SWAMI BEYONDANANDA (aka STEVE BHAERMAN)

Swami Beyondananda is the cosmic comic alter ego of writer, humorist, performer and uncommontator Steve Bhaerman. The Swami, whose favorite yoga pose is tongue-in-cheek, is the spokesperson for a new non-religion, FUNdamentalism (accent on “fun”). Says the Swami, “We are strictly non-dominational.”

Steve was pursuing a career as a teacher and writer, when a funny thing happened. The name “Swami Beyondananda” flew into his head on day in 1979. As Steve tells it, “I got struck by enlightening during a brainstorm.”

The following year, when he and a cohort were casting about for a comic mascot for their ground-breaking holistic publication, Pathways in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Swami’s name popped back up. The first issue of Pathways in January, 1980 featured an ad spoofing the old Famous Artists ads. This ad was for Famous Guru’s Schools, and the headline proclaimed, “We’re looking for people who want to draw … on higher consciousness.” The piece included some mock testimonials, including: “Dear Swami … loved your leadership training … please send followers.”

Before long, Swami was the most popular feature in Pathways, as he held forth on topics such as “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sects” (“… unbridled sects can lead to unwanted misconceptions …”), Teach Your Dog to Heal (“… being around friendly canines generates healthy hormones called puptides …”), Tantrum Yoga (“… the latest rage on the path to ire consciousness”), and Be There Now, Swami’s ultimate take on bi-location (“… the first time I stepped outside my body, I was beside myself with excitement …”).

After Pathways ceased publication, the Swami’s articles began to appear in national publications such as the old East West Journal, and local publications in Philadelphia, Austin, Salt Lake City, among others. When Steve decided to pursue comedy as a full-time career in 1985, the Swami was the obvious vehicle. (You can read the surprising story of the first words that ever came out of Swami’s mouth in the e-book, Wake Up Laughing: An Insider’s Guide to the Cosmic Comedy.)

Anyway, shortly after his first public performance as Swami in 1985, Steve met his wife-to-be Trudy, and a year-and-a-half later, they took off in a van and trailer and launched the Swami and Trudy show. And the rest … is mystery.

In the course of nearly twenty-five years of purveying cosmic comedy and healing laughter, Swami has had a successful, long-running monthly column, Ask The Swami, has written four books (Driving Your Own Karma … When You See A Sacred Cow, Milk It for All It’s Worth … Duck Soup for the Soul … Swami for Precedent: A Seven-Step Plan to Heal the Body Politic and Cure Electile Dysfunction), and produced a half a dozen comedy cassettes (sorry, not available on 8-track) and CDs.

He has been on stage with the great sages of the past quarter century, and even performed for Swami Satchidananda’s 80th birthday party in 1994, along with Hollywood celebs and international recording artists. He has gained a reputation for being both pointed and compassionate (his comedy has been called “irreverently uplifting”), and over the past decade, his comedy has become more political.

(“I know,” Swami says, “that many people don’t want to go there. But there has already come here.”)

In recent years, the Swami has performed at numerous political events, including the Transpartisan Alliance Citizens Summit, the Network of Spiritual Progressives Conference, the Department of Peace Conference, the Praxis Peace Institute Economics of Peace Conference, to name a few.

Swami’s latest venture is to combine his non-religion of FUNdamentalism with the non-politics of the newly-formed Right to Laugh Party (“one big party … everyone is invited”), to create one big evolutionary up-wising to overgrow the current dysfunctional system. He will also be launching his radio feature, Karma Talk this year — to give folks from all over the world to ask the Swami answerable questions, and receive his questionable answers.

KAREN HAMMACK

A Southern California native, Karen maintains an active schedule as a performer, teacher, composer, multi-genre keyboardist, recording artist, and is the founder of ValleyGirlBeats, a music production studio.

Because Karen is an incredibly versatile keyboardist and has performed and recorded with some of the most respected artists in the music scene including  Dee Dee Bridgewater, Diane Schuur, Madeline Eastman, Vinnie Colaiuta, Scott Colley, Cathy Segal-Garcia, Chris Conner, Dick Weller, Steve Cardenas,  Kenny Wollesen, Mariane McSweeny, Eric Marienthal, Putter Smith, Bob Shepherd, Ron Stout, Dawn Bishop, Gina Saputo,  Melissa Manchester, Tierney Sutton, Kate McGarry, Michael McDonald, Larry Koonse, Judy Wexler, Julie Christensen, Cris Barber, Janiva Magness, Sweet Baby Jai, and Cynthia Jones.

Some musical career highlights include:

• Performing at Royce Hall in an all-star tribute to Leonard Cohen, headed by Grammy-nominee Perla Batalla featuring Jackson Browne, Don Was, Bill Frisell, and Greg Leisz;
• Performing with the great Maurice Hines in Tappin’ Thru Life, his homage to his brother Gregory and himself featuring the Jazz Diva Orchestra;
• Music director for jazz and gospel great Niki Haris , who was with Madonna for several years. With Niki, Karen has performed at the Vail Jazz Festival, the I Love Jazz festival in Brazil, and several times in Bern, Switzerland at  Marians Jazzroom.

Karen has recorded on countless CD projects and has 2 CDs of her own, My Beating Heart and Oh Beautiful Life, and has several original tracks which were recorded at her own production company ValleyGirlBeats that are available through this site.

