Fifi Dosch grew up in Aberdeen South Dakota where a relentless lack of joy stemmed perhaps from a deep belief that she could never fit in - indeed, she felt if she expressed joy the way she felt; it might actually get her killed. She escaped via film school that brought her to Boseman, Montatna and then a stand up career that brought her to Los Angeles where she eventually stopped drinking out of something that sounds like sheer exhaustion. Four years after getting sober, she began to live her real truth and started transitioning her gender from male to female.

I heard Joe Marconi speak at a meeting last week and was struck by his vulnerability and honesty and really just wanted to hear more. He is a filmmaker who has made a living in the ad world, but is in the midst of a pretty exciting return to film. This is the first interview I’ve conducted in person since before the start of the pandemic and I can’t tell you what a difference it makes.

Thomas V. was born in Austria to parents who had recently lived thru World War Two. He quickly rebelled against their old world values joining the protest movement and discovering booze, weed and psychedelics all of which eventually led to... heroin. He managed to wean himself off smack with a liter-a-day booze habit that he later mitigated with hard labor, and it was only when his girlfriend got pregnant with their first child and he started to attend some twelve step meetings that he got sober. Since then he has lived a varied life - running a relocation company, going to grad school, and building in Brazil. At 62 years old he is currently finishing his law degree so he can advocate for the poor.

I'm fascinated by second acts - the way people pick themselves up and start over again, reinventing themselves, starting from the bottom... Nena is a scion of the famous American Woolworth family and grew up amongst the privilege that confers. But her legacy mostly confused her and she found herself knocking about aimlessly, sometimes sharing an interior design business with her mother. She nearly died of a flesh eating bacteria and - in the aftermath - started getting sober. It was then she began a hunt in earnest for meaning. This led her to Marianne Williamson's course in miracles and eventually to an exploration of sacred substances where she found her calling. After years of apprenticeship, she is now known sometimes as the Sober Shaman and helps others find purpose and meaning thru her practice.

Billy Sullivan grew up in Long Island, NY where music kind of found him and then all he wanted was to turn his love of percussion and composition into a career. After years of menial jobs and drinking and using, he had a brush with the law that scared him straight and thru that he eventually found his way to the career of his dreams.

I had wanted to interview Joe Hart since I first met him in early sobriety - a wise and gentle presence in my recovery who always seemed to give more than he took. He is an actor who kind of lost his way while out on the road touring with an acting company, but managed thru the vast and always ready network of recovery to find his way to a meeting and get well.

Kim O’Hara is a writing coach who came up thru the Hollywood system and has found in sobriety not only a new system for spirituality but also a long repressed memory that made her question whether her whole identity was based on a lie.

Patrick O’Neil is a writer and teacher and recovery counselor. But before all that… he was a bank robber. The son of a Harvard Linguist he became a highly sought after tour manager for acts like The Dead Kennedys, but when addiction got the best of him he found himself resorting to dealing and petty crime to feed his habit. Eventually - in the strange slippery slope that is addiction - he found himself robbing banks.

Phillip Dane has been a serial entrepreneur since he was 15 starting business that ranged from restroom advertising to pay phone manufacturing. He is in my mind most famous for starting the Melrose Flea and currently running the Los Feliz Flea. The journey between the two took him thru cigar bars and heroine but he lived to tell the tale!

Hannah Sward grew up in a commune in Santa Cruz where her father was a prolific poet. Her parents split when she was young and a lot of her early journey was shaped by a quest to reunite with her younger sister in Los Angeles. That quest took her first to Chicago where she quickly became a call girl to raise enough money to pay the tuition at an acting conservatory that did eventually bring her to LA. Reunited, the two sisters started working together as dancers at various LA strip clubs. But the pressure to stay young and hot eventually led her to pick up speed to maintain her figure which took its toll on her body not to mention her soul. Eventually, she picked up the bottle and entered the world of sugar daddies before an important mother figure in her life helped her get sober and finally live out her life long dream of becoming a writer. I loved this conversation. It’s raw and direct and vulnerable without a hint of self-pity. She has a new book out now called STRIP.

Larry is well known character actor in Los Angeles who has appeared in everything from Law and Order to Steven Soderbergh’s The Laundromat. He and I have known each other for years but never really sat down so this rollicking, light convo covers a lot of ground!

Patrick grew up in New York City and thrived in the world of improv working with the likes of Amy Poehler and Tina Fey before his career was upended by drugs and alcohol and he found himself suicidal in a remote cabin in Wyoming.