Media & Journalism

5 1/2 Easy Steps to Writing and Delivering Great Speeches

Appeared on Montecito Journal (pg. 20), Apr 24, 2019

Meet Molly-Ann Leikin: Songwriter & Emmy Nominee

Appeared on Montecito Neighbors, June 2018

She’s a songwriter and Emmy nominee, who has written themes and songs for over 50 tv shows and movies, including “Violet”, which won an Oscar. Her songs have been recorded by Placido Domingo, Anne Murray, Tina Turner, Billy Preston, Glen Campbell, John Travolta, Cher, Yitzi Ya and the Yo Yo’s, just to name a few.

We are thrilled to introduce you to Molly-Ann Leikin, (rhymes with bacon), a resident of Santa Barbara since 1998 and more recently, Butterfly Lane in Montecito.

Molly was born in Canada and graduated from the University of Toronto with a Bachelors in French Literature, then studied at The Sorbonne in Paris, where she received her Masters, then UCLA.

“On my way to becoming a songwriter, I had a good day job as a very bad emergency intake social worker for Los Angeles County Department of Social Services. Many of my clients claimed the fathers of their children were rock stars. It was my responsibility to go after all the alleged dads for child support.” I collected a grand total of a dollar three-eighty. And instead of me getting my clients off welfare, they got me into the music business.”

Molly’s first job was a Staffwriter for Almo Music, the ASCAP publishing arm of A & M Records. Later, she was signed to Interworld and then Chappell Music.

Her colorful career is only an extension of a riveting personal life. “When I moved to Santa Barbara in 1998, I’d just written a tell-all novel about the smarmy, lecherous side of the music business, called “The Man in the Moon Will See Me Home”. Due to a lash back by many industry insiders, Molly was forced to relocate from Santa Monica.

Three years ago, Molly was diagnosed with CRPS, that left her in unbearable pain, unable to walk and confined to bed. A fiercely independent, type A person, Molly did not do well being completely helpless. Unable to work for two and a half years, she lost her house and everything in it. But refusing to take her therapist’s advice to “get a wheelchair and get on with it,” Molly visited one more doctor – a surgeon at Cedars Sinai in L.A. He told her she’d been misdiagnosed. There was a 2/3 chance that a simple surgery would cure her. While she was devastated and in the dark, she prayed every day, and promised God if He healed her, she’d use her songwriting gifts to make a difference. He did. And so, did she. Molly recently wrote the official English lyric to Israel’s national anthem. The title is “Hope”.

Today, Molly writes music and consults with songwriters all over the world. Speeches, vows, toasts and memorials have been added to her resume as well. She is a self-proclaimed yogini and enjoys classes at the local YMCA. A collector of contemporary art, specifically from California artists, Leikin walks every day, is a faithful flosser, crossword puzzle enthusiast, and makes a worldclass sour cream cinnamon-raisin coffee cake, nuts optional. The recipe is the same one that was sewn into her grandmother’s clothes when she came to North America from Russia.

Molly shares her home with two stuffed Lexus animals: Bear & Baby Bear, plus one Beanie Baby, Prayer Bear. When asked what her favorite part of Montecito is, her response, “I love the Country feel of our neighborhood. No sidewalks, soft, winding streets, and the Chamber of Commerce blue sky. It is a privilege to drive along our tree-lined roads every morning on the way to yoga, and to the Post Office on East Valley Road.” She continues “walking uphill makes the music business feel easy by comparison.”

“I honestly don’t know my neighbors. There’s lots of space between us, and Robert Frost was right: good fences make good neighbors. I’ve almost made peace with the construction workers next door, whose yellow vehicles start beeping every morning at 7. Like many of my neighbors, I was evacuated five times. But Montecito is strong. We are resourceful. I wear my blue wrist band proudly, knowing we pulled together and got through the fires and mudslides.”

She leaves us with these words of wisdom: “We were spared, so there’s something each of us is here to do. My gratitude for living in such a beautiful town is one thing. Being well enough to enjoy it is another blessing.”

 Goin’ Postal, 90049

Appeared on Westside Today

The Brentwood Post Office on Barrington has been privatized. I won it in a crap game.
Starting next week, I will be open 24/7, with valet parking. There will be a two-tiered line system. For the first, you take a number. For the second, numbers are called as they are in Bingo.

Rather than texting rants about how few windows are staffed, you will distracted by rotating, volunteer, local gourmet chefs serving finger food, with selections from the four nutritional groups: Snickers, Snickers, Snickers and gum. Inventors and scholars from all disciplines who are campaigning for stamphood when they die, will work the crowd, chatting it up, while Postal Guests mark their ballots.

To keep assault weapons off the premises, celebs in our zip code ordered to do community service, will act like airport screeners. While the practice might initially seem invasive to one’s privacy, we can only pray that Colin Firth blows off traffic school and is assigned to 90049.

Outside, my people will not cite pet owners for leaving poop on the grounds, but will simply spray animal droppings with Bye Bye Do Do, which, according to my patent, makes fecal waste disintegrate and disappear.

With the money I’m saving on not having to dispense combat pay to my workers, I will be able to redecorate and landscape, making the mailing of your tax returns a destination event.

My next community project is Adopt-a-Pot-Hole.

