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Episode 88 and Wendi and Dfernando's guest interview is multi-disciplinary artist, writer, professional dancer, actor, psychic, musician and painter Pleasant Gehman.  

A Hollywood rock ‘n’ roll icon, during the 1970s, she was one of the first punks in Los Angeles, documenting the scene she helped create in her fanzine LOBOTOMY, which lead to writing for the top mainstream rock publications. During the 1980s, she toured fronting her three bands, all of whom released multiple recordings: Screamin’ Sirens, The Ringling Sisters and Honk If Yer Horny. Concurrently, she was the talent booker for the seminal Los Angeles “alternative” clubs Cathay De Grande and Raji’s.

Since the early 1990s, under the stage name Princess Farhana, she has appeared internationally as a professional belly dance and burlesque performer and teacher, touring in Egypt, Turkey, China, Australia, and constantly across Europe, the United Kingdom and North America. She’s danced and acted in numerous motion pictures, in music videos and on television shows and has been featured in many documentaries on belly dance and burlesque, performing and as an interview subject. In 2009, she was the star of Steve Balderson’s feature-length documentary UNDERBELLY: A YEAR IN THE LIFE OF PRINCESS FARHANA, released worldwide in theaters as well as on DVD. 

A practicing witch, her work as a psychic, intuitive Tarot reader and energy healer has been life-long; she currently shares her gifts with clients worldwide. From the age of sixteen onwards, Pleasant has been a journalist and cultural commentator with literally thousands of articles published nationally and internationally on everything from rock ‘n’ roll to the paranormal, from magic to homeless teenagers. Her memoirs, short stories and poetry have been widely anthologized and many works were recorded on her spoken word CD Ruined. 

In March 2020, she launched the  popular podcast THE DEVIL’S MUSIC, which explores the intersection of rock’n’roll and the occult. It is available across all podcasting platforms. 

Pleasant is the author and/or editor of eight books, including THE BELLY DANCE HANDBOOK and the memoir SHOWGIRL CONFIDENTIAL: MY LIFE ONSTAGE, BACKSTAGE AND ON THE ROAD.

Her latest book ROCK ’N’ ROLL WITCH: A MEMOIR OF SEX MAGICK, DRUGS AND ROCK ’N’ ROLL, is a memoir of her astonishing life, where music and the unexplained have been constants for decades. Her supernatural experiences unfold to a soundtrack of old school punk, 50’s rockabilly, vintage blues, classic rock and girl groups. Stranger than fiction, her true stories of spirit encounters, synchronicity and her own psychic abilities are populated with the friends who also experienced them, including The Go-Go’s, The Cramps, The Germs, The Gun Club, The Blasters and many more. Her writing is riveting, loaded with humor and extraordinary details that will make readers question their own reality.

She authored her own chapters in John Doe and Tom Desavia’s UNDER THE BIG BLACK SUN: A PERSONAL HISTORY OF LA PUNK and MORE FUN IN THE NEW WORLD: THE UNMAKING AND LEGACY OF LA PUNK. 

She currently hosts BELL, BOOK & CANDLE - an occult burlesque show at El Cid in Los Angeles that is held every third Wednesday of every month.  

Pleasant lives in Hollywood, California, with four spoiled rescue cats.

Also on Episode 88, Dfernando and Wendi celebrate his new status as a new Californian and their weekend attending the play TILDA SWINTON ANSWERS AN AD ON CRAIGSLIST (at Los Angeles' Casita Del Campo) written by past guest Byron Lane and starring (another past guest) Tom Lenk.  And Wendi mentions she spoke on Lux ATL's MAKE IT HAPPEN VIRTUAL RETREAT.  

Watch Wendi and Dfernando and their TEAM GENERATION RIPE: Greg Covey, Shelley McLendon and Ponciana Badia on Season 7 Episode 2 of CELEBRITY FAMILY FEUD - now on ABC OnDemand and Hulu and on the GENERATION RIPE website.  

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