Podcast appearances and mentions of Jim Dale

The Real Weird Sisters: A Harry Potter Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 28, 2025 74:37

What does it take to keep your voice—and your purpose—strong through every season of life? In this episode of Unstoppable Mindset, I sit down with my friend Bill Ratner, one of Hollywood's most recognized voice actors, best known as Flint from GI Joe. Bill's voice has carried him through radio, animation, and narration, but what stands out most is how he's used that same voice to serve others through storytelling, teaching, and grief counseling. Together, we explore the heart behind his work—from bringing animated heroes to life to standing on The Moth stage and helping people find healing through poetry. Bill shares lessons from his own journey, including losing both parents early, finding family in unexpected places, and discovering how creative expression can rebuild what life breaks down. We also reflect on 9/11, preparedness, and the quiet confidence that comes from trusting your training—whether you're a first responder, a performer, or just navigating the unknown. This conversation isn't just about performance; it's about presence. It's about using your story, your craft, and your compassion to keep moving forward—unstoppable, one voice at a time. Highlights: 00:31 – Hear the Flint voice and what it takes to bring animated characters to life. 06:57 – Learn why an uneven college path still led to a lifelong acting career. 11:50 – Understand how GI Joe became a team and a toy phenomenon that shaped culture. 15:58 – See how comics and cartoons boosted classroom literacy when used well. 17:06 – Pick up simple ways parents can spark reading through shared stories. 19:29 – Discover how early, honest conversations about death can model resilience. 24:09 – Learn to critique ads and media like a pro to sharpen your own performance. 36:19 – Follow the pivot from radio to voiceover and why specialization pays. 47:48 – Hear practical editing approaches and accessible tools that keep shows tight. 49:38 – Learn how The Moth builds storytelling chops through timed, judged practice. 55:21 – See how poetry—and poetry therapy—support grief work with students. 59:39 – Take notes on memoir writing, emotional management, and one-person shows. About the Guest: Bill Ratner is one of America's best known voice actors and author of poetry collections Lamenting While Doing Laps in the Lake (Slow Lightning Lit 2024,) Fear of Fish (Alien Buddha Press 2021,) To Decorate a Casket (Finishing Line Press 2021,) and the non-fiction book Parenting For The Digital Age: The Truth Behind Media's Effect On Children and What To Do About It (Familius Books 2014.) He is a 9-time winner of the Moth StorySLAM, 2-time winner of Best of The Hollywood Fringe Extension Award for Solo Performance, Best of the Net Poetry Nominee 2023 (Lascaux Review,) and New Millennium "America One Year From Now" Writing Award Finalist. His writing appears in Best Small Fictions 2021 (Sonder Press,) Missouri Review (audio,) Baltimore Review, Chiron Review, Feminine Collective, and other journals. He is the voice of "Flint" in the TV cartoon G.I. Joe, "Donnell Udina" in the computer game Mass Effect, the voice of Air Disasters on Smithsonian Channel, NewsNation, and network TV affiliates across the country. He is a committee chair for his union, SAG-AFTRA, teaches Voiceovers for SAG-AFTRA Foundation, Media Awareness for Los Angeles Unified School District, and is a trained grief counsellor. Member: Actors Equity Association, Screen Actors Guild-AFTRA, National Storytelling Network • https://billratner.com • @billratner Ways to connect with Bill: https://soundcloud.com/bill-ratner https://www.instagram.com/billratner/ https://twitter.com/billratner https://www.threads.net/@billratner https://billratner.tumblr.com https://www.youtube.com/@billratner/videos https://www.facebook.com/billratner.voiceover.author https://bsky.app/profile/bilorat.bsky.social About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset . Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes: Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us. Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Well on a gracious hello to you, wherever you may be, I am your host. Mike hingson, and you are listening to unstoppable mindset. Today, we get to have a voice actor, person, Bill Ratner, who you want to know who Bill Radnor is, go back and watch the old GI Joe cartoons and listen to the voice of Flint. Bill Ratner ** 01:42 All right. Lady Jay, you better get your battle gear on, because Cobra is on their way. And I can't bring up the Lacher threat weapon system. We got to get out of here. Yo, Joe, Michael Hingson ** 01:52 there you go. I rest my case Well, Bill, welcome to unstoppable mindset. Bill Ratner ** 02:00 We can't rest now. Michael, we've just begun. No, we've just begun. Michael Hingson ** 02:04 We got to keep going here. Well, I'm really glad that you're here. Bill is another person who we inveigled to get on unstoppable mindset with the help of Walden Hughes. And so that means we can talk about Walden all we want today. Bill just saying, oh goodness. And I got a lot to say. Let me tell you perfect, perfect. Bring it on. So we are really grateful to Walden, although I hope he's not listening. We don't want to give him a big head. But no, seriously, we're really grateful. Ah, good point. Bill Ratner ** 02:38 But his posture, oddly enough, is perfect. Michael Hingson ** 02:40 Well, there you go. What do you do? He practiced. Well, anyway, we're glad you're here. Tell us about the early bill, growing up and all that stuff. It's always fun to start a good beginning. Bill Ratner ** 02:54 Well, I was a very lucky little boy. I was born in Des Moines, Iowa in 1947 to two lovely people, professionals, both with master's degree out at University of Chicago. My mother was a social worker. My father had an MBA in business. He was managing editor of Better Homes and Gardens magazine. So I had the joy of living in a better home and living in a garden. Michael Hingson ** 03:21 My mother. How long were you in Des Moines? Bill Ratner ** 03:24 Five and a half years left before my sixth birthday. My dad got a fancy job at an ad agency in Minneapolis, and had a big brother named Pete and big handsome, curly haired boy with green eyes. And moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, and was was brought up there. Michael Hingson ** 03:45 Wow. So you went to school there and and chased the girls and all that stuff. Bill Ratner ** 03:54 I went to school there at Blake School for Boys in Hopkins, Minnesota. Couldn't chase the girls day school, but the girls we are allowed to dance with certainly not chase. Michael was at woodhue dancing school, the Northrop girls from Northrop girls school and the Blake boys were put together in eighth grade and taught the Cha Cha Cha, the waltz, the Charleston, and we danced together, and the girls wore white gloves, and we sniffed their perfume, and we all learned how to be lovers when we were 45 Michael Hingson ** 04:37 There you are. Well, as long as you learned at some point, that's a good start. Bill Ratner ** 04:44 It's a weird generation. Michael, Michael Hingson ** 04:46 I've been to Des Moines before. I was born in Chicago, but moved out to California when I was five, but I did some work with the National Federation of the Blind in the mid 19. 1970s 1976 into 1978 so spent time at the Iowa Commission for the Blind in Des Moines, which became a top agency for the Blind in well, the late 50s into the to the 60s and so on. So Bill Ratner ** 05:15 both my parents are from Chicago. My father from the south side of Chicago, 44th and Kenzie, which was a Irish, Polish, Italian, Jewish, Ukrainian neighborhood. And my mother from Glencoe, which was a middle class suburb above Northwestern University in Evanston. Michael Hingson ** 05:34 I Where were you born? 57th and union, north, south side, no, South Bill Ratner ** 05:42 57th union is that? Is that west of Kenzie? Michael Hingson ** 05:46 You know, I don't remember the geography well enough to know, but I know that it was, I think, Mount Sinai Hospital where I was born. But it was, it's, it's, it's a pretty tough neighborhood today. So I understand, Bill Ratner ** 06:00 yeah, yeah, my it was tough, then it's tough now, Michael Hingson ** 06:03 yeah, I think it's tougher, supposedly, than it was. But we lived there for five years, and then we we moved to California, and I remember some things about Chicago. I remember walking down to the local candy store most days, and had no problem doing that. My parents were told they should shut me away at a home somewhere, because no blind child could ever grow up to amount to anything. And my parents said, You guys are you're totally wrong. And they brought me up with that attitude. So, you Bill Ratner ** 06:32 know who said that the school says school so that Michael Hingson ** 06:35 doctors doctors when they discovered I was blind with the Bill Ratner ** 06:38 kid, goodness gracious, horrified. Michael Hingson ** 06:44 Well, my parents said absolutely not, and they brought me up, and they actually worked with other parents of premature kids who became blind, and when kindergarten started in for us in in the age of four, they actually had a special kindergarten class for blind kids at the Perry School, which is where I went. And so I did that for a year, learn braille and some other things. Then we moved to California, but yeah, and I go back to Chicago every so often. And when I do nowadays, they I one of my favorite places to migrate in Chicago is Garrett Popcorn. Bill Ratner ** 07:21 Ah, yes, with caramel corn, regular corn, the Michael Hingson ** 07:25 Chicago blend, which is a mixture, yeah, the Chicago blend is cheese corn, well, as it is with caramel corn, and they put much other mozzarella on it as well. It's really good. Bill Ratner ** 07:39 Yeah, so we're on the air. Michael, what do you call your what do you call your program? Here I am your new friend, and I can't even announce your program because I don't know Michael Hingson ** 07:48 the name, unstoppable mindset. This Bill Ratner ** 07:51 is unstoppable mindset. Michael Hingson ** 07:56 We're back. Well, we're back already. We're fast. So you, you, you moved off elsewhere, out of Des Moines and all that. And where did you go to college? Bill Ratner ** 08:09 Well, this is like, why did you this is, this is a bit like talking about the Vietnam War. Looking back on my college career is like looking back on the Vietnam War series, a series of delusions and defeats. By the time I the time i for college, by the time I was applying for college, I was an orphan, orphan, having been born to fabulous parents who died too young of natural causes. So my grades in high school were my mediocre. I couldn't get into the Ivy Leagues. I got into the big 10 schools. My stepmother said, you're going to Michigan State in East Lansing because your cousin Eddie became a successful realtor. And Michigan State was known as mu u it was the most successful, largest agriculture college and university in the country. Kids from South Asia, China, Northern Europe, Southern Europe, South America all over the world came to Michigan State to study agricultural sciences, children of rich farmers all over the world and middle class farmers all over the world, and a huge police science department. Part of the campus was fenced off, and the young cadets, 1819, 20 years old, would practice on the rest of the student body, uniformed with hats and all right, excuse me, young man, we're just going to get some pizza at eight o'clock on Friday night. Stand against your car. Hands in your car. I said, Are you guys practicing again? Shut up and spread your legs. So that was that was Michigan State, and even though both my parents had master's degrees, I just found all the diversions available in the 1960s to be too interesting, and was not invited. Return after my sophomore year, and in order to flunk out of a big 10 University, and they're fine universities, all of them, you have to be either really determined or not so smart, not really capable of doing that level of study in undergraduate school. And I'd like to think that I was determined. I used to show up for my exams with a little blue book, and the only thing I would write is due to