandemic to embark on a unique adventure at a ranch in Sonoma County. During this conversation and in her book "Unraveling," she shares her story about learning the art of sheep shearing, wool dying, spinning, and even creating a sweater from start to finish. As she recounts her journey, she weaves together themes of freedom, bravery, politics, and modernity.
John Gedmark thinks California can still be a center of aerospace innovation. The founder and CEO of Astranis is building satellites in a building that once produced war ships within walking distance of Chase Center in San Francisco. Gedmark explains how he set out to solve what he sees as one of the world's great problems, bringing broadband internet to the most remote and rural parts of the world. How he set out to do it, the huge technical challenges, why he chose the Bay Area, and how his success is helping the community are all parts of a story he shares with us.
Ali Winston and Darwin BondGraham, two Bay Area investigative journalists, discuss the systemic corruption and brutality in Oakland's police department, and the more than two-decades-long saga of attempted reforms and explosive scandals. In their recent book, Riders Come Out at Night: Brutality, Corruption, and Cover-up in Oakland, they examine the notorious group of sadistic Oakland cops known as “The Riders.”
Lee Herrick is California's newly minted Poet Laureate. The former Fresno Poet Laureate, he also teaches at Fresno City College and the University of Nevada, Reno. He is the author of three noteworthy collections of poetry, "Scar and Flower," Gardening Secrets of the Dead" and "This Many Miles From Desire." Born in South Korea, Herrick discusses his upbringing in Danville and Fresno, his appreciation and love of language, and the role of poetry as a tool for transformation, empowerment, understanding racial division, and seeing both the light and dark of the human condition.
Erica Gies returns to the California Sun podcast to talk about the water crisis we face today...one of too much water in all the wrong places. Flash flooding and storms in one part of the state, massive droughts in others, climate change, and a growing concrete-built environment, have all impacted our plans for water control. Gies explores other options in her recent op-ed in the New York Times and in this podcast. She suggests the use of unique geologic features called paleo valleys, which could be a way for California to find a sustainable solution to an ongoing water crisis.
Erica Hellerstein, a Bay Area journalist, talks about "Grieving California," her moving story about the grief of living in a state often on fire. She talks of our changing landscape, driven by climate change and natural disasters, and how it drives a feeling of nostalgia for a past that no longer exists, and a psychological toll heightened by fear for the future. As we look for solace in old memories, she says, we must come to terms with the fact that we can never go back to what used to be. As Joni Mitchell said, "you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone."
Mark Thompson was, for over 25 years, one half of the team of Mark and Brian, hosts of the iconic morning radio show on KLOS-FM in Los Angeles. Their show was a mix of comedy and music, and their personalities quickly became woven into the fabric and car culture of the city. Despite initial resistance from the audience, their show became number one in L.A. and was widely imitated. They earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and a place in the Radio Hall of Fame. The Mark and Brian show was a testament to the once-upon-a-time power and intimacy of radio, and Thompson shares how that legacy evolved.
Zev Yaroslavsky, served 20 years on the LA City Council and 20 years on the LA County Board of Supervisors, a distinguished career unmatched in recent memory. Now a faculty member at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, Yaroslavsky recently saw his daughter-in-law elected to a seat on the Los Angeles City Council. Yaroslavsky reflects on his institutional memory of Los Angeles, comments on the city's evolution, its history of homelessness, and changes to government. He shares his thoughts on the corruption currently occurring at City Hall and the rarified atmosphere of the Board of Supervisors. While he appreciates the academic life he leads, we get the sense that there is a certain something that he misses about being in the arena.
Leighton Woodhouse, a Bay Area journalist and filmmaker, looks at homelessness, fentanyl, and the streets of our California cities through the lenses of our recent elections, his experiences growing up in the Bay Area, and his recent eye-opening visit to Portland. He wonders if there can ever be a policy solution to our urban problems, if Los Angeles will be the new San Francisco, and whether we’ve passed our prime as a state and a nation.
Stephen Galloway is an Emmy Award-winning journalist, producer, and dean of Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts. He spent nearly three decades in writing, editing, producing, and leadership roles at The Hollywood Reporter, where he also created and produced the television series “The Hollywood Masters.” Today, at Chapman, he sees a dedicated and talented group of students entering a business that bears little resemblance to the one he’s worked in, but a group that he thinks will redefine movies as we know them.
While homelessness and crime appear to be the issues most driving our elections in California cities this year, it’s fentanyl that is really on the ballot. My guest, journalist and author Sam Quinones, details how fentanyl changes everything we know about what’s happening on our streets. Tents, shelters, jail, and death are all connected to fentanyl. We discuss how we got here, how bad it is, and what, if anything, might be done.
Rabbi Noah Farkas serves as the president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles. A long-time civic leader, he has not been surprised by the recent outbreaks of hate speech on the City Council, or by the anti-semitism of Kanye West. He shares his thoughts about the response to West, the culture of the city, the increasing fear he sees among the Jewish community, and the power of diversity and conversation that he hopes might help in this troubled moment.
Alex Shultz, a long-time reporter for SFGATE, has been looking at how San Francisco Giants owner Charles Johnson seems to only be pitching to the right side of the plate. The billionaire owner of the Giants has made large donations to some of the most far-right candidates and election deniers in the country, including Cindy Hyde-Smith, Herschel Walker, Lauren Boebert, Madison Cawthorn, and Ron Johnson. Shultz discussed Johnson and the conflation of sports and politics in one of the most liberal cities in America.
Los Angeles Times columnist Erika D. Smith looks at the current implosion of the L.A. City Council, the mayoral race, and the city's place in the pantheon of systemic political mismanagement. She speculates that the city will have to go through all the stages of grief before it comes out the other side, where perhaps something positive can emerge. Until then L.A. politics may provide more drama than the Dodgers.
Joe Mathews returns to the California Sun podcast to examine what he sees as the folly of Gov. Gavin Newsom's national political ambitions. The longtime California journalist and academic thinks Newsom will never be president, in part because California is so politically and culturally disconnected from the rest of the country, but also because Newsom himself is just too peculiar. He suggests Newsom might be better off trying to become president of an independent nation of California.
