GUEST #2: Jeff Dawson, is thirty-five-year road construction veteran, to multi-genre author! His books range from a true love story of his soul mate, to a historical perspective of vampires vs the Third Reich. Jeff’s unique perspective on life and the way he dealt with the back to back tragedies will amaze you with eye-opening revelations! He is the author of Why Did Everything Happen? and Love’s True Second Chance.

MELISSA GOTLIEB

Los Angeles native Melissa Gottlieb masterfully blends country, roots, and rock.  With a rich, sultry voice, she weaves the influences of her youth into a current soulful sound. 2017 was a breakout year for Melissa. While performing shows regularly at LA’s best known showcase venue, The Hotel Cafe, Melissa worked on her debut EP with veteran producer, Steve Churchyard. Churchyard signed on after hearing one of Melissa’s live performances.  At the same time, Melissa was catching the attention of multiple major network casting producers who sought her out after seeing her unique, unplugged youtube series, The Bathroom Sessions. Currently, Melissa is back in the studio working with producer, Ned Douglas crafting a current and standout sound fitting of her voice and style.

PAUL “LUCKY PIERRE” LAISURE

Just turning 89, Paul was born and raised outside of Detroit Michigan, Paul grew up an Army brat and was often on the move.  His father stationed at Ft. Sill Oklahoma and then the family moved to Nanking where Paul spent some time immersed in the local culture until the age of 15 when they moved back to Oklahoma.  

Paul joined the Navy straight out of high school in 1950 and was stationed in San Diego California as a mine sweep sailor.  In 1952 Paul met Genevieve “Ginger” Laisure, the eventual mother of his 3 boys, Paul, Michael and Mark.  Paul and Ginger moved from Long Beach to Cleveland 1954.

The following year, in 1955, Paul was hired at NASA Lewis Research Center (now known as NASA Glenn Research Center) as an apprentice and spent 23 years as a research electrician assigned to various technical projects throughout the lab, most prominently, the “Zero G Research Facility.”  Zero G is still the only facility in the world of it’s kind.  It was originally designed and built during the space race era of the 1960s to support research and development of space flight components and fluid systems, in a weightless or microgravity environment.  The facility is honored as a landmark on the national registry.

Further in his career, Paul was promoted to technical services coordination officer managing the implementation of technical services installations throughout the lab.  Paul closed out his career as an administrative officer within the 80 person research team at the Engine Systems Division which managed all aspects of research and testing of breakthrough engine technologies.  

During his time at NASA, Paul exercised his creative muscles when he was elected to the Lewis Social Activates Committee; “LeSac.”  LeSac coordinated entertainment and social interactions between the 5000-person lab and the city of Cleveland. Paul was also a member of the NASA Speakers Bureau and gave presentations to High Schools and Universities in the greater Cleveland area.

In 1982, Paul took an early retirement option to pursue a life in St. Petersburg, Florida and other endeavors like craftsman work and boating.

Terry Hollimon also known as T-Holla, grew up with in an athletic family. Both him and his brothers played college football and his dad played professional football. Having a passion for acting and entertaining, his peers remembered him as a thespian in high school. With football being his number one passion, acting and entertaining would be considered his 1-A. His family fully supports the Barbershop Movement for what it represents and because they know how much entertaining and football means to him. His family considers it a blessing that Terry gets to enjoy doing what he loves for a living.

It was tough at first in the beginning to have people understand their vision and to see what they were talking about. They wanted to create a platform where they can talk about sports in a fashion where it is understandable to the average person. The average soccer mom can understand a football game better by listening to the Barbershop then they can from someone who has been talking football for the last 15 to 20 years. That was their biggest hurdle.

His long term goal for the Barbershop is to see it grow and to be on television with a worldwide audience

Fun Facts: He got to meet Marcus Trufant through his younger brother who played football with Marcus in college. Terry is a HUGE family man!

MARK LAISURE

Mark Laisure is CEO of Vortex Immersion Media, Producer and Co-Host of The LIFE CHANGES Show and an award winning entrepreneur and Inspirational Speaker.