lack of knowledge, I am unable to complete this exam, sign Bill ranter and get up early and hand it in and go off. And so what was, what was left for a young man like that was the theater I'd seen the great Zero Mostel when I was 14 years old and on stage live, he looked just like my father, and he was funny, and if I Were a rich man, and that's the grade zero must tell. Yeah, and it took about five, no, it took about six, seven years to percolate inside my bread and my brain. In high school, I didn't want to do theater. The cheerleaders and guys who I had didn't happen to be friends with or doing theater. I took my girlfriends to see plays, but when I was 21 I started acting, and I've been an actor ever since. I'm a committee chair on the screen actors guild in Hollywood and Screen Actors Guild AFTRA, and work as a voice actor and collect my pensions and God bless the union. Michael Hingson ** 11:44 Well, hey, as long as it works and you're making progress, you know you're still with it, right? Bill Ratner ** 11:53 That's the that's the point. There's no accounting for taste in my business. Michael, you work for a few different broadcast entities at my age. And it's, you know, it's younger people. It's 18 to 3418 years to 34 years old is the ideal demographic for advertisers, Ford, Motor Company, Dove soap, Betty, Crocker, cake mixes and cereals, every conceivable product that sold online or sold on television and radio. This is my this is my meat, and I don't work for religion. However, if a religious organization calls, I call and say, I I'm not, not qualified or not have my divinity degree in order to sell your church to the public? Michael Hingson ** 12:46 Yeah, yeah. Well, I, I can understand that. But you, you obviously do a lot, and as we talked about, you were Flint and GI Joe, which is kind of cool. Bill Ratner ** 13:01 Flynn GI Joe was very cool. Hasbro Corporation, which was based in Providence, Rhode Island, had a huge success with GI Joe, the figure. The figure was about 11 and a half inches tall, like a Barbie, and was at first, was introduced to the public after the Korean War. There is a comic book that was that was also published about GI Joe. He was an individual figure. He was a figure, a sort of mythic cartoon figure during World War Two, GI Joe, generic American soldier, fighting man and but the Vietnam war dragged on for a long time, and the American buying public or buying kids toys got tired of GI Joe, got tired of a military figure in their household and stopped buying. And when Nixon ended the Vietnam War, or allotted to finish in 1974 Hasbro was in the tank. It's got its stock was cheap, and executives are getting nervous. And then came the Great George Lucas in Star Wars, who shrank all these action figures down from 11 and a half inches to three and a half inches, and went to China and had Chinese game and toy makers make Star Wars toys, and began to earn billions and billions dollars. And so Hasbro said, let's turn GI Joe into into a team. And the team began with flint and Lady J and Scarlett and Duke and Destro and cover commander, and grew to 85 different characters, because Hasbro and the toy maker partners could create 85 different sets of toys and action figures. So I was actor in this show and had a good time, and also a purveyor of a billion dollar industry of American toys. And the good news about these toys is I was at a conference where we signed autographs the voice actors, and we have supper with fans and so on. And I was sitting next to a 30 year old kid and his parents. And this kid was so knowledgeable about pop culture and every conceivable children's show and animated show that had ever been on the screen or on television. I turned to his mother and sort of being a wise acre, said, So ma'am, how do you feel about your 30 year old still playing with GI Joe action figures? And she said, Well, he and I both teach English in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania school system, and last year, the literacy level of my ninth graders was 50% 50% of those kids could not read in ninth grade. So I asked the principal if I could borrow my son's GI Joe, action figures, comic books and VHS tapes, recordings of the shows from TV. And he said, Sure, whatever you want to try. And so she did, and she played the video tapes, and these kids were thrilled. They'd never seen a GI Joe cartoon in class before. Passed out the comic books, let him read comics. And then she said, Okay, you guys. And passed out notebooks and pens and pencils, and said, I want you guys to make up some some shows, some GI Joe shows. And so they said, Yeah, we're ready. All right, Cobra, you better get into the barber shop, because the barber bill is no longer there and the fire engines are in the way. And wait a minute, there's a dog in the street. And so they're making this up, using their imagination, doing their schoolwork, by coming up with scenarios, imaginary fam fan fiction for GI Joe and she raised the literacy level in her classroom by 50% that year, by the end of that year, so, so that was the only story that I've ever heard about the sort of the efficacy of GI Joe, other than, you know, kids play with them. Do they? Are they shooting each other all the time? I certainly hope not. I hope not. Are they using the action figures? Do they strip their guns off and put them in a little, you know, stub over by the side and and have them do physical battle with each other, or have them hump the woods, or have them climb the stairs, or have them search the trees. Who knows what kids do? Same with same with girls and and Barbies. Barbie has been a source of fun and creativity for lots of girls, and the source of of worry and bother to a lot of parents as Michael Hingson ** 17:54 well. Well, at the same time, though, when kids start to react and relate to some of these things. It's, it's pretty cool. I mean, look what's happened with the whole Harry Potter movement and craze. Harry Potter has probably done more in the last 20 or 25 years to promote reading for kids than most anything else, and Bill Ratner ** 18:17 that's because it's such a good series of books. I read them to my daughters, yeah. And the quality of writing. She was a brilliant writer, not only just the stories and the storytelling, which is fun to watch in the movies, and you know, it's great for a parent to read. If there are any parents listening, I don't care how old your kids are. I don't care if they're 15. Offer to read to them. The 15 year old might, of course, say mom, but anybody younger than that might say either, all right, fine, which is, which means you better do it or read, read a book. To me, sure, it's fun for the parent, fun for the kid, and it makes the child a completely different kind of thinker and worker and earner. Michael Hingson ** 19:05 Well, also the people who they got to read the books for the recordings Stephen Fry and in the US here, Jim Dale did such an incredible job as well. I've, I've read the whole Harry Potter series more than once, because I just enjoy them, and I enjoy listening to the the voices. They do such a good job. Yeah. And of course, for me, one of the interesting stories that I know about Jim Dale reading Harry Potter was since it was published by Scholastic he was actually scheduled to do a reading from one of the Harry from the new Harry Potter book that was coming out in 2001 on September 11, he was going to be at Scholastic reading. And of course, that didn't happen because of of everything that did occur. So I don't know whether I'm. I'm assuming at some point a little bit later, he did, but still he was scheduled to be there and read. But it they are there. They've done so much to help promote reading, and a lot of those kinds of cartoons and so on. Have done some of that, which is, which is pretty good. So it's good to, you know, to see that continue to happen. Well, so you've written several books on poetry and so on, and I know that you you've mentioned more than once grief and loss. How come those words keep coming up? Bill Ratner ** 20:40 Well, I had an unusual childhood. Again. I mentioned earlier how, what a lucky kid I was. My parents were happy, educated, good people, not abusers. You know, I don't have a I don't have horror stories to tell about my mother or my father, until my mother grew sick with breast cancer and and it took about a year and a half or two years to die when I was seven years old. The good news is, because she was a sensitive, educated social worker, as she was actually dying, she arranged a death counseling session with me and my older brother and the Unitarian minister who was also a death counselor, and whom she was seeing to talk about, you know, what it was like to be dying of breast cancer with two young kids. And at this session, which was sort of surprised me, I was second grade, came home from school. In the living room was my mother and my brother looking a little nervous, and Dr Carl storm from the Unitarian Church, and she said, you know, Dr storm from church, but he's also my therapist. And we talk about my illness and how I feel, and we talk about how much I love you boys, and talk about how I worry about Daddy. And this is what one does when one is in crisis. That was a moment that was not traumatic for me. It's a moment I recalled hundreds of times, and one that has been a guiding light through my life. My mother's death was very difficult for my older brother, who was 13 who grew up in World War Two without without my father, it was just him and my mother when he was off in the Pacific fighting in World War Two. And then I was born after the war. And the loss of a mother in a family is like the bottom dropping out of a family. But luckily, my dad met a woman he worked with a highly placed advertising executive, which was unusual for a female in the 1950s and she became our stepmother a year later, and we had some very lovely, warm family years with her extended family and our extended family and all of us together until my brother got sick, came down with kidney disease a couple of years before kidney dialysis was invented, and a couple of years before kidney transplants were done, died at 19. Had been the captain of the swimming team at our high school, but did a year in college out in California and died on Halloween of 1960 my father was 51 years old. His eldest son had died. He had lost his wife six years earlier. He was working too hard in the advertising industry, successful man and dropped out of a heart attack 14th birthday. Gosh, I found him unconscious on the floor of our master bathroom in our house. So my life changed. I My life has taught me many, many things. It's taught me how the defense system works in trauma. It's taught me the resilience of a child. It's taught me the kindness of strangers. It's taught me the sadness of loss. Michael Hingson ** 24:09 Well, you, you seem to come through all of it pretty well. Well, thank you. A question behind that, just an observation, but, but you do seem to, you know, obviously, cope with all of it and do pretty well. So you, you've always liked to be involved in acting and so on. How did you actually end up deciding to be a voice actor? Bill Ratner ** 24:39 Well, my dad, after he was managing editor of Better Homes and Gardens magazine in Des Moines for Meredith publishing, got offered a fancy job as executive vice president of the flower and mix division for Campbell within advertising and later at General Mills Corporation. From Betty Crocker brand, and would bring me to work all the time, and would sit with me, and we'd watch the wonderful old westerns that were on prime time television, rawhide and Gunsmoke and the Virginian and sure Michael Hingson ** 25:15 and all those. Yeah, during Bill Ratner ** 25:17 the commercials, my father would make fun of the commercials. Oh, look at that guy. And number one, son, that's lousy acting. Number two, listen to that copy. It's the dumbest ad copy I've ever seen. The jingles and and then he would say, No, that's a good commercial, right there. And he wasn't always negative. He would he was just a good critic of advertising. So at a very young age, starting, you know, when we watch television, I think the first television ever, he bought us when I was five years old, I was around one of the most educated, active, funny, animated television critics I could hope to have