Some days it seems that the problems of housing and homelessness offset all the good things about California. People and companies are leaving the state at an alarming rate, and the problems continue to grow. Governance, in places like Los Angeles and San Francisco, appears paralyzed. Maybe we need to start over with all new leadership? So says our guest on this week’s podcast, a professor of economics at UCLA and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Lee E. Ohanian.
Katherine Blunt, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, has led much of the coverage that has revealed the repeated failures of Pacific Gas and Electric. In her new book, "California Burning," and in this week’s podcast, she looks at the unique structure of public utilities and how PG&E went from an innovative company run by engineers to a culture of dollars first, safety last. She examines what deregulation did to the company, the companies two bankruptcies, and the risks the company still poses to citizens and ratepayers.
Lydia Chavez and Joe Eskenazi see their independent news site Mission Local as covering a microcosm of San Francisco from their base in the Mission District. It's a place they think is reflective of the issues of the whole Bay Area, and allows them to dig deeper on stories. Reporting everything from police reform and government corruption to housing and the local economy, Mission Local began as a project at UC Berkeley's journalism school and struck out on its own in 2014. In this week's podcast, we talk to Lydia Chavez, the founder and executive editor, and Joe Eskenazi, a columnist, and the managing editor.
Long before we knew him as a comedian or comic actor, Cheech Marin started collecting Chicano art. The result of that passion is now on permanent display at the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture, known as “The Cheech,” in Riverside. The story of how the museum came to be, of Marin’s deep understanding of the links between Chicano art and culture, and of how his interest and knowledge evolved all comes to light on this week’s podcast.
Severin Borenstein is a professor of Business and Public Policy at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business and the director of the Energy Institute at Haas. One of California's premier experts on energy policy, his research focuses on business competition, strategy, and regulation in the airline industry, the oil and gas industries, electricity markets, and the economics of renewable energy. In this week's podcast, Borenstein talks about the link between California's energy policy and its economic growth; the state's oversize role in setting and exporting global energy policy; innovation and climate policy; and why banning new gas stations is a really bad idea.
Matt Doig was the assistant managing editor of investigations for the L.A. Times when Paul Pringle pursued his story about disgraced USC medical school dean Dr. Carmen Puliafito. Doig takes issue with some of the assertions in Pringle's recent book "Bad City," and wrote about them several weeks ago in a Medium post entitled "Sex, Meth, Lies and Journalism." Last week on the California Sun Podcast, we spoke with Pringle about the evolution of his story and his interactions with Times editors. We felt it was worthwhile to give Doig an opportunity to tell his side of the story.
Paul Pringle is a long-time investigative reporter for the Los Angeles Times and a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner. His series of stories uncovering the drug use and criminal behavior of the dean of USC’s Keck School of Medicine shifted the tectonic plates of both USC and Pringle’s employer, the L.A. Times. It’s a story of the power of investigative journalism, and the role of powerful institutions in a big city like Los Angeles. He writes about all of it in his recent book "Bad City," and shares, on this week’s podcast, his anatomy of the investigation.
Erica Gies is a Bay Area native, a National Geographic Explorer, an independent environmental journalist, and the author, most recently, of "Water Always Wins: Thriving in an Age of Drought and Deluge." Gies details how we have over-engineered and mechanized water delivery in California. She explains how both our agriculture and our built environment have done almost irreparable damage to the future of our water supply. Based on her observations around the world, she tells us about "slow water" and offers some solutions and limited hope for the future.
Diane Power Zimmerman's great grandfather bought the property that would become the Nut Tree. Her grandparents founded and ran the roadside oasis that opened in Vacaville in 1921. Turning to a lighter note this week, we look at what was once the iconic stop on car journeys from San Francisco to Sacramento and Tahoe. The Nut Tree, in its heyday, reflected the intersection of midcentury design and Sunset Magazine’s western ethos. The forerunner of the roadside fruit stand, it attracted renowned guests while it spawned innovations in design, dining, and hospitality.
When L.A. Times reporter Gale Holland and videographer Claire Hanna Collins met Mckenzie Trahan in 2018, she was 22 years old, seven months pregnant, and living in a tent above the 101 Freeway. Their recently published reporting project on Trahan, who had been living on the streets of Hollywood since she was 13, reminds us that stories about the homeless and the mean streets of our cities are more than just stories about policy: They are most importantly about people.
Journalist Jim Hinch tries to look objectively at what is and isn't working with respect to our state's policies surrounding the nexus of housing and drugs. In a recent story in Zocalo, Hinch notes the fact that 50% of America's unhoused population lives in just three states — California, Oregon, and Washington. In this week's podcast, he compares and explains policies such as "harm reduction," "housing first," "supportive housing initiatives," "drug decriminalization," and 12-Step faith-based sobriety programs.
Gary Kamiya, a long-time San Francisco writer and journalist, in a recent article in the Atlantic, zeros in on the tectonic political shifts resulting from San Francisco's voters' recall of three school board members and the district attorney. While few cities have personified the progressive vision more than San Francisco, Kamiya says there seem to be limits to its progressive agenda. Is it a harbinger for other "blue" cities?
David Koepp, one of our most distinguished and prolific screenwriters, turns to the novel for his latest work, "Aurora." Springboarding from our fear of over-dependence on technology, he creates a story sure to scare PG&E, Southern California Edison, and utility companies everywhere. Soon to be a major motion picture from director Kathryn Bigelow, Koepp redefines what "being prepared" really means, whether for the next pandemic, earthquake, or fire.
Alexa Koenig is using Silicon Valley tech for the prosecution of war crimes. As the executive director of the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley, she is proving how the device that each of us has in our pockets and which gives us the ability to bear witness to the world might be used to help secure international justice.
At a time when atrocities from Ukraine to Uganda are being documented like never before, Koenig, a product of Marin, UCLA, UC Berkeley, and the University of San Francisco School of Law, is evolving the framework for professionals to use social media and other digital tools to strengthen human rights advocacy and accountability.
In his new book "Inspired," Matt Richtel gets to the heart of why so much of the future seems to happen in California. In this week's podcast, he discusses where creativity comes from and why it gives the state a competitive advantage. Like opposable thumbs, the ability to imagine the future is what makes us human. It is the source of our creativity, our anxiety, and our fulfillment.