She is also an active educator and has been teaching at Musicians Institute of Los Angeles for 15 years and taught at Los Angeles College of Music for 12 years. She was on staff in 2015 for Madeline Eastman’s JazzCampWest, alongside great jazz artists Josh Nelson, Sara Leib, and Laurence Hobgood. Karen has also been involved in well-known jazz vocalist Julie Kelly’s famous Jazz On The Hill, an intense workshop for budding jazz singers, for 10 years. She was involved in trumpet great Bobby Rodriguiz’s Jazz Adventure, a Los Angeles Music Center sponsored jazz education project for kids. Karen also teaches privately at her home studio in Los Angeles.

GAIL LYNN

Gail Lynn is the inventor and creator of the Harmonic Egg^®. As a 37-year-old woman, she was diagnosed with severe cardiovascular stress stemming from the pressure of a competitive career and more than one broken relationship. She had depleted physical, emotional, and psychological reserves. Searching for a natural therapy that might help her, she stumbled across light and sound therapy.

The healing she experienced from a single session of this therapy, while not immediate, seemed almost miraculous to her. She was intrigued, and she reserved a few more sessions.

Gail has a wide-ranging background in creative endeavors, as a business owner and in the field of engineering. She knew that the light and sound therapy she had experienced could be improved, and she was excited to realize that she possessed the exact gifts needed to do that.

In 2010 she opened her first light and sound therapy center in Denver, Colorado using the older technology she had first experienced. Over the next few years, she studied bio resonant frequencies, Nikola Tesla’s theories of 3,6, and 9, sacred geometry, heliotherapy, chromotherapy, and much more. She pondered how to create a chamber with the perfect combination of size ratios, materials, and shapes to enhance resonance. She enlisted the expertise of professional musicians to create some proprietary music specifically designed to utilize the acoustics of the egg shape to help the body heal itself. Gail also collaborates with professional light and sound engineers on the Harmonic Egg^® team. In 2020 she was approved for a patent for her invention, the Harmonic Egg^®, just 4 years after applying.

Now Gail has turned her attention to bringing the Harmonic Egg^® to more communities throughout the US and the world. In addition to making the Harmonic Egg^® available for sale to other holistic practitioners, she generously shares her knowledge. She is passionate about helping people transform their health and achieve mental and emotional well-being by energizing the healing power within them.

To learn more about Gail’s story and for additional details on the inner workings of the Harmonic Egg^®, read Gail’s book “Unlocking the Ancient Secrets to Healing.”

RADICAL SON: A Generational Odyssey By David Horowitz

Radical Son: Second Edition by David Horowitz is one of the most compelling and important political memoirs in recent American history - republished after more than twenty years with a new introduction by the author. In a narrative that possesses both remarkable political importance and extraordinary literary power, David Horowitz tells the story of his startling political odyssey from sixties radical to nineties conservative.    CALL Sandy at 516-735-5468 or e-mail Sandy to schedule interviews with David Horowitz.   A political document of our times, Radical Son traces three generations of one American family's infatuation with the radical left from the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 to the collapse of the Marxist empire six decades later. David Horowitz was one of the founders of the New Left and an editor of Ramparts - the magazine that set the intellectual and revolutionary tone for the movement.    In the new edition of Radical Son, you'll learn:   The deep divisions that divide our country now began in the Sixties; The violence that tore up our cities this past summer and the coddling of black criminals began in the Sixties. A murder committed by the Black Panthers ended my life in the left; and  The leftward shift of the Democrat Party began with the riot that Tom Hayden staged at the 1968 Democrat convention after which he led the anti-American left into the Democrat Party. This left took over the Democrat Party with the election of Barack Obama in 2008.   From his vantage point at the center of the action, he populates Radical Son with vivid portraits of people who made the radical decade, while unmaking America at the same time. This painful and difficult journey from Left to Right has made Horowitz the most hated ex-radical of his generation. In telling his story, he provides not just an intimate personal account of his own transformation, but a scathing moral history of the American left, and a guide to the evolving political conscience of an entire generation.   "David Horowitz's political pilgrimage from a Sixties radical to a Reagan conservative - and the friends and enemies he has made along the way - makes for a very interesting, very compelling story. Speaking as a conservative: it's much better to have David Horowitz with you than against you. Radical Son demonstrates why." --William J. Bennett, Author of The Moral Compass   ABOUT THE AUTHOR: David Horowitz is a conservative thinker and writer who has authored dozens of books over the course of his lifetime. He began his political career as one of the founders of the New Left in the 1960s and served as an editor of its largest magazine, Ramparts. As described in this bestselling autobiography, Horowitz was forced to confront some difficult truths about the political left after a close friend of his was murdered by the Black Panthers, and ultimately found a political and intellectual home as a conservative activist. David is the renowned conservative commentator and New York Timesbestselling author of Big Agenda: President Trump's Plan to Save America and Dark Agenda: The War to Destroy Christian America. He is the founder and CEO of the David Horowitz Freedom Center in Los Angeles.

Patrick Wills is a 46-year fire service and law enforcement professional, serving as fire Captain/Investigator, with the Long Beach Fire Department, including 17 years as supervising investigator of the ATF Arson Unit. Wills was also involved in hundreds of arrests of adult and juvenile arson suspects, as well as testifying in state and federal courts as an expert witness.

His newly published book, The Reality of PTSD When Children Die, chronicles: a tragic and preventable fire that claimed the lives of three young sisters; his personal struggle with such tragedy; and how he made it back to the real world thanks to a police psychologist who took the time to ask a very basic question.