in my life as a 56789, 1011, 12 year old. And so when I was 12, I became one of the founding members of the Brotherhood of radio stations with my friends John Waterhouse and John Barstow and Steve gray and Bill Connors in South Minneapolis. I named my five watt night kit am transmitter after my sixth grade teacher, Bob close this is wclo stereo radio. And when I was in sixth grade, I built myself a switch box, and I had a turntable and I had an intercom, and I wired my house for sound, as did all the other boys in the in the B, O, R, S, and that's brotherhood of radio stations. And we were guests on each other's shows, and we were obsessed, and we would go to the shopping malls whenever a local DJ was making an appearance and torture him and ask him dumb questions and listen obsessively to American am radio. And at the time for am radio, not FM like today, or internet on your little radio tuner, all the big old grandma and grandpa radios, the wooden ones, were AM, for amplitude modulated. You could get stations at night, once the sun went down and the later it got, the ionosphere would lift and the am radio signals would bounce higher and farther. And in Minneapolis, at age six and seven, I was able to to listen to stations out of Mexico and Texas and Chicago, and was absolutely fascinated with with what was being put out. And I would, I would switch my brother when I was about eight years old, gave me a transistor radio, which I hid under my bed covers. And at night, would turn on and listen for, who knows, hours at a time, and just tuning the dial and tuning the dial from country to rock and roll to hit parade to news to commercials to to agric agriculture reports to cow crossings in Kansas and grain harvesting and cheese making in Wisconsin, and on and on and on that made up the great medium of radio that was handing its power and its business over to television, just as I was growing As a child. Fast, fascinating transition Michael Hingson ** 28:18 and well, but as it was transitioning, how did that affect you? Bill Ratner ** 28:26 It made television the romantic, exciting, dynamic medium. It made radio seem a little limited and antiquated, and although I listened for environment and wasn't able to drag a television set under my covers. Yeah, and television became memorable with with everything from actual world war two battle footage being shown because there wasn't enough programming to 1930s Warner Brothers gangster movies with James Cagney, Edward G Michael Hingson ** 29:01 Robinson and yeah Bill Ratner ** 29:02 to all the sitcoms, Leave It to Beaver and television cartoons and on and on and on. And the most memorable elements to me were the personalities, and some of whom were invisible. Five years old, I was watching a Kids program after school, after kindergarten. We'll be back with more funny puppets, marionettes after this message and the first words that came on from an invisible voice of this D baritone voice, this commercial message will be 60 seconds long, Chrysler Dodge for 1954 blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I watched hypnotized, hypnotized as a 1953 dodge drove across the screen with a happy family of four waving out the window. And at the end of the commercial, I ran into the kitchen said, Mom, mom, I know what a minute. Is, and it was said, it had suddenly come into my brain in one of those very rare and memorable moments in a person's life where your brain actually speaks to you in its own private language and says, Here is something very new and very true, that 60 seconds is in fact a minute. When someone says, See you in five minutes, they mean five times that, five times as long as that. Chrysler commercial, five times 60. That's 300 seconds. And she said, Did you learn it that that on T in kindergarten? And I said, No, I learned it from kangaroo Bob on TV, his announcer, oh, kangaroo Bob, no, but this guy was invisible. And so at five years of age, I was aware of the existence of the practice of the sound, of the magic of the seemingly unlimited access to facts, figures, products, brand names that these voices had and would say on the air in This sort of majestic, patriarchal way, Michael Hingson ** 31:21 and just think 20 years later, then you had James Earl Jones, Bill Ratner ** 31:26 the great dame. James Earl Jones, father was a star on stage at that time the 1950s James Earl Jones came of age in the 60s and became Broadway and off Broadway star. Michael Hingson ** 31:38 I got to see him in Othello. He was playing Othello. What a powerful performance. It was Bill Ratner ** 31:43 wonderful performer. Yeah, yeah. I got to see him as Big Daddy in Canada, Hot Tin Roof, ah, live and in person, he got front row seats for me and my family. Michael Hingson ** 31:53 Yeah, we weren't in the front row, but we saw it. We saw it on on Broadway, Bill Ratner ** 31:58 the closest I ever got to James Earl Jones. He and I had the same voice over agent, woman named Rita vinari of southern Barth and benare company. And I came into the agency to audition for Doritos, and I hear this magnificent voice coming from behind a closed voiceover booth, saying, with a with a Spanish accent, Doritos. I thought that's James Earl Jones. Why is he saying burritos? And he came out, and he bowed to me, nodded and smiled, and I said, hello and and the agent probably in the booth and shut the door. And she said, I said, that was James Earl Jones. What a voice. What she said, Oh, he's such a nice man. And she said, but I couldn't. I was too embarrassed. I was too afraid to stop him from saying, Doritos. And it turns out he didn't get the gig. So it is some other voice actor got it because he didn't say, had he said Doritos with the agent froze it froze up. That was as close as I ever got to did you get the gig? Oh goodness no, Michael Hingson ** 33:01 no, you didn't, huh? Oh, well, well, yeah. I mean, it was a very, it was, it was wonderful. It was James Earl Jones and Christopher Plummer played Iago. Oh, goodness, oh, I know. What a what a combination. Well, so you, you did a lot of voiceover stuff. What did you do regarding radio moving forward? Or did you just go completely out of that and you were in TV? Or did you have any opportunity Bill Ratner ** 33:33 for me to go back at age 15, my brother and father, who were big supporters of my radio. My dad would read my W, C, l, o, newsletter and need an initial, an excellent journalism son and my brother would bring his teenage friends up. He'd play the elderly brothers, man, you got an Elvis record, and I did. And you know, they were, they were big supporters for me as a 13 year old, but when I turned 14, and had lost my brother and my father, I lost my enthusiasm and put all of my radio equipment in a box intended to play with it later. Never, ever, ever did again. And when I was about 30 years old and I'd done years of acting in the theater, having a great time doing fun plays and small theaters in Minneapolis and South Dakota and and Oakland, California and San Francisco. I needed money, so I looked in the want ads and saw a job for telephone sales, and I thought, Well, I used to love the telephone. I used to make phony phone calls to people all the time. Used to call funeral homes. Hi Carson, funeral I help you. Yes, I'm calling to tell you that you have a you have a dark green slate tile. Roof, isn't that correct? Yes. Well, there's, there's a corpse on your roof. Lady for goodness sake, bring it down and we laugh and we record it and and so I thought, Well, gee, I used to have a lot of fun with the phone. And so I called the number of telephone sales and got hired to sell magazine subscriptions and dinner tickets to Union dinners and all kinds of things. And then I saw a new job at a radio station, suburban radio station out in Walnut Creek, California, a lovely Metro BART train ride. And so I got on the BART train, rode out there and walked in for the interview, and was told I was going to be selling small advertising packages on radio for the station on the phone. And so I called barber shops and beauty shops and gas stations in the area, and one guy picked up the phone and said, Wait a minute, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Are you on the radio right now? And I said, No, I'm just I'm in the sales room. Well, maybe you should be. And he slams the phone on me. He didn't want to talk to me anymore. It wasn't interested in buying advertising. I thought, gee. And I told somebody at the station, and they said, Well, you want to be in the radio? And he went, Yeah, I was on the radio when I was 13. And it just so happened that an older fellow was retiring from the 10am to 2pm slot. K I S King, kiss 99 and KD FM, Pittsburgh, California. And it was a beautiful music station. It was a music station. Remember, old enough will remember music that used to play in elevators that was like violin music, the Percy faith orchestra playing a Rolling Stone song here in the elevator. Yes, well, that's exactly what we played. And it would have been harder to get a job at the local rock stations because, you know, they were popular places. And so I applied for the job, and Michael Hingson ** 37:06 could have lost your voice a lot sooner, and it would have been a lot harder if you had had to do Wolfman Jack. But that's another story. Bill Ratner ** 37:13 Yeah, I used to listen to Wolf Man Jack. I worked in a studio in Hollywood. He became a studio. Yeah, big time. Michael Hingson ** 37:22 Anyway, so you you got to work at the muzack station, got Bill Ratner ** 37:27 to work at the muzack station, and I was moving to Los Angeles to go to a bigger market, to attempt to penetrate a bigger broadcast market. And one of the sales guys, a very nice guy named Ralph pizzella said, Well, when you get to La you should study with a friend of mine down to pie Troy, he teaches voiceovers. I said, What are voice overs? He said, You know that CVS Pharmacy commercial just carted up and did 75 tags, available in San Fernando, available in San Clemente, available in Los Angeles, available in Pasadena. And I said, Yeah. He said, Well, you didn't get paid any extra. You got paid your $165 a week. The guy who did that commercial for the ad agency got paid probably 300 bucks, plus extra for the tags, that's voiceovers. And I thought, why? There's an idea, what a concept. So he gave me the name and number of old friend acquaintance of his who he'd known in radio, named Don DiPietro, alias Johnny rabbit, who worked for the Dick Clark organization, had a big rock and roll station there. He'd come to LA was doing voiceovers and teaching voiceover classes in a little second story storefront out of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles. So I signed up for his class, and he was an experienced guy, and he liked me, and we all had fun, and I realized I was beginning to study like an actor at 1818, who goes to New York or goes to Los Angeles or Chicago or Atlanta or St Louis to act in the big theaters, and starts acting classes and realizes, oh my goodness, these people are truly professionals. I don't know how to do what they do. And so for six years, I took voice over classes, probably 4050, nights a year, and from disc jockeys, from ex show hosts, from actors, from animated cartoon voices, and put enough time in to get a degree in neurology in medical school. And worked my way up in radio in Los Angeles and had a morning show, a lovely show with a wonderful news man named Phil Reed, and we talked about things and reviewed movies and and played a lot of music. And then I realized, wait a minute, I'm earning three times the money in voiceovers as I am on the radio, and I have to get up at 430 in the morning to be on the radio. Uh, and a wonderful guy who was Johnny Carson's staff announcer named Jack angel said, You're not still on radio, are you? And I said, Well, yeah, I'm working in the morning. And Ka big, get out of there. Man, quit. Quit. And I thought, well, how can I quit? I've always wanted to be a radio announcer. And then there was another wonderful guy on the old am station, kmpc, sweet Dick Whittington. Whittington, right? And he said at a seminar that I went to at a union voice over training class, when you wake up at four in the morning and you swing your legs over the bed and your shoes hit the floor, and you put your head in your hands, and you say to yourself, I don't want to