On the Air

A little over a year after being inducted as a member of The Los Angeles Breakfast Club, I'm tickled pink to be interviewed in an episode of our group's monthly podcast.

In our conversation, my friend and fellow LABC board member Phil Leirness braved a number of hot topics -- many of which I've addressed here in written form, but without the dulcet tones of my speaking voice and my exuberant cackling in the background.

Hot topics include my sheltered childhood, my love of French toast, my former career in the music industry, my winning turn on the game show Name That Video, writing, Guiding Light, and of course what "avoiding regret" means to me.

I encourage you to listen to the entire episode if you're interested in LA's strangest social club -- one that turned 93 years young this year -- but if you want to skip right to my interview, you can find it around the 35-minute mark on the player below.



Related Posts:
The Democracy of Ham and Eggs
Welcome to The Shrine of Friendship
The Island of Misfit Toy
My Public Radio Debut

The Democracy of Ham and Eggs

[Last updated 5/15/26 11:48 AM PT—Removed some historic photos which were not exactly historically accurate. To find out why, you'll have to read the book.]

Welcome to the Shrine of Friendship... the Temple of Sentiment and Idealism... where people come together to bury the hatchet... and have breakfast.



This is the current headquarters of the Los Angeles Breakfast Club, located in Friendship Auditorium on the fringes of Griffith Park. This weekly crack-of-dawn confab was founded in 1925, when it took place near some horse stables more or less in the same spot along Riverside Drive.

Griffith Park Ranger Horses Partake in the Sacred Rite of Ham and Eggs

In 1925, the Los Angeles Breakfast Club was founded (as simply The Breakfast Club) by a group of staunch horsemen who took their morning canters along the bridle trails of Griffith Park every Friday morning. 

When they'd had their fill of clip and clop, they'd park their horses at the Griffith Park Riding Academy and breakfast at a horseshoe-shaped table under the shade of eucalyptus trees across the street.

The Riding Academy is gone, but Griffith Park is still open for equestrian activity, for those who prefer to saddle up rather than strapping on their hiking shoes. And The Breakfast Club is still meeting weekly—now on Wednesdays—on that same parcel of land, along a stretch of the Los Angeles River now known as Riverside Drive. (Although they did move around a bit before they could return there in 1965.)

 

I've been a member of the Los Angeles Breakfast Club since 2017—and for over nine years, my only equine experience with the club has been sitting on a sawhorse named Ham for my initiation.

 

That changed last Wednesday, when horses returned to the Shrine of Friendship—and those who'd gathered for an indoor breakfast moved the festivities outside to honor two horses of the City of Los Angeles Park Rangers - Mounted Unit.