We hung out with the wonderful & talented Arianna Papalexopoulos. A San Francisco native of Greek and Italian descent, Arianna currently resides in West Hollywood, California. Arianna trained at the American Conservatory Theater (ACT) in San Francisco and then made her move to Los Angeles where she graduated from UCLA's School of Theater, Film, and Television. After graduation, she studied with Groundlings, Lesly Kahn, and Tess Kirsch. She has performed at SF Sketchfest with San Francisco's comedy troupe, Killing My Lobster, and her latest voice over booking was for Uber Safety.
Welcome Jenny and Eleonora of Grandpa J's Seasoning! Jenny Siormanolakis is long tenured in the food industry, with her family owned and operated one of the “longest running single family owned & operated establishments from 1973-2014. Her first job was standing on milk crates working in the dish pit. Working all through school and college, she always helped the family business. She is always to be relied on to come up with an extremely clever solution to difficult problems.
We welcome a titan of media, the incomparable George Veras. A former Chief Operating Officer, Chief of Staff & Executive Producer of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, among many other achievements. Prior to joining the Pro Football Hall of Fame, his production company Veras Commuications Inc produced and managed world-renown musician Yanni. He produced and directed the PBS record breaking television specials, “Yanni Live at the Acropolis” and then for the first and only time in history, “Yanni Live at the Taj Mahal” and “Yanni Live at the Forbidden City”, the first time ever a Western artist performed at both venues. He managed and promoted Yanni worldwide, including “Live at the Taj Mahal” and “Live at the Forbidden City”, which launched a 100-city, two-year tour “Tribute” grossing more than $150 million. He produced for NBC Sports 2 Winter Olympics and the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, awarded two National Sports Emmys. VCI produced and marketed over 100…
We welcome entrepreneur, investor, consultant, and board member Irina Kapetanakis to the show! Irina possesses a unique skill set having helped Fortune 500 businesses drive top-line sales and revenue growth. She has a keen understanding of not only the sales process but what is needed to create an environment that fosters high growth by optimizing processes to achieve results. As a fan of Simon Sinek, she believes that to be a great leader, one needs to continuously define the “why” for every single individual on the team. When people work with purpose, they feel empowered, motivated, and satisfied.
Say hello to the awesome Tina Karras! It's amazing how one dream can give birth to another. Tina moved to Los Angeles with literally one guitar and two suitcases to pursue her dream of being a singer-songwriter. She paid rent by working in restaurants and eventually music venues. Little did she know that these day jobs would lead to the creation of Tina's Vodka.
We chat with Modern Lusso founder Niko Kokkinos. Born in America but of Greek descent, Niko grew up in Annapolis, MD and frequently travels to Greece to visit friends and family. The Modern Lusso collections combine his love for the Greek summer lifestyle with his personal streetwear style.
Join us for a great chat with Nick Livanos of the Livanos Restaurant Group. Nick grew up working in the family’s restaurants during the school year and spending his summers in Greece. Coming from a family of talented cooks and a long line of commercial fishermen, it didn’t take long for him to fall in love with food; the concepts of freshness and quality were the foundation of his culinary expertise. Nick graduated from Adelphi University with a bachelor’s degree in management, and his life changed when, on a whim, he decided to visit the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY, and later enrolled. Today, Nick oversees the business of all Livanos restaurants.
What an amazing episode! We got to meet the absolutely awesome guys of KI Legal (not to mention Marathi Restaurant NYC) and took a deep dive into their collective story and how they got to where they are today. Join us as we hang out with Andreas Koutsoudakis & Michael Iakovou!
We check in with up-and-coming Greek rappers out of Toronto, Dimitris Kardaris and Spiros Stathas. We get to know them and their group from New Wave Productions. Check them out!
We hang out with the amazing Olympia Papageorgiou! We learn more about her background history, and life. Olympia is an international singer and recording artist based in Atlanta, Georgia. Her music is a mix of multiple styles, such as R&B and International Pop. Her first single, Falling Apart, a reggeaton hit, was released in September of 2017. She then released her second single 8th Day, an R&B love song, on her 24th birthday in 2018. Releasing her biggest single, SALUD, in May 2019, she followed with her first music video for the international bop. Los Angeles-based blog, BuzzMusic, reviewed SALUD only weeks after its release, which led to Olympia being named “Top 10 Artists of 2019” by the popular blog. She has now released her single “No Titles” and it will have you dancing! Join us!
What could be better than having a glorious chat about gyro with a beautiful lady who happens to be an expert on gyro? Join us as we get to know Aussie Kelly Roditis aka the Gyros Queen! If you have access to good gyro, grab one and join us!
We had the absolute pleasure of hanging out with one of the most amazing humans to walk (or should we say run?) the earth! Ultramarathon runner, author, amazing human, and awesome Greek Dean Karnazes! Just describing Dean doesn't do him justice, so watch/listen to our podcast, watch some of the multiple docuseries on him, and then read his super interesting books to get a better idea of who this "superhuman" truly is! OPA!!
