Sam Farmer is the Los Angeles Times football writer. Before participating in a panel on professional football’s future in the city, he sat down in the green room to rap about his favorite margaritas, his fondness for Jimmy Buffett, and why he’s a lot like Ranch dressing: he can hang with anybody.

Q. What’s your favorite bar food?

A. I just love these—now it’s a drink—these jalapeño margaritas we just had at Border Grill. And chips and salsa.

Q. What’s the last habit you tried to kick?

A. Eating while I’m doing an interview, while I’m on the phone.

Q. What music do you dance to?

A. I took my daughter to a father-daughter dance last week, so I danced to Katy Perry and LMFAO there. I like Jimmy Buffett.

Q. What surprises you most about your life right now?

A. How year-round the NFL has become. People think that I’m like a teacher, and that after the Super Bowl my work stops. But really, there’s maybe a week or two of downtime. But the league keeps rolling after the season—with meetings, the draft, free agency, mini-camps, labor issues, and the question of the NFL in L.A. …

Q. What do you buy on the Internet?

A. I have a penchant for buying the latest and greatest electronic gimmick. Noise canceling headsets and the latest phone and the best ear buds and the best recorders—that kind of stuff.

Q. Who was your childhood hero?

A. I loved Magic Johnson. I grew up in L.A. in the 1980s, and Magic Johnson was definitely my sports hero.

Q. Besides sports, what do you watch on TV?

A. Can I plead the fifth on that? I watch The Amazing Race. I like The Middle and Modern Family—and Cake Boss, because my kids love it.

Q. What salad dressing best describes you?

A. Unfortunately, maybe the fattiest. [Laughs.] I’m a pretty easy-going guy, pretty low-key, so maybe like Ranch or something that’s not super spicy but solid and consistent. You can hang with anybody.

Q. What’s your favorite thing about Los Angeles sports fans?

A. There’s a sense of perspective with L.A. sports fans. It’s not their alpha and omega because they have lots of things in their lives to do beyond sports. In a lot of these cities where they live for their football team, if that team loses it really affects those people throughout the week.

Q. How do you react when you’re embarrassed?

A. My face gets red, I feel hot. It’s very easy for you to tell when I’m embarrassed because I blush very easily.

*Photo by Aaron Salcido.

Jack Jewett is president and CEO of Arizona’s Flinn Foundation. Previously, he was vice president for university advancement at California State University-Monterey Bay, a president of the Arizona Board of Regents, and a five-term member of the Arizona House of Representatives. Before moderating a panel on whether Arizona’s history matters today, he sat down in the green room to talk public service, paparazzi, and President Obama.

Q. What inspires you?

A. Public service.

Q. What do you snack on?

A. I love yogurt. And I like anything with coconut in it.

Q. Did you have any nicknames as a kid?

A. My dad and my brother called me Jackson.

Q. How many hours of sleep do you typically get?

A. Probably six.

Q. If you could have a beer with anyone, living or dead, who would you choose and why?

A. Gosh, there are so many people I’d love to have a beer with. But I would love to meet President Obama and just spend half an hour with him.

Q. What’s the last thing that embarrassed you?

A. It was not being able to come with the date—it was September 11th, and I was in a semi-public setting.

Q. What’s your greatest hope for Arizona for its next hundred years?

A. Great leadership aimed at solving complex problems.

Q. What do you do to relax?

A. Golf. And reading.

Q. What are you reading now?

A. I just finished [fellow panelist] Tom Zoellner’s A Safeway in Arizona, and I’m in the midst of Boomerang by Michael Lewis.

Q. Who was the last person to take your picture?

A. I don’t know who was the last person to take my photo, but I know when it was taken: a week ago at a bioscience event my organization sponsored in Phoenix.

Q. What did you miss most about Arizona when you were living in California?

A. In Tucson it was probably the Catalina Mountains.

*Photo by Kevin Brost.

Eric Meeks is associate professor of history at Northern Arizona University and the author of Border Citizens, a history of racial and ethnic identities in 20th century Arizona. Before participating in a panel in Tucson about whether Arizona’s history matters today, he admitted in the green room that he was savoring not just the opportunity to talk about the subject of his research but the chance to be alone … and the martini he was planning to have at the end of the night.