do this anymore. That's when you quit radio. Well, that hadn't happened to me. I was just getting up early to write some comedy segments and on and on and on, and then I was driving around town all day doing auditions and rented an ex girlfriend's second bedroom so that I could nap by myself during the day, when I had an hour in and I would as I would fall asleep, I'd picture myself every single day I'm in a dark voiceover studio, a microphone Is before me, a music stand is before the microphone, and on it is a piece of paper with advertising copy on it. On the other side of the large piece of glass of the recording booth are three individuals, my employers, I begin to read, and somehow the text leaps off the page, streams into my eyes, letter for letter, word for word, into a part of my back brain that I don't understand and can't describe. It is processed in my semi conscious mind with the help of voice over training and hope and faith, and comes out my mouth, goes into the microphone, is recorded in the digital recorder, and those three men, like little monkeys, lean forward and say, Wow, how do you do that? That was my daily creative visualization. Michael, that was my daily fantasy. And I had learned that from from Dale Carnegie, and I had learned that from Olympic athletes on NBC TV in the 60s and 70s, when the announcer would say, this young man you're seeing practicing his high jump is actually standing there. He's standing stationary, and the bouncing of the head is he's actually rehearsing in his mind running and running and leaping over the seven feet two inch bar and falling into the sawdust. And now he's doing it again, and you could just barely see the man nodding his head on camera at the exact rhythm that he would be running the 25 yards toward the high bar and leaping, and he raised his head up during the imaginary lead that he was visualizing, and then he actually jumped the seven foot two inches. That's how I learned about creative visualization from NBC sports on TV. Michael Hingson ** 43:23 Channel Four in Los Angeles. There you go. Well, so you you broke into voice over, and that's what you did. Bill Ratner ** 43:38 That's what I did, darn it, I ain't stopping now, there's a wonderful old actor named Bill Irwin. There two Bill Irwin's one is a younger actor in his 50s or 60s, a brilliant actor from Broadway to film and TV. There's an older William Irwin. They also named Bill Irwin, who's probably in his 90s now. And I went to a premiere of a film, and he was always showing up in these films as The senile stock broker who answers the phone upside down, or the senile board member who always asks inappropriate questions. And I went up to him and I said, you know, I see you in everything, man. I'm 85 years old. Some friends and associates of mine tell me I should slow down. I only got cast in movies and TV when I was 65 I ain't slowing down. If I tried to slow down at 85 I'd have to stop That's my philosophy. My hero is the great Don Pardo, the late great Michael Hingson ** 44:42 for Saturday Night Live and Jeopardy Bill Ratner ** 44:45 lives starring Bill Murray, Gilder Radner, and Michael Hingson ** 44:49 he died for Jeopardy before that, Bill Ratner ** 44:52 yeah, died at 92 with I picture him, whether it probably not, with a microphone and. His hand in his in his soundproof booth, in his in his garage, and I believe he lived in Arizona, although the show was aired and taped in New York, New York, right where he worked for for decades as a successful announcer. So that's the story. Michael Hingson ** 45:16 Michael. Well, you know, I miss, very frankly, some of the the the days of radio back in the 60s and 70s and so on. We had, in LA what you mentioned, Dick Whittington, Dick whittinghill on kmpc, Gary Owens, you know, so many people who were such wonderful announcers and doing some wonderful things, and radio just isn't the same anymore. It's gone. It's Bill Ratner ** 45:47 gone to Tiktok and YouTube. And the truth is, I'm not gonna whine about Tiktok or YouTube, because some of the most creative moments on camera are being done on Tiktok and YouTube by young quote influencers who hire themselves out to advertisers, everything from lipstick. You know, Speaker 1 ** 46:09 when I went to a party last night was just wild and but this makeup look, watch me apply this lip remover and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, no, I have no lip. Bill Ratner ** 46:20 You know, these are the people with the voices. These are the new voices. And then, of course, the faces. And so I would really advise before, before people who, in fact, use the internet. If you use the internet, you can't complain if you use the internet, if you go to Facebook or Instagram, or you get collect your email or Google, this or that, which most of us do, it's handy. You can't complain about tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. You can't complain about tick tock or YouTube, because it's what the younger generation is using, and it's what the younger generation advertisers and advertising executives and creators and musicians and actors are using to parade before us, as Gary Owens did, as Marlon Brando did, as Sarah Bernhardt did in the 19 so as all as you do, Michael, you're a parader. You're the head of the parade. You've been in on your own float for years. I read your your bio. I don't even know why you want to waste a minute talking to me for goodness sakes. Michael Hingson ** 47:26 You know, the one thing about podcasts that I like over radio, and I did radio at kuci for seven years when I was in school, what I really like about podcasts is they're not and this is also would be true for Tiktok and YouTube. Primarily Tiktok, I would would say it isn't as structured. So if we don't finish in 60 minutes, and we finish in 61 minutes, no one's gonna shoot us. Bill Ratner ** 47:53 Well, I beg to differ with you. Now. I'm gonna start a fight with you. Michael, yeah, we need conflict in this script. Is that it The Tick Tock is very structured. Six. No, Michael Hingson ** 48:03 no, I understand that. I'm talking about podcasts, Bill Ratner ** 48:07 though, but there's a problem. We gotta Tone It Up. We gotta pick it up. We gotta there's a lot of and I listen to what are otherwise really bright, wonderful personalities on screen, celebrities who have podcasts and the car sucks, and then I had meatballs for dinner, haha. And you know what my wife said? Why? You know? And there's just too much of that. And, Michael Hingson ** 48:32 oh, I understand, yeah. I mean, it's like, like anything, but I'm just saying that's one of the reasons I love podcasting. So it's my way of continuing what I used to do in radio and having a lot of fun doing it Bill Ratner ** 48:43 all right, let me ask you. Let me ask you a technical and editorial question. Let me ask you an artistic question. An artist, can you edit this podcast? Yeah. Are you? Do you plan to Nope. Michael Hingson ** 48:56 I think conversations are conversations, but there is a but, I mean, Bill Ratner ** 49:01 there have been starts and stops and I answer a question, and there's a long pause, and then, yeah, we can do you edit that stuff Michael Hingson ** 49:08 out. We do, we do, edit some of that out. And I have somebody that that that does a lot of it, because I'm doing more podcasts, and also I travel and speak, but I can edit. There's a program called Reaper, which is really a very sophisticated Bill Ratner ** 49:26 close up spaces. You Michael Hingson ** 49:28 can close up spaces with it, yes, but the neat thing about Reaper is that somebody has written scripts to make it incredibly accessible for blind people using screen readers. Bill Ratner ** 49:40 What does it do? What does it do? Give me the elevator pitch. Michael Hingson ** 49:46 You've seen some of the the programs that people use, like computer vision and other things to do editing of videos and so on. Yeah. Bill Ratner ** 49:55 Yeah. Even Apple. Apple edit. What is it called? Apple? Garage Band. No, that's audio. What's that Michael Hingson ** 50:03 audio? Oh, Bill Ratner ** 50:06 quick time is quick Michael Hingson ** 50:07 time. But whether it's video or audio, the point is that Reaper allows me to do all of that. I can edit audio. I can insert, I can remove pauses. I can do anything with Reaper that anyone else can do editing audio, because it's been made completely accessible. Bill Ratner ** 50:27 That's great. That's good. That's nice. Oh, it is. It's cool. Michael Hingson ** 50:31 So so if I want, I can edit this and just have my questions and then silence when you're talking. Bill Ratner ** 50:38 That might be best. Ladies and gentlemen, here's Bill Ratner, Michael Hingson ** 50:46 yep, exactly, exactly. Now you have won the moth stories. Slam, what? Tell me about my story. Slam, you've won it nine times. Bill Ratner ** 51:00 The Moth was started by a writer, a novelist who had lived in the South and moved to New York City, successful novelist named George Dawes green. And the inception of the moth, which many people listening are familiar with from the Moth Radio Hour. It was, I believe, either late 90s or early 2000s when he'd been in New York for a while and was was publishing as a fiction writer, and threw a party, and decided, instead of going to one of these dumb, boring parties or the same drinks being served and same cigarettes being smoked out in the veranda and the same orders. I'm going to ask people to bring a five minute story, a personal story, nature, a true story. You don't have to have one to get into the party, but I encourage you to. And so you know, the 3040, 50 people showed up, many of whom had stories, and they had a few drinks, and they had hors d'oeuvres. And then he said, Okay, ladies and gentlemen, take your seats. It's time for and then I picked names out of a hat, and person after person after person stood up in a very unusual setting, which was almost never done at parties. You How often do you see that happen? Suddenly, the room falls silent, and someone with permission being having been asked by the host to tell a personal story, some funny, some tragic, some complex, some embarrassing, some racy, some wild, some action filled. And afterward, the feedback he got from his friends was, this is the most amazing experience I've ever had in my life. And someone said, you need to do this. And he said, Well, you people left a lot of cigarette butts and beer cans around my apartment. And they said, well, let's do it at a coffee shop. Let's do it at a church basement. So slowly but surely, the moth storytelling, story slams, which were designed after the old poetry slams in the 50s and 60s, where they were judged contests like, like a dance contest. Everybody's familiar with dance contests? Well, there were, then came poetry contests with people singing and, you know, and singing and really energetically, really reading. There then came storytelling contests with people standing on a stage before a silent audience, telling a hopefully interesting, riveting story, beginning middle, end in five minutes. And so a coffee house was found. A monthly calendar was set up. Then came the internet. Then it was so popular standing room only that they had to open yet another and another, and today, some 20 years later, 20 some years later, from Austin, Texas to San Francisco, California to Minneapolis, Minnesota to New York City to Los Angeles. There are moth story slams available on online for you to schedule yourself to go live and in person at the moth.org as in the moth with wings. Friend of mine, I was in New York. He said, You can't believe it. This writer guy, a writer friend of mine who I had read, kind of an avant garde, strange, funny writer was was hosting something called the moth in New York, and we were texting each other. He said, Well, I want to go. The theme was show business. I was going to talk to my Uncle Bobby, who was the bell boy. And I Love Lucy. I'll tell a story. And I texted him that day. He said, Oh man, I'm so sorry. I had the day wrong. It's next week. Next week, I'm going to be back home. And so he said, Well, I think there's a moth in Los Angeles. So about 15 years ago, I searched it down and what? Went to a small Korean barbecue that had a tiny little stage that originally was for Korean musicians, and it was now being used for everything from stand up comedy to evenings of