Fernando Guerra, the founding director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University, discusses the aftermath of the primary election and the power of the homeless issue to reshape L.A. and its politics. The nation turned its eyes to Los Angeles this past week, and Guerra helps us better understand the city.
Gustavo Arellano, Los Angeles Times columnist and host of The Times podcast, provides a personal and provocative view of Los Angeles and Southern California politics. He talks of his ongoing feud with Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva, the endless ads for mayoral candidate Rick Caruso, and the future of young Latino power brokers. With California's June 7 primary election only days away, Arellano shares a perspective on the candidates, elected officials, and Latino vote that you won't hear anywhere else.
Filmmaker John Waters has long been a fixture in San Francisco. After a very rough week, a conversation with him gives us a few moments of levity courtesy of his sometimes twisted worldview. The 76-year-old writer, director, and curator of bad taste has made a career of showing us the weirdest of human behavior. In films including "Pink Flamingo," "Mondo Trash," and "HairSpray" and books such as "CarSick" he's made us laugh or at the very least taken us briefly out of the day's reality. He’s now written his first novel, "Liarmouth," which continues the John Water legacy.
Carolyn Chen, a sociologist and professor of ethnic studies at UC Berkeley, argues in her new book "Work Pray Code" that Silicon Valley has become a “techtopia” where workplaces and charismatic leaders now provide for employees' every need. The workplace has become their community, their place of worship, and resulted in the elimination of boundaries between work and life. Remote work may have changed this, but the institutions that might pick up the slack have now disappeared.
Long-time tech journalist Tripp Mickle explains how Steve Jobs’s personality defined Apple. He was both a founder and a legend. But his successors, Tim Cook and Jonny Ive each had their own very different ideas about the company's future. Their battle was so fundamental that it deconstructed the company culture built under Jobs. Mickle tells the story in his new book "After Steve." However, the final story is still being written inside Apple’s $1 billion dollar headquarters in Cupertino.
Lettie Teaque, a longtime Wall Street Journal wine columnist, created a buzz recently with a column about how the Napa Valley may have jumped the shark with respect to pricing and gentrification. It's a look at $10,000 weekends, $1,700-a-night hotels, and $200 tastings that are becoming de rigueur. What might all this mean for our future perception of Napa Valley and its wines?
At 3:15 pm on April 29, 1972, as the verdict came down in the Rodney King beating, Los Angeles exploded with another in a long history of race riots. Everyone knew what might happen, but nothing prepared the city for what came next. Ryan Gattis captured the horror and power of that in his 2015 fictional account "All Involved." The award-winning Los Angeles author talks to us from the perspective of this 30th anniversary of what is still the apogee of domestic civil unrest.
Long Time Silicon Valley journalist John Markoff unearths the roots of a tree, whose branches include, among others, Ken Kesey, Steve Jobs, and Elon Musk. Markoff's new book, "Whole Earth: The Many Lives of Stewart Brand,” examines a Zelig-like character in both California's 1960s counterculture and the ethos of Silicon Valley. Brand’s Whole Earth Catalog remains a cultural bible, from which we are still singing hymns.
Thomas Walsh and Karen Maness are the co-curators of "Art of the Hollywood Backdrop: Cinema's Creative Legacy," an exhibit opening at Boca Raton Museum of Art on April 20. It showcases a collection of monumental scenic backdrop paintings that were an essential part of the filmmaking era that included movies such as "North by Northwest," "The Sound of Music," and "Singing in the Rain."
Vanessa Hua, a Bay Area native and graduate of Stanford and U.C. Riverside, has focused her extensive writing on issues of immigration, identity, diversity, and parenting. Moving seamlessly between short stories, novels, journalism, and her San Francisco Chronicle column, she offers important insights into the Asian American experience. The author of the forthcoming novel "Forbidden City" shared some of her own history.
Susan Sorrells has been called the “Queen of the Desert” and among a "shortlist of the most interesting people in California.” The Smith College graduate spent time in Liberia with the Peace Corps, worked for California Sen. Thomas Kuchel in Washington, D.C., and lived for four months in the Soviet Union during the Cold War while considering a career as a diplomat. She ultimately returned to California to claim her birthright, the entire town of Shoshone — a small, once-bustling mining town, whose cluster of historic buildings flanks two sides of a highway that slices through the Mojave on the way to Death Valley. Sorrells shared the story of her journey and how she is using the town to advance a new kind of ecotourism.
Libby Schaaf is about to complete her second and final term as mayor of Oakland. Unlike a lot of other political jobs, as Willie Brown once said, mayors are judged by results. When Schaaf took office in 2014, Barack Obama was still president. Today, she presides over a very different city. Homelessness, a new baseball stadium, the creation of a whole new neighborhood, police reform, and the potential for gentrification were not as front and center then as they are today. In this week's podcast, she talks about the changes and how she thinks she’s fared.
Frances Dinkelspiel is working hard to counter the decline of local reporting. The co-founder of Berkeleyside, Oaklandside, and their parent organization Cityside believes it is more important for us to know what's going on in our neighborhoods than what’s happening 6,000 miles away. The longtime Bay Area author and journalist shares her journey and what’s at stake for our communities.
Peter Hartlaub and the San Francisco Chronicle are inseparable. Peter delivered the Chronicle as a paperboy in the 1980s, went to work there as a journalist in 2000, and 22 years later, continues to put his imprimatur on the paper and the institution. Currently the culture critic, Hartlaub has helped bring the Chronicle into the multimedia age, has unearthed its voluminous archives, co-hosts its Total SF podcast, and has the paper's ink in his blood.
The work of Sebastian Mallaby, a financial journalist and author of the new book "The Power Law," shines a light on how Silicon Valley really operates. The names you know — Zuckerberg, Jobs, Dorsey, Brin & Page — are not really the gatekeepers of the future, he argues. The future of technology rests in the hands of people you’ve probably never heard of, such as Arthur Rock, Alan Patricof, John Dore, Don Valentine, and Marc Andreessen. They control what companies get to start up, what technology gets to market, and what your future will be like. Like so much else, it’s about following the money.