His passion thrives in service of others and amongst life changing technologies and conscious immersive content. Mark spent his early career around Wall Street as principle with Firms such as UBS Paine Webber and Wellington Shields & Co.  and has been a guiding force within several start-ups, takeovers, and turn-arounds most notably; Inktomi Corporation (acquired by Yahoo!), Emmy Award winning Teranex (video processing), Mesh Networks (mobile WiFi, acquired by Motorola,) Theseus Logic (clock-less semiconductor acquired by Camgian Networks,) Skycross (award winning antenna technology,) Zeros & Ones, Inc. (digital convergence) and ONEHOPE Wine (cause centric commerce).

Mark has received numerous awards as an entrepreneur and inventor including; A Prime Time Emmy for technological innovation in film and television processing, R & D 100 award (The Oscar’s of Inventing) and Businessweek Magazine Product of the Year.

Recently, Vortex teamed with James Hood to produce “Mesmerica.”  James is renowned as a vital and versatile musical pioneer. His lengthy and varied musical resume includes playing drums in “The Pretenders,” an ongoing two-decades-plus run as mastermind of the visionary ambient/electronica act “Moodswings,” and an expansive array of production and soundtrack projects. Mesmerica is a musical journey that will take you deep into the beautiful space that is your higher self.  James will be touring “Mesmerica” globally in 2018 with performances planned at planetariums and immersive domes worldwide. 

Mickey Huff is the director of Project Censored, founded in 1976, and is president of the nonprofit Media Freedom Foundation. To date, he has edited or coedited eight volumes of Censored (published by Seven Stories Press) and contributed numerous chapters to these works dating back to 2008. Additionally, he has coauthored several chapters on media and propaganda for many other scholarly publications. He is currently professor of social science and history at Diablo Valley College in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he is cochair of the history department.

Huff is cohost with former Project Censored director Peter Phillips of The Project Censored Show, the weekly syndicated public affairs program that began in 2010, originates from the historic studios of KPFA Pacifica Radio in Berkeley CA, and airs on 40 stations around the US. He sits on the advisory board for the Media Literacy and Digital Culture graduate program at Sacred Heart University, and serves on the editorial board for the journal Secrecy and Society. For the past several years, Huff has worked with the national outreach committee of Banned Books Week, working with the American Library Association and the National Coalition Against Censorship, of which Project Censored is a member. He also represents Project Censored as one of the cosponsoring organizations for the National Whistleblowers Summit held annually in Washington DC and speaks about media literacy and censorship issues at venues across the US. He is a longtime musician and composer and lives with his family in Northern California.

JP SOTTILE is a freelance journalist, published historian, radio co-host and documentary filmmaker. His credits include a stint on the NewsHour news desk, C-SPAN, and as a newsmagazine producer for ABC affiliate WJLA in Washington. Joseph “JP” Sottile is a two-time Washington Regional Emmy Award Winner. Documentary film credits include: writer, director, producer of The Warning and various production and photography credits on other public interest films. His weekly show, Inside the Headlines w/ The Newsvandal, co-hosted by James Moore, airs every Friday on KRUU-FM in Fairfield, Iowa. He is the Newsvandal.

Frank St. James is well known for his work with many local police and investigative authorities. He appeared on The Psychic Detectives, as well as the Bio Show on A&E Cable, and is also a top radio personality. He was once a detective, has worked with the FBI, and the answers he gives are usually spot on! Frank is very popular at the New Jersey Psychic Fairs and books out quickly.

Earl Fowlkes serves as the President/CEO of the Center For Black Equity, Inc. (formerly the International Federation of Black Pride (IFBP). He founded the IFBP in 1999 ago as a coalition of Black Pride organizers the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and South Africa formed to promote a multinational network of LGBT Pride and community- based organizations. There are over thirty plus Black Pride events with over 450,000 attendees each year. In July, 2012, the IFBP Board of Directors voted to change the name of the organization to the Center For Black Equity which an expanded mission and membership base. The Center For Black Equity is the only Black LGBT international organization in the world.

Earl previously served fifteen years as the Executive Director of the DC Comprehensive AIDS Resources and Education Consortium (DC CARE Consortium) and Damien Ministries, organizations that provided services to Person Living With HIV/AIDS in Washington, DC. He was licensed as a Social Worker (New Jersey) and, has worked on HIV/AIDS and LGBT issues for twenty five years. Earl serves on seven non profit boards of directors and community advisor boards.

Earl attended Rutgers University with degrees in history/business. Earl resides in Washington, DC however remains a devoted to his hometown Philadelphia Phillies, Eagles and Flyers, and all things Pennsylvania.