Q. Where do you go to be alone?

A. To Zócalo events in Tucson! I have two kids and I’m married. This is the first day and night I’ve been alone by myself in as long as I can remember.

Q. What do you believe in?

A. That’s a big question. Social justice—that’s probably kind of a cliché, but I do. I believe in the right for all people to be educated, in Arizona as elsewhere. I believe in immigrant rights.

Q. What was your last major purchase?

A. I finally bought a stereo receiver after not having purchased one for 20 years. I don’t know if that counts as major.

Q. What would surprise Arizonans from a century ago about the state today?

A. The fact that it is primarily an urban state. And that the ethnic make-up of the state is quite different, though in recent decades there’s been an increase in Mexican immigration that probably makes it proportionately look more like it did 100 years ago than it did say 50 years ago. And I would also say the conservative politics.

Q. What profession would you like to practice in your next life?

A. I would be a musician in my next life—I’d follow my dreams form my teenage years. Which isn’t to say that I mind being a historian—that’s good too.

Q. What’s your favorite kind of doughnut?

A. I’m not a huge fan of doughnuts. But if I were to have a doughnut, it’d probably be a good chocolate doughnut.

Q. What’s worth waiting for?

A. These are such big questions. I’ll make this one small: a martini after tonight’s event.

Q. What’s your biggest pet peeve?

A. It’s probably when people tell certain versions of history to fit their own political perspectives in the present.

Q. What are you reading right now?

A. It’s boring, a history book: Andrés Reséndez’s Changing National Identities at the Frontier.

Q. How much is too much to pay for a haircut?

A. Let’s say more than 25 bucks.

*Photo by Kevin Brost.

Jim Cahill is the regional operating director for consumer solar energy company SolarCity. Before participating in a panel on California’s solar gold rush, he sat down in the green room and revealed that when he’s not helping put up solar panels around Southern California, he’s feeding others—human and squirrel alike.

Q. What’s the last habit you tried to kick?

A. Oh gosh—eating too much! [Laughs.]

Q. What do you forget?

A. My wife’s birthday.

Q. What’s your favorite movie?

A. I’d have to say a Clint Eastwood movie.

Q. When are you at your most efficient?

A. Probably about 11:00 at night.

Q. What’s your fondest childhood memory?

A. Feeding squirrels when I was a kid in Deerfield, Illinois.

Q. What’s the best meal you’ve eaten recently?

A. Homemade spaghetti that I made yesterday.

Q. Where would we find you at 9:00 on a typical Friday night?

A. Probably heading home from work, sadly. On the 10.

Q. What’s the best gift you’ve ever given?

A. I received some inheritance money when I was 25 from my aunt, and I split it up with the rest of my family.

Q. If you could put solar panels anywhere in the world, where would you choose?

A. I would put them in places where they have no energy at all—Third World countries that require them for pumping water, and just basic electricity needs.

Q. What do you wish you had the nerve to do?

A. Run the L.A. Marathon.

*Photo by Aaron Salcido.

Anne-Marie O’Connor is the author of The Lady in Gold: The Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt’s Masterpiece. A former Los Angeles Times reporter, she now lives in Mexico City and writes for The Washington Post. Before telling the story of a Klimt portrait that was stolen by the Nazis and then fought over for years, she sat down in the green room to talk about tacos, election excitement, and why she recently considered buying a karaoke machine.

Q. What’s your favorite taco filling?

A. That’s a really good question. Probably tacos al pastor, with lots of hot sauce. I have a tolerance for hot sauce and sweet onions and picante food.

Q. What inspires you?

A. New ideas that break windows in my mind—interesting ideas, interesting conversation, not being bored.

Q. What surprised you most about the process of writing a book?

A. How much you have to slow down! When I first started I thought, oh my god, where are my interviews, where are my plane flights to New York, where are my political campaigns? A lot of what was taking place was taking place in the room I was writing and in my mind.