rock and roll to now moth storytelling once a month. And I think the theme was first time. And so I got up and told a silly story and didn't win first prize. They have judges that volunteer judges a table of three judges scoring, you like, at a swim meet or a track beat or, you know, and our gymnastics meet. So this is all sort of familiar territory for everybody, except it's storytelling and not high jumping or pull ups. And I kept going back. I was addicted to it. I would write a story and I'd memorize it, and I'd show up and try to make it four minutes and 50 seconds and try to make it sound like I was really telling a story and not reading from a script. And wish I wasn't, because I would throw the script away, and I knew the stories well enough. And then they created a radio show. And then I began to win slams and compete in the grand slams. And then I started submitting these 750 word, you know, two and a half page stories. Literary magazines got a few published and found a whole new way to spend my time and not make much Michael Hingson ** 56:25 money. Then you went into poetry. Bill Ratner ** 56:29 Then I got so bored with my prose writing that I took a poetry course from a wonderful guy in LA called Jack grapes, who had been an actor and a football player and come to Hollywood and did some TV, episodics and and some some episodic TV, and taught poetry. It was a poet in the schools, and I took his class of adults and got a poem published. And thought, wait a minute, these aren't even 750 words. They're like 75 words. I mean, you could write a 10,000 word poem if you want, but some people have, yeah, and it was complex, and there was so much to read and so much to learn and so much that was interesting and odd. And a daughter of a friend of mine is a poet, said, Mommy, are you going to read me one of those little word movies before I go to sleep? Michael Hingson ** 57:23 A little word movie, word movie out of the Bill Ratner ** 57:27 mouths of babes. Yeah, and so, so and I perform. You know, last night, I was in Orange County at a organization called ugly mug Cafe, and a bunch of us poets read from an anthology that was published, and we sold our books, and heard other young poets who were absolutely marvelous and and it's, you know, it's not for everybody, but it's one of the things I do. Michael Hingson ** 57:54 Well, you sent me pictures of book covers, so they're going to be in the show notes. And I hope people will will go out and get them Bill Ratner ** 58:01 cool. One of the one of the things that I did with poetry, in addition to wanting to get published and wanting to read before people, is wanting to see if there is a way. Because poetry was, was very satisfying, emotionally to me, intellectually very challenging and satisfying at times. And emotionally challenging and very satisfying at times, writing about things personal, writing about nature, writing about friends, writing about stories that I received some training from the National Association for poetry therapy. Poetry therapy is being used like art therapy, right? And have conducted some sessions and and participated in many and ended up working with eighth graders of kids who had lost someone to death in the past year of their lives. This is before covid in the public schools in Los Angeles. And so there's a lot of that kind of work that is being done by constable people, by writers, by poets, by playwrights, Michael Hingson ** 59:09 and you became a grief counselor, Bill Ratner ** 59:13 yes, and don't do that full time, because I do voiceovers full time, right? Write poetry and a grand. Am an active grandparent, but I do the occasional poetry session around around grief poetry. Michael Hingson ** 59:31 So you're a grandparent, so you've had kids and all that. Yes, sir, well, that's is your wife still with us? Yes? Bill Ratner ** 59:40 Oh, great, yeah, she's an artist and an art educator. Well, that Michael Hingson ** 59:46 so the two of you can criticize each other's works, then, just Bill Ratner ** 59:52 saying, we're actually pretty kind to each other. I Yeah, we have a lot of we have a lot of outside criticism. Them. So, yeah, you don't need to do it internally. We don't rely on it. What do you think of this although, although, more than occasionally, each of us will say, What do you think of this poem, honey? Or what do you think of this painting, honey? And my the favorite, favorite thing that my wife says that always thrills me and makes me very happy to be with her is, I'll come down and she's beginning a new work of a new piece of art for an exhibition somewhere. I'll say, what? Tell me about what's, what's going on with that, and she'll go, you know, I have no idea, but it'll tell me what to do. Michael Hingson ** 1:00:33 Yeah, it's, it's like a lot of authors talk about the fact that their characters write the stories right, which, which makes a lot of sense. So with all that you've done, are you writing a memoir? By any chance, I Bill Ratner ** 1:00:46 am writing a memoir, and writing has been interesting. I've been doing it for many years. I got it was my graduate thesis from University of California Riverside Palm Desert. Michael Hingson ** 1:00:57 My wife was a UC Riverside graduate. Oh, hi. Well, they Bill Ratner ** 1:01:01 have a low residency program where you go for 10 days in January, 10 days in June. The rest of it's online, which a lot of universities are doing, low residency programs for people who work and I got an MFA in creative writing nonfiction, had a book called parenting for the digital age, the truth about media's effect on children. And was halfway through it, the publisher liked it, but they said you got to double the length. So I went back to school to try to figure out how to double the length. And was was able to do it, and decided to move on to personal memoir and personal storytelling, such as goes on at the moth but a little more personal than that. Some of the material that I was reading in the memoir section of a bookstore was very, very personal and was very helpful to read about people who've gone through particular issues in their childhood. Mine not being physical abuse or sexual abuse, mine being death and loss, which is different. And so that became a focus of my graduate thesis, and many people were urging me to write a memoir. Someone said, you need to do a one man show. So I entered the Hollywood fringe and did a one man show and got good reviews and had a good time and did another one man show the next year and and so on. So But writing memoir as anybody knows, and they're probably listeners who are either taking memoir courses online or who may be actively writing memoirs or short memoir pieces, as everybody knows it, can put you through moods from absolutely ecstatic, oh my gosh, I got this done. I got this story told, and someone liked it, to oh my gosh, I'm so depressed I don't understand why. Oh, wait a minute, I was writing about such and such today. Yeah. So that's the challenge for the memoir is for the personal storyteller, it's also, you know, and it's more of a challenge than it is for the reader, unless it's bad writing and the reader can't stand that. For me as a reader, I'm fascinated by people's difficult stories, if they're well Michael Hingson ** 1:03:24 told well, I know that when in 2002 I was advised to write a book about the World Trade Center experiences and all, and it took eight years to kind of pull it all together. And then I met a woman who actually I collaborated with, Susie Florey, and we wrote thunder dog. And her agent became my agent, who loved the proposal that we sent and actually got a contract within a week. So thunder dog came out in 2011 was a New York Times bestseller, and very blessed by that, and we're working toward the day that it will become a movie still, but it'll happen. And then I wrote a children's version of it, well, not a children's version of the book, but a children's book about me growing up in Roselle, growing up the guide dog who was with me in the World Trade Center, and that's been on Amazon. We self published it. Then last year, we published a new book called Live like a guide dog, which is all about controlling fear and teaching people lessons that I learned prior to September 11. That helped me focus and remain calm. Bill Ratner ** 1:04:23 What happened to you on September 11, Michael Hingson ** 1:04:27 I was in the World Trade Center. I worked on the 78th floor of Tower One. Bill Ratner ** 1:04:32 And what happened? I mean, what happened to you? Michael Hingson ** 1:04:36 Um, nothing that day. I mean, well, I got out. How did you get out? Down the stairs? That was the only way to go. So, so the real story is not doing it, but why it worked. And the real issue is that I spent a lot of time when I first went into the World Trade Center, learning all I could about what to do in an emergency, talking to police, port authorities. Security people, emergency preparedness people, and also just walking around the world trade center and learning the whole place, because I ran an office for a company, and I wasn't going to rely on someone else to, like, lead me around if we're going to go to lunch somewhere and take people out before we negotiated contracts. So I needed to know all of that, and I learned all I could, also realizing that if there ever was an emergency, I might be the only one in the office, or we might be in an area where people couldn't read the signs to know what to do anyway. And so I had to take the responsibility of learning all that, which I did. And then when the planes hit 18 floors above us on the other side of the building, we get we had some guests in the office. Got them out, and then another colleague, who was in from our corporate office, and I and my guide dog, Roselle, went to the stairs, and we started down. And Bill Ratner ** 1:05:54 so, so what floor did the plane strike? Michael Hingson ** 1:05:58 It struck and the NOR and the North Tower, between floors 93 and 99 so I just say 96 okay, and you were 20 floors down, 78 floors 78 so we were 18 floors below, and Bill Ratner ** 1:06:09 at the moment of impact, what did you think? Michael Hingson ** 1:06:13 Had no idea we heard a muffled kind of explosion, because the plane hit on the other side of the building, 18 floors above us. There was no way to know what was going on. Did you feel? Did you feel? Oh, the building literally tipped, probably about 20 feet. It kept tipping. And then we actually said goodbye to each other, and then the building came back upright. And then we went, Bill Ratner ** 1:06:34 really you so you thought you were going to die? Michael Hingson ** 1:06:38 David, my colleague who was with me, as I said, he was from our California office, and he was there to help with some seminars we were going to be doing. We actually were saying goodbye to each other because we thought we were about to take a 78 floor plunge to the street, when the building stopped tipping and it came back. Designed to do that by the architect. It was designed to do that, which is the point, the point. Bill Ratner ** 1:07:02 Goodness, gracious. And then did you know how to get to the stairway? Michael Hingson ** 1:07:04 Oh, absolutely. And did you do it with your friend? Yeah, the first thing we did, the first thing we did is I got him to get we had some guests, and I said, get him to the stairs. Don't let him take the elevators, because I knew he had seen fire above us, but that's all we knew. And but I said, don't take the elevators. Don't let them take elevators. Get them to the stairs and then come back and we'll leave. So he did all that, and then he came back, and we went to the stairs and started down. Bill Ratner ** 1:07:33 Wow. Could you smell anything? Michael Hingson ** 1:07:36 We smelled burning jet fuel fumes on the way down. And that's how we figured out an airplane must have hit the building, but we had no idea what happened. We didn't know what happened until the until both towers had collapsed, and I actually talked to my wife, and she's the one who told us how to aircraft have been crashed into the towers, one into the Pentagon, and a fourth, at that time, was still missing over Pennsylvania. Wow. So you'll have to go pick up a copy of thunder dog. Goodness. Good. Thunder dog. The name of the book is Thunder dog, and the book I wrote last year is called Live like a guide dog. It's le

