Actor Corbin Bernsen, Novelist Leah Harper Bowron, AI Entrepreneur Arturo Del Rio Jr., and Jesus and Ugly Jody with Jody Corbett
This edition of The Neil Haley Show opens with a Total Celebrity conversation with actor Corbin Bernsen, familiar from L.A. Law and Psych, about his heartwarming family film When We Last Spoke. Bernsen reflected candidly on navigating a strange, uncertain season, restoring his longtime Los Angeles family home and pouring himself into writing, and said that without his faith he might have thrown in the towel. Turning to the movie, based on Marci Henna's novel, he described playing Walt, a grandfather who, alongside his wife Ruby, played by Melissa Gilbert, takes in their two young granddaughters after the girls' father is sent to Vietnam and their mother leaves to chase a singing career, with Cloris Leachman appearing as Walt's eccentric, poetry-quoting mother. Bernsen said he is a sucker for a simple, well-told story about redemption and the human spirit, and related deeply to Walt as a father of four sons at the settle-down stage of life who is suddenly pulled back into raising children. He praised his young co-stars and his decades-long friendship with Gilbert, whom he joked he has known since the two were puppies, and reflected that a book and its film adaptation are really different universes, two distinct ways of telling the same story. He called it a touching, tender film full of the human spirit and kindness.
Neil then welcomed author Leah Harper Bowron to discuss her novel Colorblind, newly re-released. A lawyer who handled real estate, wills and trusts, and bankruptcy work before turning to fiction, Bowron explained that the writing bug she developed drafting legal documents eventually led her to novels. Colorblind, she said, is deeply autobiographical, drawn from what she witnessed as a child when her all-white sixth-grade class in Montgomery, Alabama was integrated in 1968. She recalled an openly segregated society of separate drinking fountains and restrooms, and how the city first brought an African American teacher into the white school before busing any students, based on fact but reshaped, she noted, to make the story richer for readers. Bowron, who also spent time teaching in a special education classroom, said the experience shaped her lens on difference, and she opened each chapter with a line from Maya Angelou, whose words meant a great deal to her. Written years ago and only now finding fresh readers, the book, she said, is a hopeful reflection on empathy and learning to see past color.
The hour continued with a Storehouse Media Group simulcast featuring Arturo Del Rio Jr., founder of Lakeside Growth and its Stack Growth platform, on artificial intelligence and automation. A serial founder on his third AI company, Del Rio argued that as powerful as AI has become, it is the humans running the machines who matter most, cautioning that the costliest mistake is trusting an automated system to run unchecked. He explained that general chatbots and purpose-built automation are different tools, that large models can drift toward average output or lose the thread of a long exchange, and that success comes from matching the right tool to each task and keeping a knowledgeable person in the loop.
The program closes with a Jesus and Ugly Jody simulcast, where host Jody Corbett shared the story behind his Five Stones Ministry. Rooted in David gathering five smooth stones to face Goliath and refusing Saul's armor so he could fight the way he knew how, the ministry, a vision Corbett said came to him while he was still with the FBI, reflects his belief that God works through the willing and the humble. Find Corbin Bernsen's When We Last Spoke on Amazon and Leah Harper Bowron's Colorblind wherever books are sold.