Q. How do you relax?

A. Lifting weights.

Q. If you could live in any other time, past, present, or future, what period would you choose?

A. Maybe the ’60s. It was probably the last time when people truly believed that art and culture could change the world.

Q. What do you miss most about Los Angeles?

A. My women friends here. I feel like women in L.A. are big and bold—or maybe they’re just allowed to be here. California has more female politicians than any other state. It’s a place where women have a lot of say in the public space, and that’s interesting to me.

Q. What book have you re-read the most?

A. There are five or six. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys. The Lover by Marguerite Duras. The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness by Erich Fromm. But mostly novels.

Q. The beach or the mountains?

A. Mountains. Because they’re cool, and you have a great view, and I don’t really care about sitting on the beach or getting a tan.

Q. Which election is going to be more interesting—the U.S. or Mexico?

A. The U.S.—definitely! A lot of simmering tensions in the U.S. are coming to the forefront on issues of social justice and gender and race. It’s just fascinating to watch.

Q. Have you played any board games recently?

A. I don’t really play board games much. The most interesting group game I played recently was karaoke at a party at an embassy. It caught on like wildfire; it was kind of unbelievable, what a bonding experience it was. It made me want to go out and get a karaoke machine. I ended up singing “I Will Survive” with a diplomat’s Puerto Rican father.

*Photo by Aaron Salcido.

Ron Nichols is the general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. Before participating in a panel on the future of solar energy in California, he confessed in the green room that although he’s a workaholic, he still can’t get everything the LADWP needs done as quickly as he’d like.

Q. Whose talent would you most like to have?

A. Bono’s. I love his music. And I would like to be his age and still be as popular and talented as he is.

Q. What’s the last thing you built?

A. A house—in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.

Q. What does L.A. have in common with Seattle, where you lived before moving here in 2011?

A. They’re both edgy cities in very different ways.

Q. What do you do when you can’t sleep?

A. I work.

Q. What would you bid for on eBay?

A. A classic wooden boat—a powerboat.

Q. What’s the most frequent question or complaint you receive about the LADWP?

A. [Laughs.] Why can’t your customer service be more friendly?

Q. What makes you impatient?

A. The inability to get the many things the LADWP needs to do done, faster.

Q. Where do you go to be alone?

A. The beach: Santa Monica.

Q. What’s your favorite season?

A. Fall. It’s a transition period that I find really refreshing.

Q. Describe yourself in five words or less.

A. Why relax when you can work?

Q. What word or phrase do you use most often?

A. Outstanding.

*Photo by Aaron Salcido.

Physicist Daniel Kammen is the founder of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at UC Berkeley and an expert on climate change. Before participating in a panel on California’s solar gold rush, he sat down in the green room to talk about what energy inefficiency makes him feel guilty, why he’d like to be a whale, and when he’ll get a chance to play with his daughters.

Q. How do you get your caffeine, if at all?

A. Green tea.

Q. What makes you feel guilty?

A. Long, hot showers and airplane flights. And I flew here.

Q. What’s the last thing that inspired you?

A. My daughters. They’re 15 and nine, and they have a very different environmental consciousness than people of my generation do.

Q. If you could be any animal, what would you be?

A. A whale. Because they get to explore incredible places and distances, and they’re also unfortunately painfully aware of environmental changes, since they travel from some of the warmest, shallowest lagoons to some of the deepest, coldest Arctic waters.

Q. Where and when do you read?

A. I read non-stop. In bed, on the plane, before class, sometimes during class, on the beach …

Q. Who do you go to for advice?

A. I go to my wife most often for advice. And then I go to Amory Lovins, energy efficiency guru, and Mary Nichols, the head of California’s Air Resources Board.

Q. What’s the best gift you’ve ever received?

A. Time.

Q. Ask yourself a question then answer it.

A. [Laughs.] When’s the next time I’ll have a long break to play with my kids? That better be this weekend, since I’m planning on it.

Q. What’s your favorite thing about L.A.?

A. The food, since I lived here for three years and loved eating here.

Q. What teacher or professor, if any, changed your life?

A. My fifth grade teacher, Mr. DeMayo, because he saw the big picture before the big picture was particularly popular, and he made us think about the big picture. And for a fifth grader, seeing the big picture is pretty far away.

*Photo by Aaron Salcido.