Grateful

Appeared on Westside Today

I was a healthy, active, independent yogini who took brisk, two-mile walks every day without blinking. Then I had foot surgery.

In spite of the careful plans and reliable caregivers I had in place to help me post-op, everything and everyone went south. Add the helplessness and relentless pain, and baby, this was one nasty writer.

But … then I discovered my neighbors….

God bless 85 year-old Frances-down-the-hall, who walks slower than I did, and still insisted on driving through the midnight rain for Tylenol. Mr. Rock ‘n Roll himself next door, heard me crying, asked for a grocery list, got everything on it plus an extra bag of M & M’s for emergencies, then refused to let me pay him.

Pilates women with cell phones in one hand and double espressos in the other, who drive roaring SUVs that would just as soon plow down Jesus than miss a light, stopped and smiled while I shuffled through nervous crosswalks. Restaurants delivered meals without minimum charges. The cute fire department opened heavy doors for me, and I honestly felt our community pulling for my healing.

It’s the last thing I expected. It’s the first thing I’ll remember.

Adopt A Block: A Plan to Fix Our Town’s Potholes

Appeared on Westside Today

Mayor Villaraigosa has made it clear the city doesn’t have money to pave or repair any streets in L.A., not even his.

In Santa Barbara, I lived on a private lane of eight houses. Private meant that when the road disappeared into a sink hole every March 3rd, each homeowner had to repair his own portion of the street himself. Since all the neighbors but me seemed to be in Witness Protection, it was easy to interest somebody’s brother-in-law twice removed, in borrowing gigantic yellow machinery from Casmalia, and uncovering leftover slurry from the city yard. All cash. Two days. Done.

Our Brentwood roads can be repaired the same way. Since the coral trees on San Vicente have been adopted, now let’s adopt the streets themselves. Block by block. Sidewalks and meridians, too. With plaques. Maybe badges. The paperwork would include maintenance agreements, and spark competition to be the most beautiful.

We could also auction parking meters, each of which could be decorated by a different, commissioned, local artist, and become a world-class installation like LACMA’s lamp posts, with the revenue going into the maintenance fund.

Slurry up, Brentwood. Somebody got a steamroller?

Brentwood Parking Pass

Appeared on Westside Today

There is no place to park in Brentwood.

Even though there’s an occasional empty blue space reserved for disabled drivers, we’ve all seen the yutz in the Maserati who roars into these spots, oblivious to the frail, walking-impaired motorist behind him, desperate for a space. Maserati Guy feels he has the right to stop wherever and whenever he wants, because his car has the most testosterone on the block.

Seeing the growing fleet of parking enforcement vehicles on San Vicente, staffed by uniformed workers who love their jobs more than anyone in America, I assume the City of Los Angeles makes most of it’s nut from citing selfish drivers who take disabled spaces. First offence: $250. Second: $500. Third time, toast.

However, I would hope the fine wouldn’t be the reason for observing the law. Nonetheless, someday, Maserati Guy is going to get a badly needed brain transplant, and feel the agony of every baby shuffle step he has to take, parking three blocks from CVS to buy morphine and a Fleet enema.

When it’s his turn for the walker with the yellow tennis balls, let’s see who’s upset at whom for taking his blue parking spot.

Segue to Segway

Appeared on Westside Today

My fifth white Lexus lease was ending. For eleven months, I searched for new transportation. Determined to be environmentally responsible, I started with the hybrids. Feeling like I was single-handedly rescuing all Polar Bears and ice, the reality is, seats in green cars trash my back.

I could have put a deposit on a round, cute convertible, and in ten months when it arrived, pay as much over sticker for that $24,000 vehicle as a Bentley.

Instead, I rode up and down, up and down Santa Monica and Wilshire, test driving 22 other automobiles. I rented many of them, all yellow, a day at a time, since car people only let me ride one exit on freeways, and confined my bump research to the single block in the County that’s been paved since FDR.

At the fancy dealerships, there were no cars on any lots, so I was caravanned to satellite garages. Descending three somber, airless levels into the bowels of the earth, salespeople with bad suits and matching flashlights weren’t authorized to drive anything under $85,000 up the ramps to daylight, but suggested I visit their URL’s for color swatches.

Danny, my lawyer and unhusband, suggested a scooter. But look for me ripping six on the 405, saving the planet, on my Segway.

Pick Up Your Trash!

Appeared on Westside Today

Brentwood is becoming a landfill of our own making. And the folks who used to pick up after us are gone. Living in a lean, green time, with the environment our priority, it’s heartbreaking to witness San Vicente Boulevard, the Grand Dame of our city, becoming a slum, as trash cans outside our many fine and fast food restaurants spill over onto the sidewalk.

Along the path surrounding The Brentwood Country Club, as graceful coral trees and stately eucalyptus sigh in disgust, joggers toss their bottles and snack packs into the bushes, as if keeping our city sparkling clean were someone else’s responsibility. Barrington Avenue is a waste dump altogether. Dog poop, soda cans and abandoned furniture make that street an embarrassment to all of us. But the alley stretching from Barrington to Montana should be cordoned off with yellow police tape. There, rotting food, plastic bags, coupons, burrito wrappers, condoms, cups, hats and human waste play a symphony of shame.

It is tantamount to a crime scene. Our whole town is. Let’s make Brentwood beautiful again. If we all pitch in, it’s done.

Pick up your trash.