2 Boomer Broads Podcast

This is a special show for the 2 Boomer Broads podcast. I (Rebecca) had the opportunity to interview award-winning singer Patti LaBelle for my blog BabyBoomster.com You can read my blog post on BabyBoomster.com here. Patti is working with Pfizer on a campaign called “All About Your Boom™” to promote awareness of pneumococcal pneumonia for Baby Boomers. It’s an important discussion because Baby Boomers over 65 are 13 times more susceptible to the disease than people under 50. It’s also deadly. My interview with Patti LaBelle is short and to be honest, I did it on my phone so the sound isn’t perfect but I did my best to fix it. Watch Patti’s video “All About Your Boom™” below where she sings her hit song “New Attitude.” Please also read my blog post on BabyBoomster.com here. Patti LaBelle was joined in the interview by Dr. Vincenza Snow who offered her professional insights and knowledge about the disease and how it can affect you and those you love. The 2 Boomer Broads hope that you will seriously consider getting the pneumococcal pneumonia vaccine if you are over 65 or have a chronic condition that suppresses your immune system.  We also encourage you to get your flu shot early because the flu can escalate to pneumonia, especially if it isn’t taken care of immediately. Please visit your doctor regularly to prevent diseases that are common for Baby Boomers, eat nutritious food, exercise, and do all you can to stay healthy. I want to thank Pfizer for giving me the opportunity to interview Patti LaBelle and Dr. Snow and to learn more about this important campaign. I urge you to share this information with everyone you know who will benefit. Make sure to visit the “All About Your Boom™” website for more information about pneumococcal pneumonia by clicking here. Have you had your pneumococcal pneumonia or flu shot yet?

In this episode, we talk about Sin City. Our guest is Megan Edwards who is the author of “Getting Off on Frank Sinatra.”  Megan is also a Las Vegas expert who tells us about the ins and outs and dirty secrets of her fabulous city. Coming to you this time from the Liberace Museum The book’s title is not as solicitous as it sounds. One day, Megan got off the I-15 at Frank Sinatra Dr. It was the first time she ever got off on Frank Sinatra but now she does it all the time.  Frank Sinatra Dr. is a great way to drive on the backside of the strip when the freeway is full of traffic. You can’t get off on Dean Martin. He’s on the other side of the freeway and there’s no exit or entrance.  You can zip down Dean Martin, but can’t get off on him. Megan is originally from the LA area (Pasadena) but moved to Las Vegas in 1999 never dreaming she would come to love it. She came to research a book and the city got under her skin.  Plus, the cost of living in Las Vegas is about 1/3 of how much it is to live in LA. What she loves about Las Vegas Megan is impressed with the city’s diversity. For example, there’s a large Hawaiian population in Las Vegas.  They call it the 9th Island. Many Hawaiians came because of the hospitality industry and they brought their fabulous food and entertainment. There is also a large enrollment of Hawaiians at the University of Nevada – Las Vegas. The Golden Years – 1997 – 2007 When Megan arrived in Las Vegas, it was already undergoing its Renaissance.  The Bellagio was relatively new.  It was one of the first “new style” Mega resorts and had better architecture than the older resorts.  The term for the old buildings is “decorated sheds.” The buildings weren’t significant and not necessarily built to last but their neon signs were fabulous.  Many of the old hotels have been imploded. Both Rebecca and Sharone stayed at The Sahara when they were young and that’s one old hotel that was renovated rather than destroyed. It’s now the SLS.  They did an amazing job of renovating it and kept some of the décors from Rat Pack days. The Sin Part of Vegas Las Vegas still makes tons of money on sin and it’s important to maintain their economy. On the other hand, it’s probably the most conservative place Megan has ever lived in.  For one thing, it’s a Mormon town. The Mormons were some of the first founders of that area and you can visit the Old Mormon Fort. It’s where people stopped to water their animals on the way to the gold fields in California. Many of the early casinos were owned by Mormons and still are.  They’ve also been instrumental in the growth of the University. UNLV. Prostitution isn’t legal in Clark, County, and that includes Las Vegas. It’s legal 50 miles away in Nye, County.  To get there, you have to cross a set of mountains so people call it, “Going over the hump to Pahrump.” Most Nevada brothels are in small towns or rural areas. However, prostitution still exists big time in Vegas because of cell phones and online sites. If you see guys snapping cards on the street corner, they have phone numbers of girls you can have sent to your room to “dance.” Off the Strip Many people who live there, avoid the strip. One attraction Megan loves is the Mob Museum. The previous mayor, Oscar Goodman, was a mob lawyer. His wife is the current mayor. He was wonderful for downtown and instrumental in its rebuilding. One of the things he always wanted was a mob museum because he knew so many colorful characters so he had it built. Megan was skeptical at first because she was worried it would glorify murderers but it turned out to be great. It’s connected to the Smithsonian and was rece...