Erich Schwartzel has covered Hollywood for the Wall Street Journal for almost a decade. This week, the author of "Red Carpet: Hollywood, China, and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy" joins the California Sun Podcast to talk about how two big stories — Hollywood and the Oscars, and our eyes on China — may have more in common than we thought. The economic decline of Hollywood and the rise of China’s film history are directly related and certainly will impact the California economy.
Alice Waters is among the most influential restaurateurs of the last half-century. Her legendary Berkeley restaurant Chez Panisse gave birth to farm-to-table cuisine and gave California a global culinary presence. She has nurtured talent that has spread to restaurants around the world. Chez Panisse is now preparing to reopen post-pandemic, and Waters has just touched down in Los Angeles with a new restaurant in the Hammer Museum. She shares with us a remarkable food journey that began back in 1964.
Mark Fainaru-Wada was a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle when he co-authored "Game of Shadows," the definitive book about Barry Bonds, BALCO, and baseball's steroid scandal. An award-winning ESPN reporter since 2007, Fainaru-Wada talks about the ongoing debate over Bonds’ rightful place in Cooperstown and in baseball history.
Marty Nemko is one of the premier career counselors in the Bay Area. The long-time host of “Work with Marty Nemko" on KALW in San Francisco, a long-time regular guest on KGO, and a contributor to Psychology Today, Nemko shares his thoughts on our post-Covid world of work in California. Topics include: why so many don’t want to go back to the office, the hatred of long commutes, and lack of work structure at home.
Elizabeth Weil has had a 25-year relationship with California. She’s written about it for years, and her most recent piece, “This is Not the California I Married," appeared recently in the New York Times Magazine. She’s lived through many California disasters, including fires, droughts, earthquakes, and floods. But today she sees fire differently. Both in how we fight them and how we prepare for them. Right now, she says, "the state is hurting, and we need to take care of it."
Sammy Potter and Jackson Parell, two Stanford University students, put their pandemic year to good use. While many of us watched too much Netflix, they took the ultimate outdoor adventure. In 295 days, they completed the calendar year triple crown of hiking — a 7,400-mile journey across the Appalachian, Pacific Crest, and Continental Divide trails, ending in the hills of northern California. They share their story.
Prof. Susan Handy teaches in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at U.C. Davis. With degrees from U.C. Berkeley, Stanford and Princeton, her research focuses on the relationships between transportation and land use. Handy talks about how all the federal infrastructure dollars coming to California, which everyone seems excited about, may not be the best thing for traffic, climate, or land use policy.
Peter Thiel is considered by many the "godfather" of Silicon Valley. His influence, as a venture capitalist, a political contributor, and a leading alumnus of what has been called the PayPal mafia continues to shape the culture of the valley. He mentors new leaders, uses his wealth to reshape politics, and strikes fear into those who oppose him. This week we talked with Max Chafkin, a Bloomberg editor and author of the new Thiel biography "The Contrarian," about the entrepreneur's influence in California and beyond.
Mayor Darrell Steinberg knows the levers to pull to operate state government. He was a member of the Sacramento City Council, a member of the State Assembly, and a longtime leader in the State Senate, where he rose to president pro tempore. However, no job was as tough as his current one as Sacramento mayor. Today, amid climate change, Covid, homelessness, drug use, traffic, crime, racial politics, mental illness, and even potholed streets, being a big city mayor is a uniquely challenging job.
Bob Calhoun reminds us that while we may be alarmed by rising numbers of homicides in the Bay Area today, the region's history has been far worse. Calhoun, the writer of the popular SF Weekly column "Yesterday’s Crime" and author of the new book “The Murders That Made Us,” shares how the Bay Area has been shaped by its most grisly crimes.
Dan Walters, the dean of state capital journalists, joined us in the first week of the pandemic lockdown, back in March of 2020. After twenty months, he joins us once again to offer a post-pandemic view of California's future. He opines on politicians who’ve become fat and lazy, an economy that’s become sluggish, a public education system that can’t get it right, and unimaginative leaders who can only spend money and check-the-boxes.
Jassen Todorov, a music teacher at San Francisco State, has played the violin on some of the world's greatest concert stages. But years ago he got his airplane pilot's license in case the music career didn’t work out. Along the way, he became a self-taught, award-winning photographer and has combined the artistry of photography, flight, and music. Through his dramatic aerial photographs, he has shown us a new dimension of California.
Nothing defines a culture more than its food. For California, that includes not just California cuisine, but In-N-Out, McDonald's, Bob’s Big Boy, Peet's Coffee, Taco Bell, Pinks, Winchels, Hamburger Hamlet, Fat Burger, and many other restaurants born in California. Restaurant historian and chef George Geary, the author most recently of "Made In California: The California-Born Diners, Burger Joints, Restaurants & Fast Food that Changed America" shares his thoughts about these native culinary institutions.
The Palm Spring region has over 120 golf courses, all of which require irrigation, some as much as 1.2 million gallons of water each night. That's even as residential water rationing begins in response to worsening drought conditions, driven by climate change. Doug Thompson and Robin Kobaly, are long-time environmentalists who have, in a recent column by the L.A. Times's Steve Lopez, sounded the alarm about the water usage and the lack of any long or short-term plans to mitigate it.
Richard L. Brown is the newly elected leader of California’s largest public employee union, SEIU Local 1000. Brown's controversial campaign promised to take the union, with its more than 100,000 members, out of state and federal politics, and reduce or eliminate dues. He argued that these steps would give the union more power to protect jobs, increase wages, and fight efforts underway to eliminate or curtail public employee unions.
Michael Hiltzik, an award-winning Los Angeles Times reporter, has been observing and writing about business and technology in California for almost 40 years. In his recent book, "Iron Empires," he writes about the railroad tycoons and robber barons of the last Gilded Age. Then and now, the very rich are similar, he says, and so is our reaction to them.
Gene Slater, a long-time advisor on housing for federal, state, and local agencies and the author of "Freedom to Discriminate: How Realtors Conspired to Segregate Housing and Divide America," discusses the outsized historical influence of California's real estate industry. It helped set the stage for many of today's social problems, including homelessness, housing shortages, racial and educational inequality, and the prizing of personal freedom over what’s best for the community.