america god tv american new york director university amazon fear california live tiktok texas canada halloween children new york city chicago english google hollywood kids china apple man los angeles voice discover olympic games mexico stand star wars san francisco new york times friend dj chinese arizona boys speaker spanish er gardens italian minnesota pennsylvania south write mom hands storytelling jewish wisconsin irish hospitals security world war ii harry potter mba ladies iowa nbc broadway vietnam union quit kansas blind pittsburgh offer daddy mine poetry minneapolis ambassadors thunder rolling stones saturday night live south america stitcher korean elvis pacific goodness campbell oakland rock and roll ukrainian ebooks providence cafe unstoppable designed national association polish pentagon rhode island jeopardy charleston shut vhs bart michigan state university south dakota golden age dove roof orange county vietnam war st louis northwestern university mfa passed brotherhood bill murray ivy league cobra slam hopkins flint rutgers university pasadena warner brothers literary mass effect world trade center beaver hasbro des moines moth sag aftra doritos south asia reaper dale carnegie gi joe percy james earl jones marlon brando korean war walden american red cross garageband barth big daddy johnny carson evanston tick tock scholastic barbies othello stephen fry christopher plummer san fernando valley crocker northern europe better homes east lansing national federation lacher virginians dick clark uc riverside san fernando san clemente whittington iago mount sinai hospital gunsmoke new millennium unitarian voiceovers newsnation southern europe nbc tv walnut creek cha cha cha michael h orson wells destro los angeles unified school district james cagney sarah bernhardt northrop hot tin roof glencoe wolfman jack moth storyslam lady j exxon mobile north tower chief vision officer south minneapolis federal express scripps college smithsonian channel cvs pharmacy bill irwin moth radio hour dick powell zero mostel jim dale gary owens missouri review unitarian church dick whittington michael hingson tone it up motor company don pardo uncle bobby best small fictions tower one solo performance accessibe i yeah national storytelling network air disasters american humane association feminine collective bill ratner william irwin thunder dog phil reed hero dog awards lascaux review

