Melanie Pauley, Media Director – SDC.com "The Voice of SDC"

SDC, is the world's largest and most active swingers personals Lifestyle website offering easy to find local swingers in your area. Since 1999, SDC.com has provided swingers with the opportunity to express themselves freely in an adult manner consistent with their lifestyle choices. We promote and advocate liberty of personal sexual choices between consenting adults in a nonjudgmental, nondiscriminatory forum. SDC is available in five languages and has over two million real lifestyle swinging couples and swinging singles worldwide to fulfill all of your erotic dating needs and desires.

Jonathan Baltuch & Lori Baltuch are the owners of ShoesOnlyTravel.com which provides Lifestyle couples with the most amazing and unique trips along with group and individual travel to your favorite resorts like Hedonism and Desire.

Shoes Only Travel cruises are more than just cruises. They’re intimate adventures to places most of us only dream about visiting.  Imaging sailing the day away in the Greek Islands, drinking in the beauty of the Tahitian Islands or living the mystique of Singapore and Malaysia.  Each cruise includes the personal touch of Jonathan and Lori as your hosts, tour guides and organizers.  Jonathan and Lori have planned these trips down to the last detail, choosing intimate cruise ships that hold 50 to 150 couples.  You’ll expect to find the service on these smaller ships impeccable, the food superior and ambience heavenly.  Best of all, these cruises are designed for people in the lifestyle, swingers and nudists, so you’ll have the freedom to be yourself, sunbath and swim naked, and find new friends, or old ones, to party and play with.

Under a recalcitrant red sky somewhere between The Iliad and The Odyssey, there were some who marched beneath the 110 Freeway’s ruins and swore they would not stop until they seized the Grail: The Ruby Friedman Orchestra….if you keep listening you may hear their spaceship boarding call. That’s it for now, it’s raining.

OFFICIAL RUBY FRIEDMAN ORCHESTRA BIO – SUMMER ’11

Ruby Friedman’s music turns new listeners into instant fans. Take Lucinda Williams, for instance: In the late summer of 2008, just a couple of months after the venerated singer-songwriter and multiple Grammy Award winner first heard Ruby at the Hyperion Tavern in Los Angeles’ Silver Lake district, Williams joined her for a number on stage at Hollywood’s Hotel Café.

Blessed with a bold, octave-leaping voice and a brace of rapturous radio-friendly songs, Ruby is poised to leap out of the pack. Her crackling live performances showcase a singer who has melded a panoply of diverse musical tributaries – Bessie Smith, Etta James, Patsy Cline, Whitney Houston, PJ Harvey – into a distinctive, unclassifiable, high-powered, utterly surprising style of her own.

She’s radio-active: During 2008-09, she graced the airwaves with a live performance on the late, lamented Indie 103.1, regular spins on Rodney Bingenheimer’s legendary KROQ show “Rodney on the ROQ,” and airplay from guest DJ Rosanna Arquette on Chris Douridas’ KCRW program “New Ground.” She has appeared on RocknRoll Television.com and cut a live session at ChessVolt Studios for the indie music site Luxury Wafers.

She has wowed audiences at the Hotel Café, the Mint, the Viper Room,
and the Echo in Los Angeles, and played three stomping shows during the 2009 South By Southwest Music Festival in Austin, Texas. The renowned audio equipment manufacturer Sennheiser, which sponsored one of her SXSW gigs, named her their “Unsigned Artist of the Month” for March 2009.

The titian-haired vocalist’s recent studio activity brought her together with some noted producers. Sessions with the team Beethoven – Alex Elena and Josh Valleau, known for their work with Grammy nominee Alice Smith and Little Jackie – yielded the hit-worthy tracks “Look For the Shooting Star” and “That’s Why I Let You Hang Around,” as well as a scorching cover of the Beatles’ “I Want You/She’s So Heavy.” Her original “Sex” was mixed by Mike Chapman (Blondie, the Knack, Pat Benatar).

