Timothy Simons of HBO’s Veep chats with Dr. Alvin
01 Timothy Simons Click Here To Listen Jonah Ryan is the the presidential liaison on the HBO series "Veep" that we love to hate.
Pete Rose by Kostya Kennedy chats with Dr. Alvin
01 Kostya Kennedy Click Here To Listen Pete Rose played baseball with a singular and headfirst abandon that endeared him to fans and peers, even as it riled others--a figure at once magnetic, beloved and polarizing. Rose has more base hits than anyone in history, yet he is not in the Hall of Fame. Twenty-five years ago he was banished from baseball for gambling, then ruled ineligible for Cooperstown; today, the question "Does Pete Rose belong in the Hall of Fame?" has evolved into perhaps the most provocative in sports, a layered, slippery and ever-relevant moral conundrum. How do we evaluate the Hit King now, at a time when steroid cheats appear on the Hall [...]
Here Comes The Night by Joel Selvin chats with Dr. Alvin
Joel Selvin-Here Comes The Night Click Here To Listen Here Comes the Night: The Dark Soul of Bert Berns and the Dirty Business of Rhythm and Blues is both a definitive account of the golden age of rhythm and blues of the early ’60s and the harrowing, ultimately tragic story of songwriter and record producer Bert Berns, whose meteoric career was fueled by his pending doom. Berns was one of the great originals; he prospered and thrived under the auspices of Atlantic Records, a company devoted to authentic, vibrantly musical rhythm and blues records at the forefront of the art form. His heart damaged by rheumatic fever as a youth, Berns was not expected to [...]
The Legs Are The Last To Go by Diahann Carroll chats with Dr. Alvin
Diahann Carroll Click Here To Listen It's conventional wisdom that Hollywood has no use for a woman over forty. So it's a good thing that Diahann Carroll—whose winning, sometimes controversial career breached racial barriers—is anything but conventional. Here she shares her life story with an admirable candidness of someone who has seen and done it all.
Pieces Of My Heart by Robert Wagner chats with Dr. Alvin
Robert Wagner Click Here To Listen In this moving memoir, Robert J. Wagner opens his heart to share the romances, the drama, and the humor of an incredible life He grew up in Bel Air next door to a golf course that changed his life. As a young boy, he saw a foursome playing one morning featuring none other than Fred Astaire, Clark Gable, Randolph Scott, and Cary Grant. Seeing these giants of the silver screen awed him and fueled his dreams of becoming a movie star. Battling a revolving door of boarding schools and a father who wanted him to forget Hollywood and join the family business, sixteen-year-old Wagner started like any naïve kid [...]
I Will Survive by Gloria Gaynor chats with Dr. Alvin
Gloria Gaynor Click Here To Listen Gloria Gaynor is an American singer, best known for the disco era hits, I Will Survive and Never Can Say Goodbye.
The Hiltons by J. Randy Taraborrelli
J. Randy Taraborrelli Click Here To Listen THE HILTONS is a sweeping saga of the success-and excess-of an iconic American family. Demanding and enigmatic, patriarch Conrad Hilton's visionary ideas and unyielding will established the model for the modern luxury hotel industry. But outside the boardroom, Conrad struggled with emotional detachment, failed marriages, and conflicted Catholicism. Then there were his children: Playboy Nicky Hilton's tragic alcoholism and marriage to Elizabeth Taylor was the stuff of tabloid legend. Barron Hilton, on the other hand, deftly handled his father's legacy, carrying the Hilton brand triumphantly into the new millennium. Eric, raised apart from his older brothers, accepted his supporting role in the Hilton dynasty with calm and quiet-a [...]
Now You See Me by Kathy Sanders
Kathy Sanders Click Here To Listen On April 19, 1995, Kathy Sanders' life was changed forever when a bomb exploded and destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah building in Oklahoma City, killing her two grandsons Chase and Colton. For months, Kathy struggled with coping and wondered if the God she'd worshipped all her life even existed. After battling bitterness and contemplating suicide, she turned to the Lord and asked what He'd have her do. The answer was clear: Forgive your enemies. Thus Kathy forged a friendship with Terry Nichols, one of the men convicted in the bombing, via phone conversations, letters, and even face-to-face meetings. She also began searching for answers about what happened that fateful [...]
A Mayor’s Life by David Dinkins
David Dinkins Click Here To Listen How did a scrawny black kid—the son of a barber and a domestic who grew up in Harlem and Trenton—become the 106th mayor of New York City? It’s a remarkable journey. David Norman Dinkins was born in 1927, joined the Marine Corps in the waning days of World War II, went to Howard University on the G.I. Bill, graduated cum laude with a degree in mathematics in 1950, and married Joyce Burrows, whose father, Daniel Burrows, had been a state assemblyman well-versed in the workings of New York’s political machine. It was his father-in-law who suggested the young mathematician might make an even better politician once he also got [...]
An Ordinary Man by Paul Ruseabagina
Paul Rusesabagina Click Here To Listen Readers who were moved and horrified by Hotel Rwanda will respond even more intensely to Paul Rusesabagina’s unforgettable autobiography. As Rwanda was thrown into chaos during the 1994 genocide, Rusesabagina, a hotel manager, turned the luxurious Hotel Milles Collines into a refuge for more than 1,200 Tutsi and moderate Hutu refugees, while fending off their would-be killers with a combination of diplomacy and deception. In An Ordinary Man, he tells the story of his childhood, retraces his accidental path to heroism, revisits the 100 days in which he was the only thing standing between his “guests” and a hideous death, and recounts his subsequent life as a refugee and [...]