Tuesday Jan 12, 2010

Comedienne Debi Gutierrez
The Emmy Nominated & Peabody Award-Winning Humorist  Specializes in Relationship Comedy, Making Her a Perfect Match  As Host of the New GSN Domestic Hidden-Camera Game Show Hidden Agenda ! Debi Gutierrez's comedy act is based on relationships—especially those between men and women—and she speaks with the authority of a seasoned therapist and the raucous humor of a stand-up comic.  A regular at premiere comedy clubs in Los Angeles and around the country, her latest comedy CD is "He's Not Your Girlfriend;" yanked straight from her own personal experiences of doing it all wrong!  Most recently, she's been touring the country with her cutting edge & controversial "Comedy For Men (and the women they love)" routine.  Her daily parenting show, "A Place Of Our Own," a three-time Emmy nominee, airs nationally on PBS affiliates and has won the prestigious Peabody Award and The Parents' Choice Award.  You might call her humor a perfect match for GSN's new domestic hidden-camera game show "Hidden Agenda." It features one member of a couple attempting to persuade his or her partner to complete a series of challenges—without letting on that the world is watching.  Partners secretly set each other up to face a series of outrageous and comedic challenges, specifically designed for each couple, so that the contestant asks his/her partner to do the exact things that he/she wouldn't normally do—such as helping with particular household chores and other domestic duties. With each challenge the partner completes, the couple can win cash and prizes. Talk with Debi Gutierrez about her humorous take on relationships (and what she calls the non-mysteries of men and how women over-complicate them,) and find out about her funny new hidden-camera game show  Hidden Agenda

Tara Centeio  Hallmark - V.P
HALLMARK CELEBRATES 100 YEARS OF HELPING PEOPLE 'SAY IT ALL'  A Century of Full of Laughter and Tears – Captured One Card at a Time For 100 years Hallmark has been part of the milestones in our lives.  Whether finding the right words to say 'happy birthday,' 'get well soon' or 'thinking of you' - Hallmark has been there for us when we needed inspiration or could not find the right words ourselves. It all started inauspiciously 100 years ago, when teenager Joyce Clyde Hall from Nebraska stepped off a train in Kansas City with little more than big dreams and two shoeboxes of picture postcards. He rented a room at the YMCA and began wholesaling postcards to retailers in the region.  One hundred years and billions of well-wishes later, Hallmark Cards, Inc., will celebrate its own 100th birthday in 2010 with a nod to the past, a focus on the future, and the grandsons of that Nebraska teenager at the helm. This is a story about how one company's products have captured the zeitgeist of our nation and evolution of our society over the past century. Within our collective shoeboxes are our histories. These saved greeting cards are cherished tangible well-wishes through a century of American history. A century of wars and rationing, the psychedelic 60s and disco 70s, the maturation of the boomers and their children, the changing roles of women and the advance of technology, but still - new babies, wedding celebrations, birthdays and anniversaries remained. Relationships endured. The need for emotional connecting stayed consistent even while the means by which we connected – the images and editorial used in Hallmark's greeting cards – changed to reflect the times. It is an American story preserved one card at a time in Hallmark's vault.


John Lescroart "Treasure Hunt"
New York Times bestselling author John Lescroart has penned twenty novels to date. But when he introduced his character Wyatt Hunt in The Hunt Club three years ago critics and fans couldn't get enough of this compelling character. So much so that The Hunt Club continues to be his bestselling book to date. This January, Lescroart brings private investigator Wyatt Hunt back in TREASURE HUNT (Dutton; On-Sale January 12, 2010; $26.95), a thriller that is driven just as much by shady politics and backroom deals as it is by murder. And of course as they only can in a Lescroart novel, the dead begin to reveal their secrets and threaten to expose a massive conspiracy that may destroy the lives of San Francisco 's elite.  Business has not been good for Wyatt Hunt. His private investigation firm, The Hunt Club, has become the victim of the hurting economy as well as some recent bad publicity regarding an ex-employee. So when Mickey Dade, a junior associate, stumbles across a body in the lagoon in front of The Palace of Fine Arts, Hunt and Dade sense an opportunity to get the firm up and running again.  The victim is Dominic Como, a prominent civic activist and the head of some of the city's major charities. With the Hunt Club helping to filter tips from the public, Dade and Hunt soon learn that San Francisco 's golden fundraiser was involved in some highly suspect deals, and all of Como 's colleagues seem eager to point the finger at Alicia Thorpe, his new associate. Complicating matters, rumors about Thorpe's troubled upbringing and possible affair with Como start to surface, making her a "person of interest." But in this city where money and power mean everything, the people who were so willing to turn her in may well be hiding their own dark secrets.  A provocative examination of the nature of corruption and character and a look into the city he knows and portrays so well, TREASURE HUNT shows us yet again why Lescroart is one of the most popular thriller writers at work today. John Lescroart is the New York Times bestselling author of twenty previous novels, including A Plague of Secrets, Betrayal, The Suspect, and The Hunt Club. His books have been printed in sixteen languages and published in more than seventy-five countries. He lives in northern California .