Our guest in this episode is Rifka Kreiter, who is the author of the book, “Home Free: Adventures of a Child of the Sixties.” Coming to you this time from the Hotel California in Big Sur. Her book started out as the result of a prompt she was given in a writing group during the 90’s. After about a year, what she had written started telling her, “We wanna be a book!  We wanna be a book!”  It was a way to come to terms with a difficult past and childhood. She also wanted to share her adventures, of which she’s had many and how her spiritual journey healed old psychic wounds. JFK At the age of 14, she had an encounter with JFK at the Waldorf Astoria. She sat up in the balcony and could see him and Jackie below. She couldn’t believe the charisma he had.  When he was assassinated, she and a few of her friends drove down to Washington to view his body.  One of the chapters in her book describes this amazing experience. To Rifka, that’s when the 60’s really began. High School of Performing Arts and First Job As a teen, she attended the High School of Performing Arts (known for “FAME”) where she had a great experience. Not long after graduation, she worked as a hatcheck/cigarette girl in New York nightclubs and had some interesting adventures there. Difficult Childhood, Therapy, and College Her mother was unstable and she lived in 14 places by the time she was 16 including a foster home in 2nd and 3rd grade. Fortunately, she came from a good family and had great aunts and uncles.  She moved out on her own at 16 but had a lot of self-doubt and self-hatred. At the age of 18, she bottomed out. After a suicide attempt, she went into therapy, which she believes saved her life. She went to college at the time when many social movements were happening in the 60’s and became involved with fighting for social justice and women’s liberation. Meditation In 1970, while she was living in San Diego her aunt turned her onto transcendental meditation. TM. She later spent 10 years living in an Ashram in upstate New York and has been meditating ever since. (Now she teaches it) During the years she was at the Ashram she worked various jobs that included admissions at a college and a dental health program. LSD Rifka took LSD twice. Her second trip was in 1975 when she was in her 3rd year of her Ph.D. program in psychology. By that time, she had done years of therapy and had been meditating for quite some time. She took it in her room in Manhattan and talked into a tape recorder. She also wrote down notes in notebooks. She said it was life-changing and amazing because she saw her life in perfect order laid out before her. She didn’t want to keep taking drugs but wanted to continue on her spiritual journey so she got involved with EST training, which she loved. What she learned was “You should clear space in your life to make room for new things.” Counter Culture Cross Country During college, she was going to go to Woodstock but had the opportunity to take a cross country trip with the friend of a friend who wanted company on the road.  They took off in a VW bus and drove up to  Canada ending the trip in San Diego.  That particular trip opened up the counterculture to her. There were hitchhikers on the road and crash pads to stay at in each city they drove through. Rifka Kreiter’s Cathartic Experiences One of her most interesting experiences was working on a radical underground feminist newspaper called, “Goodbye to All That” in San Diego.  It was a collective and they did it for about a year. Working together as women, for women, was exciting!  Because of the content, they couldn’t get it printed in San Diego and had to drive it up to Riverside. After her LSD trip, she took a bus cross-country by herself and sought out every spiritual experience her intuition...