Mariam Pawel, a Brown family biographer and New York Times essayist, has some final words on the recall vote and what’s next. She looks at whether any of it matters in the long run, how might it change California politics, will anyone but consultants benefit, and what happens with the critical issues still facing the state.
Woody Hastings and Jenny Blaker didn’t like the idea of a new gas station in a rural area of Cotati, in Sonoma County. Their efforts launched a growing statewide movement to stop the construction of new gas stations and the expansion of existing ones. Both longtime environmental activists, deeply concerned about climate change, they see the once iconic gas stations at the last stop in fossil fuel pipeline.
Lizzie Johnson, a former San Francisco Chronicle reporter, covered fifteen of California’s deadliest fires. However, none reached the level of death and destruction that she witnessed in Paradise on Nov. 8, 2018. Within two hours of the fire's ignition, the town was engulfed in flames and hundreds were trapped in homes and cars. In her reporting, and in her new book "Paradise: One Town's Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire," Johnson shares the minute-by-minute events and aftermath of the fire.
Daniel O'Connell, a labor scholar, and Scott Peters, a professor of global development, talk about the historic battle, from the 1930s to the present, between rural farmers and agribusiness in California's Central Valley. In their new book, "In The Struggle," they examine what they see as the unjust and oppressive structures of the valley by looking at the many academic leaders and activists who have exposed misdeeds by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the California Farm Bureau, and the University of California.
Mizgon Zahir Darby, a longtime leader in the Bay Area's Afghan community, helps give voice to the large diaspora of Afghans living in California. She says they are in mourning over recent events. Families may never be able to go home again, and they are thinking about refugees that may soon arrive. Listening to her tells us the personal stories that bring these events home.
Jaime Lowe connects us with the female inmates who are battling California's wildfires. In her new book "Breathing Fire" she takes readers inside the fire camps where inmates are paid $5 a day and pay a physical and emotional price for putting their lives on the line to protect us.
Rick Doblin, Ph.D., is the founder and executive director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, based in San Jose. He received his doctorate in Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School, where he wrote his dissertation on the regulation of the medical uses of psychedelics and marijuana. Doblin has devoted his life to the development of both of the drugs and a legal framework for the beneficial uses of psychedelics in the treatment of mental illnesses, including PTSD and long-term depression. Rick is also a licensed psychedelic therapist. Ismail Ali, who joins him in this week's podcast, directs legal and legislative policy for MAPS and is the former board chairman of the Students for Sensible Drug Policy.
Katie Hill, once a congresswoman and now a private citizen, has seen a lot of politics in her 33 years. In 2019, in the course of ten months, she lived through what some have experienced in an entire career. Now back home in her Southern California district, she candidly shares her personal and political story, as she contemplates her second act.
Matt Haney grew up in the Bay Area. He is a graduate of UC Berkeley and Stanford and is now a supervisor for San Francisco's 6th district, which includes some of the poorest and wealthiest parts of the city. He talks about San Francisco's lack of long-term planning, its resistance to change, the stubborn consistency of so many of its problems, and the sense that in a city so economically successful there must be a better way.
George J. Sanchez, a USC professor and author of the new book "Boyle Heights: How a Los Angeles Neighborhood Became the Future of American Democracy," shares his appreciation for his birthplace, the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles. He sees it as a rare living example of the great melting pot of ethnic and cultural diversity that was supposed to define America.
Rosecrans Baldwin, a novelist and journalist, adds his unique voice in trying to make sense of what he calls the “city-state” of Los Angeles. He talks about L.A. as welcoming but somehow detached from the rest of America. While Baldwin argues that no single story can possibly represent all of L.A., in his new book "Everything Now," he adds to the canon of LA. writers trying to define 5,000 square miles and 88 cities.
Steve Wasserman was born and raised in Berkeley, but launched his literary life in Los Angeles, first as deputy editor of the Los Angeles Times then as the long-time editor of the Los Angeles Times Book Review. He then sampled a rich life among the New York publishing elites. In 2016, Wasserman and his 15,000-book library came home. He talks to us as the publisher of Berkeley's Heyday Books, an imprint dedicated to social justice and California's rich history and natural abundance.
In January, Colleen McCain Nelson was named executive editor of the Sacramento Bee and the regional editor for McClatchy’s California news outlets, including the Fresno Bee, the Modesto Bee, the Tribune in San Luis Obispo, and the Merced Sun-Star. A journalist since high school, she talks to us about the value of local news, the future of printed newspapers, and how we can keep tabs on our state and local leaders.
Mick LaSalle, author of his new book "Dream State," shows how movies have historically captured the essence of California. For almost a century, the movies have defined the California dream and projected it out to the world. The long-time film critic for the San Francisco Chronicle talks about the mythology of California and the big screen, the future of movie stars, and Hollywood navel-gazing.
Justin Zhu was fired from Iterable, the successful marketing startup he founded. The reasons given to him included his use of LSD, inappropriate attire (even by Silicon Valley standards), and giving secrets to a reporter. Unstated, he believes, were issues of race. His story provides a glimpse of what it’s really like in the world of startups — the hours, the egos, the money, and the power of self-delusion about changing the world
Denise Hamilton is the editor of the just-published anthology "Speculative Los Angeles." In the past writers like Harlan Ellison, Ray Bradbury, and Philip K. Dick represented the dark fantasy life of the city. Now a new generation of writers takes on that dark life for the 21st century.
Joel Selven, a music journalist and author of the new book “Hollywood Eden," tells the story of the young artists and musicians who came together at the dawn of the 1960s to create the sound of the California dream. It's the story of how West Los Angeles's University High School class of 1958 — which included Jan & Dean and Nancy Sinatra — helped create an image of the West Coast as an idyllic land of sand and surf.
Michael Storper, one of the world's leading economic geographers and a professor at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs, goes deep into the history and resulting contemporary problems facing Los Angeles and the Bay Area. He explains why some cities grow economically, while others decline.