Ruby has performed and recorded with some storied players: John Taylor (Duran Duran), Billy Zoom and DJ Bonebrake (X), Tony Gilkyson (Lone Justice, X), Gregg Sutton (Lone Justice), Michael Ward (Glen Campbell, the Wallflowers), Brian Head (John Doe, Dead Rock West), Bob Thiele, Jr., and many others.

The members of her band the Ruby Friedman Orchestra – all seasoned L.A. pros – include keyboardist Arlan Schierbaum, keyboardist for the seminal funk unit Mandrill; bassist Edwin Livingston, a top-flight jazz player and former Queen Latifah sideman seen and heard in the feature films Ray and Dreamgirls; guitarist Adam Zimmon, who has toured with country legend Glen Campbell and Latin star Shakira; trombonist Ulf Bjorlin, a classically trained player who also performs with Vaud and the Villains; and, on drums, producer Alex Elena, whose credits include touring and studio work with Avril Lavigne, Belinda Carlisle, and Bruce Dickinson.

Invariably, audience members at a Ruby Friedman Orchestra show are left hunting for superlatives to describe what they’ve just seen. We’ll give the last word to Lucinda Williams, who may have put it best: At the Hyperion Tavern, she turned to another spectator next to her at the bar and exclaimed, “I am f*cking blown away.”

Mario Beauregard, Ph.D. is associate researcher at University of Montreal (Departments of Psychology and Radiology, Neuroscience Research Center). He is the author of more than 100 publications in neuroscience, psychology and psychiatry. Because of his research into the neuroscience of consciousness, he was selected by the World Media Net to be among the "One Hundred Pioneers of the 21st Century."

His groundbreaking work on the neurobiology of emotion and mystical experience at the University of Montreal has received international media coverage. In 2006, he received the Joel F. Lubar award for his contribution to the field of neurotherapy. The National Film Board of Canada has recently produced a documentary film about his work titled The Mystical Brain.

Mario authored, The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist's Case for the Existence of the Soul (HarperCollins), in collaboration with science writer Denyse O'Leary. He also edited Consciousness, Emotional Self-Regulation and the Brain, and coauthored Neural Correlates of Conscious Self-Regulation of Emotion, Neural circuitry underlying voluntary suppression of sadness, The Neural Substrate for Concrete, Abstract, and Emotional Word Lexica: A Positron Emission Tomography Study, “Change the mind and you change the brain”: effects of cognitive-behavioral therapy on the neural correlates of spider phobia, and Quantum physics in neuroscience and psychology: a neurophysical model of mind-brain interaction.

Mario earned his B.Sc. in Psychology at the University of Montreal in 1985 and his Ph.D. in Neurological Sciences at the University of Montreal in 1992.

Nathan Wei, MD is a graduate of Swarthmore College and the Jefferson Medical College. He completed his residency at the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan and his fellowship in arthritis at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. Dr. Wei is an acknowledged national expert in rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis and is the author of more than 500 publications.

He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, a Fellow of the American College of Rheumatology, and is the only American rheumatologist member in the Arthroscopy Association of North America. Dr. Wei is considered an authority and expert in stem cell and platelet-rich plasma (PRP) procedures. He is active in clinical research and is the Director of the Arthritis Treatment Center, located in Frederick, Maryland.

Hollister Rand is an author and internationally renowned medium. Known for her extraordinarily detailed work, she provides specific messages from loved ones living in the spirit world with feeling, heart, and grace.

Hollister is clairvoyant, clairaudient and clairsentient (meaning that she can see, hear and feel the presence of spirits as well as get a sense of their personalities, emotions and physical attributes). Her unique gifts have provided comfort and closure for people all over the world.

Hollister’s first book I’m Not Dead, I’m Different: Kids in Spirit Teach Us About Living a Better Life on Earth, was released by HarperCollins in April 2011 and has garnered glowing reviews and endorsements:
“Popular clairvoyant offers a clear-eyed look at young spirits and the afterlife.” –Kirkus Review
“Hollister Rand’s ability to deliver messages is compassionate yet educational.  Whether in person, on radio, on TV, or in this book…she delivers.”– John Edward, medium and author of Infinite Quest

Hollister has moved national and international audiences with messages of love, hope and healing through demonstrations of spirit communication and television and radio appearances. Her messages on SiriusXM’s “The Seance” with John Edward, “Coast to Coast” with George Noory, KOST FM’s “Angels in Waiting,” KBIG FM’s “Radio Medium,” and numerous other morning drive-time shows have touched the lives of thousands of people.

