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It's been a little more than a year since San Jose, Calif., increased the city's minimum wage by $2 per hour, with adjustments for inflation. Now at $10.15 an hour, it's one of the state's highest.

Back in 2012, as voters were debating the wage hike, some in the restaurant and hospitality industry warned that an increase would be bad for the sector. It would deter new businesses from opening, they said, and would cause existing businesses to slash hours for employees.

So how are San Jose's businesses faring today? The answer is, it depends.

The vast majority of the 17,000 minimum wage jobs in the city are in the food service and hospitality sectors. After the wage increase, the Pizza My Heart restaurant raised its prices by about 5 percent.

Just a block from San Jose State University, Pizza My Heart gets heavy foot traffic that adds to a line out the door on most days. The restaurant does a brisk business; about 50 pizzas come out of its brick oven every hour.

Like many business owners in downtown, Chuck Hammers fought the ballot initiative and braced for the worst when the law took effect last March.

"There's that little bit of a panic from a business owner, you know, 'Is the sky going to fall?' " Hammers says. "And you're nervous. It's a 20 percent increase in what's really one of your biggest costs" — labor.

"After looking at it, I kind of stepped back and realized, well, it's gonna happen to everyone," Hammers says. "It's going to be a fair playing field. We just need to increase prices a little bit."

So he did. Slices went up by 25 cents, pies by $1. Sales held steady and Hammers says customers didn't seem to notice.

Hammers owns 24 Pizza My Heart shops, a franchise. Only four shops are in San Jose, but he decided to raise everyone's wages at all his stores. Otherwise, he says, he was worried he'd lose workers at his franchises outside the city, where the minimum wage is lower.

"The employees like it, they're sticking around longer," Hammers says. "We're getting very little turnover now in employees, which is really good."

In fact, Hammers is opening more Pizza My Hearts. He still bristles at the suggestion that he's a booster of raising the minimum wage. But at the same time, Hammers says he understands that it's almost impossible to live on $8 an hour in a city where the average two-bedroom apartment goes for more than $2,000 a month.

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Shep Gordon's job is managing musicians and chefs and turning them into stars. Gordon created celebrities out of the likes of Alice Cooper and Anne Murray, but he says fame isn't necessarily a good thing.

"I made excuses to myself for how I made a living and tried to do it as honorably as I could, but I can't say that I'm proud," he tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. " ... If you make someone famous, they have to pay a price."

After intentionally staying out of the spotlight throughout his career, Gordon is featured in a new documentary by Mike Myers called Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon.

Gordon managed Blondie, Teddy Pendergrass, Luther Vandross and he briefly managed George Clinton. He's often credited with the recent "celebrity chef" phenomenon, with such clients as Roger Verg, Alice Waters, Wolfgang Puck, Emeril Lagasse and Paul Prudhomme.

Gordon says he's been successful in his role behind the scenes.

“ I think my job is accomplished much better if I'm invisible.

People don't connect with horses. That is the reason some people say horse racing is failing. Horse racing needs a hero to revive the sport, they say. And that is why all eyes on Saturday will be on California Chrome, the favorite going into the Belmont Stakes, the last and most grueling leg of the Triple Crown.

Columnist Frank Deford writes:

"Horse racing thrived when a lot of people still had a connection with horses, and when it was not legally possible to bet on much of anything but horses. But, of course, in America today, gambling is wide open. And horses are so much out of our daily lives that we rarely even have Western movies anymore; films based on true stories rarely involve horses. ...

Americans would rather play slot machines and point spreads and watch automobiles race, because they grew up with cars and can relate to them."

Not so long ago, while enjoying a libation in a decorous saloon, the proprietor — who happened to hail from the fabled Windy City — suddenly jarred the genteel assembled by turning on the Cubs game. Just at that moment, a Cubby was heading toward the plate when the throw came in, and the runner (spoiler alert!), being a Cub, was tagged out.

Visualize the tableau: The runner. The catcher. But also a third figure: the umpire. And see him now: feet spread well apart, solidly grounded, mask off in his left hand, and his right arm flies up, thumb to the heavens. You don't even have to hear him shout, "Yer out!"

It made me think how sometimes the action of an official is every bit as memorable and as stylish as what a player does. Like the soccer referee presenting — presenting! — a yellow or red card. He flips it, like a magician finishing a trick. Soccer officials always stand so upright then, don't they?

Or, the other extreme: a wrestling referee, flush down on the mat with the two competitors as one tries to pin the other's shoulder. And then, in a flash, the ref slaps his hand down. No player ends any kind of game as decisively as a wrestling ref does — better than a walk-off.

By contrast, my favorite action from a boxing referee is almost dainty: those times when he gently touches both boxers simultaneously to break up a clinch. And then, subtly, he drifts away. It's always called backpedaling — where else but in a boxing ring does anybody backpedal?

Football officials are the least distinctive, because they just throw flags, then let the head ref explain later. I do like the symmetry, though, when two officials, side by side under the goal posts, throw up their hands in unison to signal a successful field goal. Who would ever think that football could remind you of synchronized swimming?

Basketball officials are the most expressive, though. That hands-slapping-the-hips business –– blocking! Or the scraping motion across the top of the ball to indicate that the defender didn't touch his man, only the ball. Beautiful stuff — better than most dunks that mere players do.

The most expressive ref I ever saw was basketball hall-of-famer Mendy Rudolph. When it was time out, he'd take his stance, put the ball in the crook of his left arm and, with his right hand, wipe his brow. Whether there was sweat there or not, he'd flip the drops away. With disdain. You had to see it.

Referees always say it's best not to be noticed, but the fact is that an official who makes his call with vigor and elan is really a beautiful part of the game. OK, let's watch that Cubs game again. The runner, the throw, the tag –– but the arm up, the thumb high. 'Yer out ... and 'yer terrific.