Our guest on this episode is Carol Cassara. She is a blogger and CEO of www.ahealingspirit.org.  Carol is a trained hypnotherapist does past life regression. She has spent over a dozen years as a support volunteer for the AIDS and HIV community. She recently founded A Healing Spirit to help others cope with disease, grief, anxiety, and chronic pain. Coming to you this time from the vortices of Vineland. Carol studied journalism and worked in corporate America where she had a long and fulfilling career as a corporate executive. She left her job 10 years ago and was looking for something to do in retirement that was more personal.  After experiencing the deaths of her parents and several friends, she felt she could help people overcome grief and anxiety. One of her friends suffered a terminal illness and she was able to be with her for a long period of time before she died. In her hospital room, Carol noticed her friend was depressed and wanted to help her focus on positive thoughts and healing. She made hand-made affirmation cards for her. After a few days, her friend told her she should market them. They had discussions on how her friend was using the cards and about what other sick people might want. She now sells 2 sets of affirmation cards on her website.  One set of 50 cards focuses on healing and the other grief. Both sets can be used as daily meditations. They are business card size and easily fit in a purse, or on a hospital tray table. Companion products to her affirmation cards are guided journals. Each page has a writing prompt to inspire you to write down your feelings and be creative. You can also draw or paste pictures in the journal, make a collage, or use it for whatever you like. There are activities, meditations, questions, ideas for memorials (in the grief journal) and more. She also offers 4 downloadable audio files for people undergoing medical treatments such as chemo to help your mind and immune system stay strong. Her husband recently underwent a surgery for a mass on his thymus and was told it would be painful. A week before the surgery he listened to her anxiety audio recording because he was nervous about the surgery. It helped him go into the surgery room with a good attitude. Three hours later, in recovery, he was given a pump for the pain. He asked the nurse for his phone so he could listen to the custom audio Carol made for him and even though his doctor warned him he would be in pain, he barely felt any. The following morning the doctor came in and was surprised at how well he was doing and told him he could go home.  He listened to the audio as his chest tube was being removed and again didn’t feel any pain.  The doctor gave him Oxy to take home but he never had to take it. A man in the bed across from him, who was 30 years younger, had the same surgery and was in excruciating pain. Carol’s husband became a believer. (She says, “He didn’t even know what “new age” meant before that.) Past Life Regression Past Life Regression is also a healing modality. Carol took a year-long course at Atlantic University to learn to become a past life regressionist. It helps people find the roots of things that are plaguing them in their lives like fears, scars, pains that never go away, chronic illness, and allows them to let them go. To do this she puts her clients into a moderate trance and talks them through guided imagery that will take them into a death scene to a past life or into the afterlife.  Some end up between lives with spirit guides in the afterlife. Others have found themselves out in the Universe.  Then she guides them to come back. Nothing harmful will ever happen to you if you go through the process. It doesn’t even matter if you believe in past lives ...

Our guest in this episode is Maggy Simon. She started a career late in life as a cabaret singer and has been doing it for the last 5 years. Since then, she’s held 7 live shows at the Catalina Jazz Club in Hollywood. It’s a beautiful place that seats 240 people with great food and has plenty of space for a singer and full band. Coming to you from the London Bridge, in Arizona. Maggy Simon – Yesterday Once More Before Maggy Simon started her midlife singing career, she had her own business management practice.  Her former career gave her the advantage of having both an artistic side and good business sense. She says they both fight with each other from time to time. “The artist wants everything now and the business person says, just a moment, stick to the plan.” Once the Pandora’s box had been opened she had to contain herself because she’s always ready for new ideas.  It all came about because of the way her life panned out.  After college, she had a choice to go the artistic route or get a real job and area where she could earn real money.  She ended up in the entertainment business as a story analyzer, which satisfied her artistic impulses. She later spent time raising kids. Then, her life changed.  Her husband, at the time, died unexpectedly causing her life to take another turn when she met her present husband. He heard her sing at a few parties (because she always loved to sing) and encouraged her to turn it into a new career. The next thing she knew, he started producing her shows at the Catalina Jazz Club and helped her record an album.  As an optimist, she believes you attract who you are to yourself. If you’re optimistic, and look at the bright side of things, no matter how dark your life becomes, good things will come to you. She’s always loved the American songbook, standards, Broadway, and modern songs and her album is filled with them.  The title of her album is “Yesterday Once More.” It’s a compilation of old songs with fabulous new arrangements.  Her lead song is “Nice and Easy” which speaks to her new romance with her husband Jack, and how it all rolled out so easily and naturally. Her album was only out a couple of months and had 5-star reviews on Amazon.  She recorded it in two back-to-back 8-hour days at Capitol Records Studio A, where Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Judy Garland, Dean Martin and all the greats recorded their albums.  Her husband made all the arrangements to make that happen.  The band was made up of top-notch studio musicians.  It was magical and was like a live performance.  (no post production cutting and pasting) Her performances at The Catalina Jazz Club have all been filmed with 3 cameras, and you can find them on her YouTube channel.  There are 65 video clips, showreels, interviews and more. She has a huge Facebook and Twitter following as well.  Many of her fans got to know her through social media.  Altogether, she has 74.000+ engaged followers.  Her album was designed scientifically by ranking her fan’s likes with her songs. It’s currently being streamed all over the world on Spotify, Itunes, Google Play, Target, YouTube and other.  Maggy says her fan base is made up of all ages from all around the world. If you visit her website, www.maggysimonsings.com, you’ll find her sizzle reel as well as all the places you can get her album and what’s on it. Listen in to the podcast to hear Maggy’s recording of “Le Jazz Hot.” Many of her costumes were designed by Giovanni. We love them because they’re beautiful and sparkly. Her plans for the future