What has this man NOT done? From the finance world to Netflix to author to speaker, Leon Logothetis has searched himself and traveled the world to bring a message of kindness and hope. Join us as we interview this special guest and learn so much more about him and ourselves!
Join us as we chat with the multi-talented Anna Rezan! Anna was born in Athens, Greece, to a lawyer, who wanted to become an actress and to a federal judge who wanted to become a director. She is of Greek American Jewish (from her maternal grandparents), Spanish, Polish, and Greek from Izmir and Crete descent. Rezan grew up in Athens, Greece and began acting as a child on the stage of a Club Med while on family vacation, where she made her stage debut in the hotel's theatrical(musical) shows. She appeared in many more productions through her early teens but at the age of 8 she had already decided that she wanted to make acting, her career.
We had a fantastic time hanging out with the amazing Anthony Skordi! Anthony is a British-American actor, known for his roles as Admiral Garrick Versio in Star Wars Battlefront II, and The Dealer in the Hand of Fate series of games. In addition to his voiceover work in video games, he has narrated audiobooks, and has worked on screen and stage as an actor, producer, and writer. He attended Drama Centre, London, and is a Royal Shakespeare Company member and a member of Vanessa Redgrave's 'Moving Theatre' company.
We hung out with the amazing and inspiring Johnny Birmpilis. After arriving in Toronto about a year ago, Johnny Birmpilis (5-0-0, 2KOs) has taken the Canadian middleweight division by storm, defeating domestic rivals Larone Whyte (4-3-0, 3KOs) and Justin Blades (3-2-0, 3KOs) to solidify his place in the Canadian fight scene.
We got to hang out with the absolutely fun, lovely, and talented Patricia Kara. She's a proud Chicagoan who lives in LA and her career is quite fascinating. She has done way too much to list here, but visit her IMDb and you'll see a long list of amazing projects, from Deal or No Deal to film to magazine shoots to music videos, she's done it all. Grab a kafedaki and join us!
This is a good one! The incredibly talented singer/songwriter Vassy is our guest this week and she was so fun to hang out with! We talk about life and growing up Greek and all the craziness of a Greek upbringing. Whether you're from the USA, Canada, Australia, or anywhere else, we all have so much in common. Join us as we get to know the amazing Vassy!
We got to hang out with Kristina, the creator of Instagram's "Are You Even Greek?", all the way from Australia! Join us as we get to know her journey to over 33,000 followers with her awesome page!
Dena Romios is the founder of Power Muse Productions, a Los Angeles based production company bringing Greek entertainment to the west coast since its launch in 2012. Power Muse Productions continues to bring Greece’s finest entertainers to the United States with their primary goal being to produce live performances spotlighting the most highly recognized performers in the Greek entertainment industry. Join us in getting to know more about Dena!
We had an amazing talk with the wonderful Eraklis & Vanessa Diamataris, publishers/editors of The National Herald and the long running ΕΘΝΙΚΟΣ ΚΗΡΥΞ newspapers, about their life, family, careers, and the important work they do for the Greek community. Please join us in learning more about this great brother/sister team!
Talk about a great episode! We had renaissance man Harry Sideropoulos all the way from South Africa. Harry is an award-winning stage actor, singer, voice-over artist, speaker, business man and foodie, celebrating over 20 years on stage. He started his public career many years ago on 94, 7 Highveld Stereo’s Rude Awakening Breakfast Show and soon became an integral part of the show for 6 successful years, before resigning to focus solely on his career on stage. Since then, Harry’s has performed and produced a multitude of shows in his home-town Johannesburg as well as frequent appearances in America and Canada. He loves comedy and loves to sing jazz and blues and is the recipient of 3 Naledi Theatre Awards with a further 2 Naledi Theatre Award nominations for his work on stage.
We got to spend time with the one and only comedian Jim Dailakis! In 1995, Jim left his home in Perth, Australia and traveled literally halfway around the world to land in New York. 25 years later, he’s been playing to sold out venues night after night leaving the audience on their feet realizing they have just enhanced their life through his comedy performance. Memorable, talented, energetic and hilariously funny, he is not only the rising star in comedy in the US but has risen to greater heights than ever before in his home country of Australia as well as performances in Canada, Singapore, Malaysia, Scotland, and the Cayman Islands, because this Greek Australian’s comedy is universally appealing. Join us as we chat with Jim Dailakis!
We had an absolute blast hanging out with the super funny and talented Peter Kelamis! Born in Sydney, Australia and raised in Vancouver, Canada, Petr is an accomplished actor, voice actor and stand-up comedian. With over 160 credits, he is a well-recognized talent in the industry and has shared the screen with many Hollywood heavy weights. Some iconic voice-over work includes: Dragon ball-z "GOKU". Ed, Edd and Eddy as well as "Absolute Carnage" for Marvel Motion Comics. Peter has 2 comedy albums downloadable on all the major music platforms: "Best of Peter Kelamis Volume 1 & 2" and he has two recorded television comedy specials to his name.