A Modern Voice from the 19th Century

HC Audio Stories

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 3, 2025 3:20

In a classic work, a woman suffers in silence Performances featuring a lone actor are a trend, says Caitlin Morley, the artistic director at Wayward Son, a theater company in New York City. A solo adaptation of Dracula at Bannerman Island just closed, and Jim Dale comes to The Depot Theater in Garrison on Oct. 12 for An Actor's Nightmare. Sandwiched in between is Morley and Susannah Millonzi's premiere of The Yellow Wallpaper at the Depot on Oct. 10 and 11. The pair, who are affiliated with the edgy troupe Bedlam, animated a short story written in 1892 by Charlotte Perkins Gilman that hews close to the original. The first-person narrative, thought to be autobiographical, centers on a new mother - identified only as "woman" - who is drugged up by her husband, a doctor named John, who dismisses her ideas in knee-jerk fashion and isolates her in a room with bars on the windows. When she tries to step outside one night, he says, "What is it, little girl? Don't go walking about like that - you'll get cold." In addition to cod-liver oil, he besots her with tonics, ale, wine and rare meat. Although she is a writer, the woman is forbidden to work until she is "well again" and laments that her stifling husband "does not know how much I really suffer." John contends that the woman succumbs to hysteria and "temporary nervous depression"; the woman's brother, also a physician, agrees. She takes "pains to control myself," which exhausts her, but wants to socialize, express herself and be with her child. The character continues to write secretly as a creative outlet and a form of rebellion. She becomes obsessed with the room's wallpaper and descends into a form of madness. Morley, 25, encountered the short story during a gender studies class at Tufts University. "It has a cult following, and people consider it to be either about that crazy lady or a work of horror," she says. "It's often compared to Poe's 'Tell-Tale Heart.' I'm surprised there haven't been more adaptations; it's been marinating inside my head for five years." She directs the production and Millonzi, an actor, dancer and choreographer who lives in Cold Spring, performs. (This year, Millonzi choreographed two plays for Hudson Valley Shakespeare.) Though "The Yellow Wallpaper" is 133 years old, "I felt a connection - it reads like a monologue," says Morley. "Many people have a deep love for it and, given the recent movement to silence women, especially regarding health care, we're driven to do this right now." She cites experiences of "going to the doctor and constantly feeling dismissed and not taken seriously about my own self-knowledge. This play shows the persistence in history of women's voices being minimized. Here, she silences herself; her husband knows better about everything, and he happens to be a doctor." The Depot Theater is located at 10 Garrison's Landing. Tickets are $20 or $35 at depottheater.org. Both performances begin at 7:30 p.m.

One Page at a Time: Book 7, Page 303

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 8, 2025 54:05 Transcription Available

This week, Alice gets a break from extended Jim Dale narration and Martha does much of the heavy lifting with a classic impression of a real weirdo. Phineas Nigellus Black makes his first appearance on a One Page at a Time episode, as he gives a Quora-like lecture to Harry and "simple girl" Hermione about the limitations of the Hogwarts portraits. Please consider supporting us on Patreon! www.patreon.com/realweirdsisters New episodes are released every Monday and special topics shows are released periodically. Don't forget to subscribe to our show to make sure you never miss an episode!

time hogwarts quora one page jim dale time book

Adolf Hitler - My Part In His Downfall (film, 1973)

Goon Pod

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 27, 2025 82:31

Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall is a 1973 British comedy film directed by Norman Cohen and starring Jim Dale, Arthur Lowe and Spike Milligan. It is based on Milligan's best-selling first volume of war memoir of the same name but differs markedly in several respects. It was adapted by Milligan, Cohen and Johnny Byrne; Byrne said of the film: “We want to get away from the idea that Milligan is a clown. He is a clown but first of all he is a human being. As this is a film about the early Milligan, Milligan was more of a human being than a clown at that time.”The casting of Jim Dale as young Spike was inspired, and he received a BAFTA nomination. While the film prioritises comedy, it occasionally crowbars in a clunky 'war is hell' narrative and it struggles to find the right tone. Nevertheless it is a serviceable 90 minute 70s British comedy with a host of familiar faces such as Bill Maynard, Tony Selby, Geoffrey Hughes, Pat Coombs and Windsor Davies.Joining Tyler this week to discuss the film is comedy writer Matt Owen who can be found at https://www.mathew-owen.co.uk/

film british adolf hitler spike downfall bafta byrne milligan spike milligan jim dale matt owen arthur lowe windsor davies

Episode 363 – Unstoppable PR Expert and Entrepreneur with Kent Lewis

tv love new york california founders canada children new york city ai google school los angeles house washington coach pr dogs entrepreneur talk french germany canadian new york times michigan executive director seattle toronto psychology oregon hospitals portland harry potter press massachusetts wall street blind southern california pc casa mine vancouver starbucks magazine seo hire montreal ambassadors thunder active wanted tampa stitcher bc kent east coast sold congratulations ebooks nonprofits committee unstoppable daughters creative directors pacific northwest cmo rest in peace accessibility ratings signed finnish jk rowling rutgers university seth godin scandinavian world trade center thomas edison cad larry king thesis ran flintstones american red cross inevitably bellingham xerox jerry maguire maury alaska airlines anvil portland state university microsoft word national federation san rafael larry king live purple cow western washington university big brothers michael h ryan wilson big sisters pr expert northern european pike place market lee iacocca exxon mobile chief vision officer organization eo federal express scripps college buzzsumo jim dale steam room digital summit domain authority smartbrief michael hingson portland business journal accessibe i yeah business2community ink magazine american humane association thunder dog kent lewis hero dog awards sempdx