Robert Allen Bartlett is a practicing alchemist and author. A natural born scientist, Robert’s interest in geology and the sciences in general prompted him to construct his own home laboratory when only 9 years old. Roberts interest in the ancient use of natural materials lead him to the study of alchemical works at the age of 12 and it has become his lifelong passion. In 1974, he left San Jose State University to pursue an intensive course of alchemical study at the Paracelsus Research Society (later Paracelsus College) under the guidance of Dr. Albert Reidel (Frater Albertus). During this time, Robert lived in central Idaho where he performed personal research on botanical materials and worked underground mining antimony (an important alchemical resource). By 1976, at the prompting of Frater Albertus, Robert returned to college at Boise State University to complete his degree in chemistry with the view of working at the newly formed Paralab, a commercial offshoot of Paracelsus College. During this time Robert lived in Boise and was employed as a geochemical assayer for the mining industry. In 1979, he received his B.S. degree chemistry and immediately began work at Paralab as Chief Chemist. Working closely with Frater Albertus, Robert researched and developed a wide range of mineral and metallic preparations following Western and Eastern alchemical traditions for applications in alternative health care. Later, Robert was selected by Frater Albertus to become a Director of Research at Tristar, the future vision of Frater Albertus which would combine the Paracelsus College, Paralab, and a Healing Arts Center into one complex. Unfortunately with the death of Frater Albertus in 1984, both the college and Paralab closed its doors and the Tristar dream was never realized. Robert’s pursuit of alchemical research never diminished, as he continued his chemistry career as a research scientist for new ceramic materials, then later as the Chemistry Department Manager for a large materials testing laboratory. In this new environment, he was able to document and perfect alchemical experiments in ways undreamed of by the ancient alchemists using the very latest in scientific instrumentation. Robert is currently living in the Pacific Northwest with his wife and two daughters where he has been teaching classes and giving workshops on practical alchemy since 2002. He is an instructor with Flamel College and will be presenting a two-session Spagyrics Workshop at the conference. He also produces a line of spagyric and homeopathic mineral salts under the Terre Vitae label. His latest book is Real Alchemy.

One of the most fascinating people on the teaching landscape is Lawrence Lanoff. Truly a renaissance man, Lawrence is a film director, photographer, author… and a deeply enlightened healer and teacher. He grew up on the streets of New York City in the 1970’s, in a tumultuous time that provided him with some of his greatest spiritual lessons and bringing a grounded practicality to Lawrence’s work. He calls himself a “rubber meets the road kinda guy” as he applies this practical essence to his artistic and spiritual skills over a 20 year span, to an amazing array of disciplines, starting with a couple of dream jobs – the directing of movies and as a photographer for Playboy Magazine. This is a man who has discovered that the way people understand movies is similar to the ways in which they understand dreams, symbols, and ultimately, themselves – and used that knowledge to unlock the secret of life. 

During this time, Lawrence studied physics, yoga, spirituality, neuroscience, photography, meditation, magic, social biology, semiotics, advertising design, computer science, philosophy, anatomy, meta-physics, psychology, NLP, hypnosis, fine art, massage therapy, secret tantra, Taoism, film, television, art therapy, marketing and business communication. He even managed to work in a Doctorate in Cognitive Studies.

Over the past seven years, Lawrence has been in a process of refining his radical teachings, leading people into a new kind of freedom, literally deprogramming them from the sleep imposed by cults and religions. What is slowly evolving is a revolutionary new theory of consciousness that incorporates evolution, symbolism, metaphor, neurobiology, and their relationship to healing, spiritual evolution, and neuro-economics — the neural pathways that influences our deepest feelings about self worth and money, and, of course, sex and relationships.