NFL commentator Troy Aikman is a former Hall of Fame quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys and UCLA. Before participating in a panel on the future of the NFL in Los Angeles, he sat down in the green room to talk books, bears, and hot dogs … and why he doesn’t think we need a name for L.A.’s next pro football team.

Q. What’s the last book you read?

A. I just finished Killing Lincoln [by Bill O’Reilly].

Q. What are you keeping at your house that you should have thrown out?

A. A lot of clothes, I know that.

Q. If you could be any animal, which would you choose?

A. A bear. They’re tough, they’re mean, they don’t get messed with.

Q. What was your favorite class at UCLA?

A. You know, there was a music class I took that was fun.

Q. What keeps you up at night?

A. Worrying about my girls.

Q. Where would we find you at 10:00 a.m. on a typical Saturday?

A. Probably running the Katy Trail in Dallas.

Q. Do you have a favorite stadium food?

A. Hot dogs.

Q. If you had a theme song, what would it be?

A. There’s a song that comes to mind, but I don’t know who sings it: “Waiting for My Real Life to Begin.” [It’s sung by Colin Hay.]

Q. Where do you go to be alone?

A. My best time alone is typically on a beach.

Q. What makes you laugh?

A. My girls, my daughters.

Q. What would you name L.A.’s next NFL team?

A. I don’t know that we’ll have to. I think that they’ll already have a name.

*Photo by Aaron Salcido.

Katie Albright is executive director of the San Francisco Child Abuse Prevention Center. Before participating in a panel on childhood trauma, she confessed in the green room that she’s not reading the books on her nightstand and is too busy to go to the movies—but the one thing she can’t live without is her children.

Q. Where did you go to preschool?

A. That was a long time ago. St. Patrick’s in Washington, D.C.

Q. Do you like your cereal soggy or crunchy?

A. Crunchy—definitely.

Q. What movie can you watch over and over again?

A. I have no time to watch movies—I wish I did.

Q. When is it OK to lie?

A. It’s never OK to lie. I’m a mom.

Q. What is your greatest pet peeve?

A. People not listening.

Q. What’s on your nightstand right now?

A. A pile of books that I don’t read.

Q. What can’t you live without?

A. My kids.

Q. How are you different from who you were 10 years ago?

A. I have several more gray hairs, and I’m a little bit wiser.

Q. What’s the first book you remember reading?

A. The Velveteen Rabbit.

Q. What is your favorite thing about Los Angeles?

A. I used to live in Hermosa Beach. My favorite thing is the sunsets.

*Photo by Aaron Salcido.

Robin Karr-Morse is a family therapist and author of Scared Sick: The Role of Childhood Trauma in Adult Disease. Before participating in a panel on childhood trauma and our health, she sat down in the green room to talk Downton Abbey, what’s she’s hiding her closets (both literal and figurative), and how her first year of college changed her life.

Q. What’s the last thing that surprised you?

A. My two-year-old granddaughter’s acuity about things I was totally shocked that she knew.

Q. What are you keeping in your closet that you should have thrown away?

A. Oh, way too much. [Laughs.] Way too much. My size four clothing that I keep hoping to get back to. A couple of trinkets from Iran or China that I will probably never wear but seemed like a good idea to keep.

Q. What’s your greatest extravagance?

A. Travel.

Q. What salad dressing best describes you?

A. Oil and balsamic vinegar.

Q. What’s your favorite plant or flower?

A. Wild sweet pea.

Q. What was the most important year in your life?

A. My freshman year of college. It was my first year living independently. My parents died when I was little, and I was raised by my grandmother. I was in girls’ schools all the way through my childhood. It was my first chance to kind of make my own way, and that was pretty terrific.

Q. What’s something most people don’t know about you?

A. My own history.

Q. If you could be anyone in history, who would you be?

A. I think I’d still be me.

Q. Do you DVR any television shows?

A. Downton Abbey is probably the only thing I’ve watched in the last 10 years. I’m not a TV person—I don’t sit still well.

Q. Where would we find you at 10:00 a.m. on a typical Saturday?

A. In the pool, swimming—every Saturday.

*Photo by Aaron Salcido.