Life Changes Show, August 24, 2015
Life Changes Show with Filippo Voltaggio and cohost Mark Laisure
Where Animals Heal and Children Learn, The Gentle Barn, Teaching People Kindness and Compassion to Animals, Each Other and our Planet… with Guests, Founder Ellie Laks and Co-Founder Jay Weiner; and Musical Guests The McMains Brothers, formerly of Les Irresistibles on LIFE CHANGES.
Guest, Ellie Laks and Jay Weiner
ELLIE LAKS
Ellie is the Founder of The Gentle Barn. She is responsible for the daily care of the animals and programs at The Gentle Barn and has been since The Gentle Barn’s inception in 1999. Ellie is the face of The Gentle Barn and manages daily posts on Facebook, twitter and the Blog. Ellie is also the Educational Outreach Director working with hundreds of inner-city, at-risk and special needs children each year and has directly rescued, cared for and supported thousands of animals that would otherwise have been killed. Ellie has dedicated her life to being the voice of the voiceless.
Ellie began her career working with special needs children and spaying and neutering and releasing feral cats in the alleys of Los Angeles. She started a dog training, walking, boarding and grooming business, that she used as a means to rescue animals from being put down at the animal shelters in Los Angeles. Ellie rescued and worked with about 500 dogs and cats before founding The Gentle Barn. Ellie is also a professional animal trainer and specializes in working with severely abused and mistrusting dogs.
The Gentle Barn is now home to over 170 animals in Santa Clarita, California, who Ellie has healed, along with twelve staff members, about a thousand volunteers and her husband Jay Weiner who runs The Gentle Barn with her. Once healed and happy, the animals help Ellie and Jay heal at-risk, inner-city and special needs children, who have the same stories as the animals. Ellie and Jay live on the property together, with their 3 children. Together they get to rescue and rehabilitate hundreds of animals each year and get to see miracles connecting animals and children every day. Ellie attended California State University, Northridge, specializing in childhood development.
“There is nothing more fulfilling to me than looking into the eyes of animals and children, who have no chance, telling them with certainty that they will be ok and then watching them go through the healing and growing process and coming out the other side and watching them become ambassadors helping others who are in their old shoes. It is what I live for each and every day.”
JAY WEINER
Co-Founder of The Gentle Barn
Guest, The McMains Brothers
THE MCMAINS BROTHERS (JIM, MOOSE & MICK)
The McMains Brothers, (Moose and Jim, who are twins) are sons of Philip D. McMains and Helen Muir Ware.
Moose and Jim had a band in Paris that was signed to CBS in France, known as Les Irresistibles when they were just 16. On of their hit songs was “My Year In a Day.” Later, together with their younger brother Mick, they have been singing and playing together in various bands of various names.
The currently write songs and sing under their real name, The McMains Brothers.
Mick was born in Washington D.C. and immediately moved to Vietnam where he spent his baby years. Then it was off to Europe, 2 years in Vienna followed by 5 years in Paris. It was in Paris that Mick began a life long study of music having the good fortune to take piano lessons from Russian-born Madame Friedenson who herself was a protégé of the great Nadia Boulanger. After his dad retired from the USIS (information gathering), the family moved to Southern California where his older brothers – both excellent musicians – were at USC. It was in SoCal that Mick started playing the guitar in earnest, finding an excellent teacher in Long Beach by the name of Horace Hatchett. Hatchett had studied with the legend Charlie Christian.
Mick has Co-Produced 2 startling CDs for the art ensemble known as dj monkey. Acting also came natural to Mick. He can be seen in the horror classic Hard Rock Zombies. He’s the piano-playing Zombie on the left. Mick has played on all the main stages in and around Los Angeles, also touring Europe as a bassist for punk rock band The Generators. A 2-year stint as lead singer for Earl Slick’s NYC brought Mick into the heights of rock royalty sharing the stage with luminaries like Joe Walsh (Eagles), Ray Manzarek (Doors) Earl Slick (Bowie)… and later he was found touring Japan and the Pacific Northwest with 80’s power-pop icon John Wicks of The Records.
Contact info:
Email: mick@mickmcmains.com
Life Changes Show
Come and join the conversation about what's going on and what we can do together about it, with it, and for it. We have the choice, we have the power. We can do magic if we just believe!
A show about the changes going on in us, to us, around us, and because of us. Therefore, it's technically a show about "Everything," only with a how to make it better, see it better, be better.
In the show, there is talk about, and with, people who have either been through major changes, are helping others with major changes, or people who are changing the world for the better in a major way.
The show is a one-hour talk show format with a monologue by the host, a 30 minute interview with a guest of note, capped by a "Producer's Wrap" segment, in which Filippo and Co-Host Mark Laisure, and sometimes surprise guests, bring it all home for the listeners in a sometimes humorous and sometimes touching, but always entertaining conversation.