Rabbi Irwin Kula
Irwin Kula, the host of Simple Wisdom, is not your typical rabbi.  Known as both a provocative religious leader and a respected spiritual iconoclast, Irwin Kula has inspired thousands nationwide using Jewish wisdom in ways that speak to modern life.  A renowned thinker, teacher, and rabbi, he is the author of Yearnings: Embracing the Sacred Messiness of Life (Hyperion, Sept. 2006) winner of a "Books for a Better Life" award, and selected by Spirituality & Health magazine as one the "10 Best Spiritual Books of 2006" and was featured in a national public TV pledge special, "The Hidden Wisdom of Our Yearnings." A leader of religious pluralism, Kula says that the "freedom and openness of America invites us to bring our traditions to the marketplace of ideas. The challenge is to translate these wisdoms into accessible American idioms that inspire and improve our personal and public lives." A regular on NBC-TV's The Today Show, and co-host of the popular weekly radio show, Hirschfield and Kula: Intelligent Talk Radio, airing on KXL in Portland, OR - one of the top 25 markets nationwide, Kula offers a perspective often missing in the media. Named by both Fast Company magazine and "Religion and Ethics Newsweekly" (PBS) as one of the new leaders shaping the American spiritual landscape, he was ranked two years in a row (no.8, and no.7, respectively) in the "Top 50 Rabbis in America," in Newsweek. In 2004, he wrote and was featured in Time for a New God, an acclaimed documentary shown at film festivals nationwide. Filmed as a moving monologue along the beaches, wharves, and roller coasters of Coney Island, he offers religion as a "giant tool box" for personal and social transformation. In 2003, he hosted a first-ever 13-part public TV series produced by JTN Productions, "Simple Wisdom with Irwin Kula," using Jewish wisdom to explore such life issues as relationships, money, work, and sex. Kula is the President of CLAL-The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, a leadership training institute, think tank and resource center. A popular media spokesperson, he has appeared on "The O'Reilly Factor" (Fox News), was a repeat guest on "The Oprah Winfrey Show," and was featured on "Frontline" (PBS) on the anniversary of 9/11, among many others. A panelist for the Washington Post/Newsweek - "On Faith" online column, he was a regular on the Hallmark Channel's New Morning show. A nationally recognized educator and lecturer, Kula serves as a consultant to both corporate and family foundations, as well as to religious and philanthropic institutions and non-profit agencies on leadership development and institutional change. A sought-after speaker, he has worked with such luminaries as the Dalai Lama and Queen Noor on compassionate leadership, and has traveled and taught Jewish wisdom in places as diverse as France, Italy, Bhutan, and Rwanda. He is in great demand by leaders from such diverse fields as business, technology, relationships, and religion. Kula is the co-editor of The Book of Jewish Sacred Practices: CLAL's Guide to Everyday & Holiday Rituals and Blessings (Jewish Lights, 2001), and co-founder of the Aitz Hayim Center for Jewish Living in Chicago. He received his B.A. in Philosophy from Columbia University, his B.H.L. from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTSA) in NY, and his M.A. in Rabbinics and Rabbinic Ordination from JTSA. He has served as rabbi of congregations in St. Louis, MO; Queens, NY;