The writer Ron Brownstein takes us back to 1974 Los Angeles, a period he views as a cultural and political hinge point. It was during that year — as Brownstein details in his new book, "Rock Me on The Water" — that Los Angeles reached its creative peak, transforming movies, music, television, and politics, and forever cementing the upheaval of the 1960s into our culture.
Joe Mathews, a long-time California journalist, thinks that the state has a big problem, and the problem's name is Los Angeles. Mathews argues that Los Angeles County, home to 25% of the state's population, undermines the state and holds back its prosperity.
Matthew Shilvock, the general director of the San Francisco Opera, talks about the reemergence of the 1,000-person opera company and how its shutdown during the pandemic could be the catalyst for a younger, more digital, and more experimental future.
Molly Knight is a long-time sports writer and is a senior staff writer for The Athletic. Her beat covers Los Angeles sports and most notably, the L.A. Dodgers. The author of "The Best Team Money Can Buy", an inside-the-clubhouse look at two tumultuous years of the Dodgers, shares a bit of her life behind the scenes covering one of the premier franchises in sports.
Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, the new editor-in-chief of the San Francisco Chronicle, was the managing editor for digital at the Washington Post. He lays out his vision for bringing the Chronicle fully into the digital era and enhancing its local focus. He sees his job as taking on a fixer-upper with good bones and a great history, but one that needs a lot more than just a coat of paint.
Michael Tubbs was elected to the Stockton City Council at age 22, having just graduated from Stanford. He was elected as the city's first African American Mayor at 27. He sought to reshape the most diverse city in America, creating a pilot program for universal basic income. It was seen as a success, yet he lost his bid for reelection. Tubbs shared his personal and political story with the California Sun Podcast.
Tess Taylor, in her books of award-winning poetry, captures the fragility, fear, and fault lines of California, and examines Dorothea Lange’s enduring influence on our unsteady times.
Bradley Tusk, bicoastal venture capitalist and political strategist, talks about the political and economic reasons why companies are leaving California. While individuals may be leaving our cities for greener pastures or wide-open spaces, the companies have a very different agenda — one that sits at the nexus of politics, technology, and money.
Jill Tucker has been covering education in California and in San Francisco for the San Francisco Chronicle for 22 years. Not until lately however, has she seen school debates grow so intense and board meetings stretch so long. In this week's podcast, she talks about what's going on, why now, and who's responsible.
Shane Bauer is a Bay Area journalist and author. His recent reporting for The New Yorker examines the violent excesses of the Vallejo police department. What he found and shares with us is a cautionary tale for police departments everywhere.
Roman Mars, the Bay Area author of the book and podcast series 99% Invisible, is a unique guide to the hidden worlds of design and architecture around us. He sees beauty in the built world — things that we visually appreciate, but often neglect, even while they are right under our noses.
Upon the occasion of the publication of a new collection of works by Joan Didion, "Let me Tell You What I Mean," I share a conversation I had with her in 2016 about California, its history, and its many crises. Because of her deep and broad vision, it’s as relevant today as on the day we spoke.
Casey Newton, a long-time Bay Area-based tech journalist, and the author of the Platformer newsletter looks at our social media platforms and how they have become the foundation of political speech. He discusses the role they should play in our democracy and if they really have become too powerful.
Hank Sims, the editor of Lost Coast Outpost, extols the virtues of Humboldt County and explains how his online newspaper has defied the odds faced by most local and regional newspapers.
Kathryn Olmsted, a historian, author, and former chair of the history department at UC Davis talks about California's long history of farm labor union organizing and how that history affects the efforts at Google, Uber, and other Silicon Valley companies.
The San Franciso Chronicle columnist Heather Knight keeps her finger on the pulse of City Hall. Her twice-weekly stories have exposed issues around education, political corruption, homelessness, and public accountability, with attention to how they impact the lives of everyday people.
Tracy L Chandler is a photographic artist based in Los Angeles. She talks about her work, which explores fringe communities and addresses themes of seeing and being seen. She examines photography and images as a way to engage the world.
Daniel Lurie, the founder of Tipping Point Community, and Sam Cobbs, its CEO, discuss the grant-making organization's efforts to fight poverty in the Bay Area by putting private dollars to work for the public good.
What were you doing at 25? Assembly member-elect Alex Lee, a Democrat from San Jose, is thinking about what he’ll do on his first day in the Assembly. The youngest state legislature in nearly a century, he embraces a progressive agenda and thinks 16 might be reasonable voting age.
Gary Kamiya, a San Francisco columnist and bestselling author, and Paul Madonna, an award-winning artist, talk about their new illustrated book "Spirits of San Francisco: Voyages Through the Unknown City," a love letter to the hidden places that capture the soul and heart of the city.
Carolyn Said and Kathleen Pender, both San Francisco Chronicle journalists, look at the real world impacts of Proposition 22, which classifies app-based drivers as as independent contractors, and Proposition 19, which would alter property taxes. Said noted the vast financial return that Uber and Lyft have already gained on their record campaign spending. Pender called Proposition 19 the most complicated measure we’ve ever had to vote on.
Peter Lunenfeld, vice-chair of UCLA’s Department of Design Media Arts, appreciates Los Angeles as one of the world’s supercities. Even amid Covid, politics, and competition for the future from Silicon Valley, he sees a city thriving with reinvention. The metropolis he depicts in his book "City at the Edge of Forever" is certainly not your father's Los Angeles.
Esther Mobley never thought that being a wine writer would involve covering land use, migrant worker issues, wildfires, and climate change. The San Francisco Chronicle wine critic looks at the lasting impact of these issues on the future of the Napa Valley and the $40 billion California wine industry.
Kendra Atleework's memoir "Miracle Country" is inspired by the work of writers like Mary Hunter Austin and Reyner Banham in capturing the harsh beauty of life in the arid Eastern Sierra. Having grown up in the Owens Valley, she returns amid the 2015 Round Fire to absorb the area's history and celebrate the harsh and majestic environment that lies at the cutting edge of climate change and defines what it means to really appreciate California.
