The beginning of an era and the end of innocence

For ten days in March 1971, the Rolling Stones traveled by train and bus to play two shows a night in many of the small theaters and town halls where their careers began. No backstage passes. No security. No sound checks or rehearsals. And only one journalist allowed. That journalist was Robert Greenfield and now, thirty-three years later, he gives us his first an account of this landmark event, which marked the end of the first chapter of the Stones’ extraordinary career.


Ain't It Time We Said Goodbye: The Rolling Stones on the Road to Exile is also the story of two artists on the precipice of mega stardom, power, and destruction. It was both the best of times and the worst of times for the music business and the end of innocence in music.

My conversation with Robert Greenfield:

The Tolerance Trap

Fifty years ago the nation passed the Civil Rights Act. Six years ago we elected an African American as President of the United States. Yet contrary to the hopes of many, we do not live in a post racial society.

While gay rights and gay marriage are often seen as the civil right issues of our time, and yes, remarkable progress has been made, we are also far from a post gay or post gender world.

The reality is, as racial differences have taught us, too much assimilation and tolerance are potential traps that can wipe out identity and water down the very differences that have been fought for.

In short, is the battle for any civil right about viva la difference, or about homogenization? These are some of the questions that Suzanna Walters asks in The Tolerance Trap: How God, Genes, and Good Intentions are Sabotaging Gay Equality.

My conversation with Suzanna Walters:

The Myths of Happiness

Woody Allen once said the world was divided up into two groups. "The horrible and the miserable." The horrible are people with painful or terminal diseases or deformities; and the miserable...well, that was everyone else.

The good new is that this isn’t so. However happiness is still a serious business. We pursue it with fervor, yet it doesn’t seem to last. We’re taught as kids that he pursuit of happiness is a kind of fundamental right. So we pursue it.. But seldom do we understand it, it’s myths, delusions and even its joys. Trying to understand this The Myths of Happiness: has been the work of US Professor Sonja Lyubomirsky.

My conversation with Sonja Lyubomirsky:

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Surfing the Middle East

John Stuart Mill said, back in 1848, that "It is hardly possible to overstate the value, in the present low state of human improvement, of placing human beings in contact with persons dissimilar to themselves, and with modes of thought and action dissimilar to themselves, and with modes of thought and action unlike those with which they are familiar ... Such communication has always been, and is particularly in the present age, one of the primary sources of progress."

Given the globalized nature of our world, nothing could be more true, even 164 years later. Jesse Aizenstat has done exactly that. Using his love of surfing, he forged a common bond with the disparate peoples of the Middle East and proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the ability of our common humanity to transcend those man made constructs that divide us.

My conversation with Jesse Aizenstat about Surfing the Middle East: Deviant Journalism from the Lost Generation

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Why Wall Street Always Wins

To date, there has not been a single prosecution, much less a serious investigation into the events that brought the US economy to its knees. The SEC has not changed the rules, the Senate has repeatedly kowtowed to the big banks and "too big to fail" is still the name of the game.

Are these just random issues, or is Wall Street simply too powerful for any part of the government to take on? Or should it even try?  Former White House and Senate staffer, Jeff Connaughton takes a look at all of this in The Payoff: Why Wall Street Always Wins.

My conversation with Jeff Connaughton:

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