James Thebaut is a Los Angeles ecological documentarian and long-time environmental activist. He argues in his latest documentary, "On The Brink: California’s Watershed," now airing on PBS, that the intensity of California's wildfires is due as much to bad policy as it is to climate change. He talks about the state of California's forest system and how both water scarcity and forest clearing practices are impacting the watershed and the ability of forests to absorb water or resist fires.
Davie Pina and Johnny White, vineyard managers in the Napa Valley, say that every fire teaches them something new. With firefighting resources spread thin, they and their colleagues have had to take on more personal responsibility for fighting fires. They shared the story of how they have faced the threat of repeated wildfires and where the future of private firefighting might be headed in California.
Nick Neely walked for 12 weeks and 650 miles from San Diego to Palo Alto. Recreating the journey taken by the Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portola in 1769, he became immersed in the history, people, and topography of the Golden State.
Writing about both the natural and built landscape along the way for his book "Alta California," one of our premier environmental writers short-circuited time and made yesterday's history today's reality.
Leon Panetta ascended to the highest of jobs in Washington, but he never lost sight of his California roots. The former congressman, Office of Management and Budget director, White House chief of staff, CIA director, and defense secretary reminisces about growing up in Monterey, building the Panetta Institute on the campus of Cal State Monterey, and a remarkable life journey.
Jeffrey Tumlin took a job that almost no one wanted. The head of San Francisco’s Metropolitan Transportation Agency was facing the impossible before the pandemic. Since then, public transportation and increased traffic have become unsustainable. Still, Tumlin hopes to find a way to make his city a model for the nation.
Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks wanted to make sure legislation on housing and family and medical leave had her vote. When she was denied a request to vote by proxy, she drove with her 1-month-old girl in tow from her home in Oakland to the State Capitol in Sacramento. What happened next has become a rallying point for working women.
Geoffrey King, an attorney and native of Vallejo, cared deeply about his city. He said he could no longer stand by and watch the underreported killings of civilians by one of the most violent police forces in the nation. So he launched Open Vallejo, a nonprofit newsroom focused on local accountability journalism. He details why he felt it was so important to shine a light on a police department that uses more force per arrest than that of any other police force in California's major cities.
Dr. Jennifer Brokaw, daughter of the news anchor and author Tom Brokaw, is an emergency care physician and patient advocate. In February, she was appointed as the physician for San Francisco’s first responders. She explains how her job overseeing the health of firefighters and paramedics has taken on dimensions she never could have imagined before the pandemic.
Anthony Rendon, a Democrat from Lakewood, became California’s 70th Assembly speaker in 2016. He talks about his work with two very different governors and how the legislative focus has changed from budget surpluses, housing, wildfires, affirmative action, and the gig economy to deficits, eviction, unemployment, health care, and a no-frills future. He also shares the personal journey that prepared him for his role.
Alia Volz reminisces about growing up in the family business in the 1970s and ‘80s, where her mom baked and sold 10,000 “magic” brownies per month in San Francisco. It was a time when growing a single marijuana plant was a felony offense. The business that started selling to hippie craftspeople in Aquatic Park became a cultural icon.
David Randall, author of "Black Death at the Golden Gate," tells a story that reminds us that history may not repeat itself, but it often rhymes. He details how the bubonic plague overran San Francisco and the West Coast in 1900, fueling denial of emerging science, quarantines, anti-Chinese racism, and fears of a second wave.
Dr. Robert M. Wachter is a professor and chair of UC San Francisco Department of Medicine. The author of more than 300 articles and six books, he’s been ranked as one of the most influential physician-executives in the U.S. He discusses California’s original success in dodging the Covid-19 bullet, and why it now may be catching up with us. He discusses how much smarter we’ve become in four months, how much longer Covid-19 may be with us, and how medicine will be transformed forever.
Connie Rice, the long-time Los Angeles civil rights lawyer and activist, has played an important role in the transformation of the LAPD. Yet she looks at our current moment and reminds us that the police rank-and-file still have a long way to go. In minority communities, she says, police are the preeminent symbol of systemic oppression and racism further fueled by a lack of economic justice.
Lt. Ben Kelso, a 30-year veteran of the San Diego police force and the president of the Black Officers Association of San Diego, gives us an inside view of policing and race in Southern California. Sitting astride two worlds, he details the pain, anger, and opportunity of the moment. It’s a view of law enforcement from inside the squad room.
Peiley Lau a researcher at the UC Berkeley Global Lab explains a new study showing that nearly 1.7 million coronavirus infections may have been avoided in California — and many more throughout the world — thanks to policies that kept people at home. It was a collective action unlike anything that has ever happened.
Eloy Ortiz Oakley, the chancellor of California’s community college system oversees the largest education system in the country with more than 2.1 million students and 115 colleges. That puts Oakley on the front line of many of the social and policy problems we now face. At a time of growing enrollment and shrinking budgets, the college system is confronting the challenges of moving education online, training our next generation of police and first responders, anticipating the employment needs of the future, and navigating a system that is awash with diversity and racial tension.
California's chief election officer, Secretary of State Alex Padilla brings the background of a long-time politician and his training as an engineer to the challenge of ensuring safe and secure voting. From mail-in ballots to recruiting a whole new generation of poll workers, it's going to be a tough year to oversee California's next election.
The California-based journalists Alastair Gee and Dani Anguiano reported extensively on the 2018 Camp Fire. Their coverage from the day the inferno began through the refugee crisis that followed gave them special access to the lives, forever changed, in the community of Paradise. In the shadow of our current pandemic, and as a dry winter gives way to the winds of fall, there is much to learn from the story they share in their new book "Fire in Paradise."
Steve Inskeep has hosted NPR's "Morning Edition" since 2004. He is also a popular author and historian, and his latest book "Imperfect Union: How Jessie and John Fremont Mapped the West, Invented Celebrity, and Helped Cause the Civil War" looks at the life of the 19th-century explorer who defined westward expansion, coined the name “Golden Gate” for the strait into the San Francisco Bay, and helped shape the ideas of reinvention and celebrity and give us the legacy of California today.
Richard Rushfield has been covering Hollywood for several decades and he says has never seen it as vulnerable as it is today. Your Netflix cue is shrinking, movie theaters may not open for months if at all, production has stopped, even well-paid talent is scared. With Apple, Amazon, AT&T, and Netflix being the new Hollywood money, we are also about to see if the Northern California values of the tech world can coexist with the Southern California values of Hollywood.
Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin is one of the youngest mayors in the Bay Area. He is Berkeley’s first Latino mayor, and also serves as the president of the Association of Bay Area Governments. He leads a city that faced enormous homelessness and housing challenges before the pandemic, and today faces both crises, now compounded by economic turmoil that Arreguin says is closer to the Great Depression than to the 2008 financial crisis. He believes however that the caring spirit of his iconic city will prevail.
Carl Nolte has spent 60 years at the San Francisco Chronicle. A fourth-generation San Franciscan, Nolte has seen it all, and still, he says, he feels a sense of surprise on every block. The current crises, however, have made him long for a city he may never see again. As he says, he knows what's going on all over the world, but suddenly he’s not sure what’s happening nearby in Chinatown or the Mission or Noe Valley.
Randy Shaw, a longtime San Francisco housing advocate rejoins the California Sun Podcast to discuss some recent shocking scenes in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood. He also looks at how homeless and housing needs in California still might get some attention after the coronavirus pandemic.
Dan Walters, a columnist for CalMatters, is the dean of journalists covering Sacramento and California government. We went to Dan to get his assessment of how Gov. Gavin Newsom was handling the coronavirus crisis and what the pandemic might mean for the state. Walters looked ahead to a mountain of future debt, stalled legislative initiatives, an underfunded unemployment insurance system, limited public health infrastructure, and a long-lasting set back for the Golden State.
Matt Richtel, a Pulitzer prize-winning technology and science journalist for the N.Y. Times, is the author of "An Elegant Defense." In this week’s podcast, he reminds us that while we search for the vaccine or the antiviral for the human operating system, we already have one. It’s not made by McAfee or Microsoft, but rather it’s our complex immune system. It’s a system that is both saving us and also killing us.
Maybe we should be trying to solve our current coronavirus crises in Silicon Valley, and not at the National Institutes of Health? This week we talk with journalist Chip Walter, who takes us inside the work of a group of well-known tech boomer billionaires trying to find a way to achieve immortality by stopping the aging process.
Steve Lopez is one of California’s legendary columnists and reporters. In his 45th year in journalism, 20 of those writing a column for the L.A. Times, Lopez's life has merged with the fabric and lifeblood of the city he covers. The author of the best-selling book "The Soloist" shares his views on his career in journalism, housing, and the future of California and Los Angeles.
Conor Dougherty — New York Times economics reporter, Bay Area native, and the author of "Golden Gates" — looks deeply into California’s housing crisis, the historical economic forces that have driven it, the sad results we see on our streets, and the activists pushing for new public policies. He explains how and why what’s happening in California should be a cautionary tale for the rest of the country.
Naomi McDougall Jones lays out the battle lines for gender parity in Hollywood. The actress, writer, and producer — whose Ted talk “What it's like to be a woman in Hollywood” has more than a million views, and whose new book is "The Wrong Kind of Women" — has helped ignite a new conversation about the women-in-film movement.
David Talbot, a long time Bay Area journalist and political activist returns to the California Sun podcast to share a reimagined view of the world after his life-threatening stroke. His near-death experience, and what he learned from it, is also the story of our times.
Kenneth Turan, L.A. Times film critic for almost 30 years and the regular film critic for NPR’s "Morning Edition," looks at the state of Hollywood on the eve of the Oscars. He describes a business edgier than some of this year’s movies, one that’s operating far out on the precipice of change and about to be eaten by Netflix.
State Sen. Scott Wiener makes his case for SB 50 by first reminding us that almost one-third of the nation’s housing shortage is in California. In homes per capita, California ranks 49th among U.S. states. Wiener argues that the California tradition of extreme local control of zoning has not worked, while sprawl continues and adds to our environmental woes. For too long, he says, we’ve allowed cites to do whatever they want in a race to the bottom.
Jared Farmer — an environmental historian and geohumanist, sometimes just called "the tree guy" — chronicles California’s post-Gold Rush history through the evolution of four emblematic tree species: redwood, eucalyptus, orange, and palm. As they have changed, so have we. His observations remind us how what is perceived as natural is often just a jumble of cultural legacies.
Thomas Wolf wants to use his experience with and recovery from drugs and homelessness on the streets of the Tenderloin as an opportunity to help others, thank the police officer who rescued him, and reinvent San Francisco’s response to the drug crisis.
Paul Kitagaki Jr., a Pulitzer Prize-winning Sacramento Bee photographer, tells the personal stories of Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II. Inspired by a Dorothea Lange photograph of his parents' and grandparents' internment, he embarked on a 10-year pilgrimage, photographing survivors of the California camps and seeking to mirror pictures taken during World War II.
Sam Dodge, homeless coordinator for the San Francisco Department of Public Works, talks about California’s battle with homelessness, our most significant problem of this past year and our most important and consequential challenge in 2020.
Sam Liccardo, the 65th mayor of San Jose, shares his view of the city as facing unique challenges and only now coming into its own. Liccardo also discusses his effort to get elected leaders around the state behind a proposal to turn PG&E into a customer-owned utility.
David Ulin, the former L.A. Times book editor, interprets Joan Didion, just as she interpreted California. As the editor of the new multi-volume edition of her collected works, Ulin shares insights about Didion as a writer and cultural figure and about her vision of California.
John Dunbar, the newly elected president of the League of California Cities, explains how the organization — made up of nearly 500 cities, more than 3,000 local elected officials, and 50 board members, all with different agendas and each struggling against Sacramento for local control — really works.
Paul Theroux, the renowned travel writer and author of the new book "On the Plain of Snakes: A Mexican Journey," takes the trip that all of us in California should take to understand our southern neighbor. Traveling by car along the border and deep into the interior of Mexico, he helps us appreciate the people and places that impact our culture, our economy, and the future of our state.
California and Silicon Valley may have created much of today’s America. But according to tech entrepreneur and presidential candidate Andrew Yang, the impacts are only just beginning. While we worry about Facebook and social media, we’re overlooking larger threats on the horizon and the “techlash” that will result from artificial intelligence and automation.