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 19, 2025 67:43

Kent Lewis grew up in the Seattle area. In college he studied business and marketing. After college he went to work for a PR agency but left to go into the digital marketing industry in 1996. Kent has formed several marketing agencies during his career. He is quite up front about challenges he faced along the way as well as what he learned from each issue he faced. Kent's philosophy about community is quite interesting and well worth adopting. He believes very much in giving back to his community. Today his day job is serving as “Executive Director of NextNW, a non-profit trade association that unifies the Pacific Northwest advertising & marketing professionals interested in professional development, sharing best practices, and collaborative problem-solving”. Kent gives us many relevant and timely business insights. I hope you agree that this conversation gives us some good business lessons we all can use. About the Guest: Kent Lewis, Executive Director, NextNW Lewis is currently Executive Director of NextNW, a non-profit trade association that unifies the Pacific Northwest advertising & marketing professionals interested in professional development, sharing best practices, and collaborative problem-solving. He is also Founder of pdxMindShare, Portland's premier career community, with over 12,000 LinkedIn Group members. With a background in integrated marketing, he left a public relations agency in 1996 to start his career in digital marketing. Since then, he's helped grow businesses by connecting his clients with their constituents online. In 2000, Lewis founded Anvil Media, Inc., a measurable marketing agency specializing in search engine and social media marketing. Under his leadership, Anvil has received recognition from Portland Business Journal and Inc. Magazine as a Fastest Growing and Most Philanthropic Company. After selling his agency in March 2022, he became a CMO for the acquiring firm. Beyond co-founding SEMpdx, Lewis co-founded two agencies, emailROI (now Thesis) and Formic Media. As a long-time entrepreneur, he's advised or invested in a host of companies, including PacificWRO, Maury's Hive Tea and ToneTip. Lewis speaks regularly at industry events and has been published in books and publications including Business2Community, Portland Business Journal, and SmartBrief. For twenty years, he was an adjunct professor at Portland State University, and has been a volunteer instructor for SCORE Portland since 2015. Lewis tours nationwide, averaging 30 speaking engagements annually, including a regular presenter role with the Digital Summit conference series. Active in his community, Lewis has been involved in non-profit charity and professional trade organizations including early literacy program SMART Reading and The Entrepreneurs' Organization (EO). Industry recognition and awards include Portland Business Journal's Top 40 Under 40 Award, American Marketing Association Oregon Chapter Marketer of the Year, and Top 100 Digital Marketing Influencers by BuzzSumo. Ways to connect with Kent: Links https://kentjlewis.com/ And LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kentlewis/ About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset . Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes: Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us. Michael Hingson ** 01:20 Well, hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset. Today. We get to chat with an award winning entrepreneur, and he just told me a really interesting factoid. We'll have to, we'll have to talk about it, just because it is about one of the most fascinating things I've heard in quite a while, and a very positive thing. But I'm not going to give it away, because I'm going away, because I'm going to let him talk about it, or at least start the discussion. I'd like you all to meet Kent Lewis. Kent has been an entrepreneur for a while. He helps other entrepreneurs. He works in the non profit arena and does a variety of different kinds of things. And rather than me telling you all about it, you could read the bio, but more important, meet Kent Lewis and Kent, welcome to unstoppable mindset. Kent Lewis ** 02:05 It's, it's a pleasure to be on the show. Thank you for having me, sir. Michael Hingson ** 02:10 Now where are you located? I'm based in Portland, Oregon, yeah. So you're, you are up up the coast, since I'm in Southern California. So yes, you know, one of these days I'll be up that way again. Well, Alaska Airlines will fly me up there. Kent Lewis ** 02:27 Yeah, totally right. Yeah, good Michael Hingson ** 02:29 to have you, unless you come this way first. But anyway, well, I'm really want to welcome you to unstoppable mindset. And why don't we start? I love to do this. Tell me a little bit about kind of the early Kent growing up and all that stuff. Kent Lewis ** 02:44 Yeah, so I grew up in Seattle, Washington. I think something that's influenced me is that my dad was is, or is, a retired architect. And so there was always this design esthetic, and he was an art collector enthusiast, I should say. And so I was always surrounded with art and mid century, you know, furniture and there's just style was a it was a thing. And then my mom was always in when she was a social worker and went into running nonprofits. And so I grew up around that as well of just giving back. So if you ever heard that common term, you know, learn, earn, return. Start your life you're learning, then you're maximizing your earnings during your career, and then when you in and around later in life, you start giving back, right, returning, right. And I learned from my mom that you never stop you never stop learning. You never stop returning. And my my mantra as an entrepreneur is never stop earning right? So, so I've always been giving back and donating my time, and I've always appreciated sort of good design and well thought out things. And I think that's influenced my career in marketing and as an entrepreneur, business owner, and now more of an advisor, Coach type, Michael Hingson ** 03:59 well, so growing up in Seattle, did you visit pikes market very often? Kent Lewis ** 04:04 My dad used to work right, right, like, two blocks away. So I would go there all the time. In fact, I remember when there was just one Starbucks when I was a kid, yeah, at Pike Place Market, and they used to sell large chunks of delicious, bitter sweet chocolate, I know, you know, in the behind the counter, and it was a very hi and you could smell the teas and all that. It was a very different experience, very cool place. And so, yeah, love Michael Hingson ** 04:33 the pipe waste market. I understand that they don't throw the fish anymore. No, they do. They do. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Maybe it was just during the pandemic that they decided not to do that, but Kent Lewis ** 04:44 think you're right about that. But they definitely, they, they're still, it's still a major attraction. It's too big of a thing to stop. Michael Hingson ** 04:51 Wow, that's what I was thinking. And that's just way too big of a thing to to stop. My probably not the greatest fish fish catcher, I've been there, but I. I never caught a fish. Kent Lewis ** 05:02 Yeah, that's only got, like, one or two in my life. And I don't, I don't do it much, but Michael Hingson ** 05:08 Well, well, that's the place to go anyway. So where did you go to college? Kent Lewis ** 05:13 I went to Western Washington University in Bellingham, uh, just 1020 minutes from the Canadian border, because, in part, when I was in school, it was a 19 year old drinking age in Canada, so I was 20 minutes away from my earlier drinking age. Turns out, I grew up going to Vancouver, BC quite often for the soccer exchange program when I was a real young youngster. So I fell in love with Vancouver, and as I've had been fortunate enough to travel the world a bit, I realized that it was one of my favorite cities, and it still is. It is such a global, amazing egalitarian, like, no matter your color, race, creed, you could be a millionaire or you could be a bus driver. There was no not the same class, classism you see in other US cities or around the rest of the world. It's truly an amazing and it's also, of course, beautiful Michael Hingson ** 06:04 there. I found that true throughout Canada, and I've enjoyed every Canadian city I've ever been to. One of my favorites is really going to Toronto. I was always impressed as to how clean it really was. Kent Lewis ** 06:17 You know, that's true. I've been there a couple times in conferences, and I found it to be clean and impressive, you know, and then, but my, one of my favorite, other cities I only spent overnight, there was Montreal. What a beautiful, beautiful place, absolutely stunning. I Michael Hingson ** 06:35 spent two days in Montreal once when I was selling some products and turn the TV on at 1131 morning that I was there and watched the Flintstones in French. That was unique. That was unique. Cool. How cool is that? Yeah, it's awesome. That was kind of fun. But, you know, so you, you went to college. What did you major in? Kent Lewis ** 06:58 I majored in business with a marketing concentration, which is great because I ended up doing marketing for a career, and for 22 years ran my own agency, or my own business, basically. Michael Hingson ** 07:10 So what did you do when you got out of college? Kent Lewis ** 07:14 I went immediately into the world of public relations agency life. I always wanted to be a found out after college that I, what I really wanted to be was a copywriter, you know, writing ads. I just coolest thing as a kid. I just didn't know that. It's, I didn't realize what it, what it you have to go to Ad School. You can't, you can't graduate regular college and become a copier. At least you weren't able to when I was, you know, back in the mid 90s. So I started in PR because it sounded hard to pitch the media and try and get them to say what you want them to say about your brand, your client and your brand. And that did me well, because when I got in from went from PR in 94 to digital marketing, SEO, search engine optimization 96 my PR background was extremely helpful. You know, in in that, in that whole world. So because doing PR builds Domain Authority, which builds your rankings in Google, and the rest is history. So, so it was very helpful. It gave me a bit of an edge. And then my business background meant I was better equipped to to go from doing the work to managing people, they're doing the work, to doing my own thing, you know, and running a instant running team, I was running a business. So that was super cool. You Michael Hingson ** 08:38 know, it's interesting. I've especially because of the World Trade Center, but not only, but before it as well, I learned a lot about dealing with the press. And I've, I've watched a lot of press interviews today, and it's, it's amazing how often and then people have said that this is the way you should do it. No matter what the press person asks you, you answer with the with the answer you really want to give, whether you answer their questions or not. And I think that's an interesting approach, and I suppose it can be positive, but especially for for politicians who don't want to answer the tough questions. But I I know that for me, I've always tried to structure my answers in such a way that it gets them to take the question that they originally asked that I might sort of answer and reframe it so that I will answer a lot of times that, for example, talking about blindness and blind people, there are just so many misconceptions about it and and all too often, like first time I was on Larry King lives, Larry was asking questions about guide dogs. And he said, Now, where did you get your guide dog? And I said, from San Rafael, California. He said, well, but the but the main. School is a new is in Michigan, right? And I said, No, it's a different organization. And what we learned after doing that interview was that the way to deal with Larry was to program him and send him questions in advance with answers. Then he did a lot better, because the reality is, he didn't really know necessarily the answers in the first place. It's just amazing how you know how a lot of times it's just shallower. The Press tends to over dramatize. But I appreciate what you're saying about marketing and PR, I've done so much of that over my lifetime, and for so many reasons, in so many ways, I know exactly what you're talking about. Kent Lewis ** 10:47 Yeah, yeah. That's, yeah, it's, it's a fascinating world that I've, that I've, you know, been live, living and working in. And I, yeah, I'm impressed, yeah, Larry King Live. That's pretty cool. And, you know, hopefully you've helped people just side note, you know, get a clear understanding of what it is, what it is both like to be blind and then how you navigate this world successfully, as if you're, you know, fully sighted. You know, Michael Hingson ** 11:18 well, one of the things that I actually learned over the last couple of years is something that I've actually written an article and had it published about, and that is that we've got to change our view of disabilities in general. People always say, well, disability is a lack of ability. And I say, and I always say, No, it's not. And they say, Well, yes, it is. It begins with dis. And I said, then, how do you equate that with disciple, discern and discrete? For example, you know they begin with D is the reality is, disability is not a lack of ability. You think it is. But I've added to that now when I point out that, in reality, every person on the planet has a disability, but for most people, their disability is covered up. Thomas Edison invented the electric light bulb, or at least we give him credit for it back in 1878 so for the last 147 years, all we've done is spent so much time improving on the technology that provides light on demand, which just covers up your disability, but it's still there. And I realized that one day I was at a hotel in Los Angeles at three in the afternoon when we had a power failure, and everybody started to scream, even down in the lobby, when they had all these nice big windows that were letting in all sorts of light, but it wasn't giving them the light that they wanted and the amount that they wanted, and people panicked. So I realized then, oh, well, now the reality is they're light dependent, which is as much a disability as my light independence is. It's just that it manifests itself differently, and there are a whole lot more light dependent people than light independent people. But we've got to really change our definition and how we view it. So Kent Lewis ** 12:58 that's really insightful. It's good to think about. Michael Hingson ** 13:01 Yeah, it's kind of fun. But, you know, so, so where did you, where did you go off and go to work in the in the marketing world? So you did? You didn't go to Copyright School? Or did you? No, no, Kent Lewis ** 13:13 I just know. I once I talked to the creative director at this agency in Seattle where I did my first internship. He's like, Yeah, you'd have to go back to art school. And I was like, what school I just finished? So, you know, it didn't really matter. And we So, with that said, we, you know, I moved into PR, and then I moved to down to Portland from Seattle, because I could actually get a paying job because the internship I did three months full time, virtually, basically no pay, I found a low paying job instead in Portland. So I moved I only knew one person here in Portland, my cousin. She's still here. We both have families now, and I know a lot more people, but I basically have, since moving here to do my second agency job. I've been, I've been a part of 10 agencies in my career. I've been, I founded two, co founded two, fired from three and exited the four that I created, or co, co founded, basically. And so right now I have a consultancy. I could say that's my 11th agency, but I don't even really count it as an agency. I'm just a fractional CMO, you know, marketing advisor at this point, just a few hours a month, because my my day job as of January, is running a nonprofit called next northwest.org which is a it's a trade organization for marketing and advertising and creative community, the creative services world. And it has 119 year history in Portland. And now it's, it's now expanded to five states and into Canada. And so I've got this I'm working. I manage a board of, you know, decent sized board, and a decent sized advisory. Committee that I created, and just the last couple months, and we do learning events for the creative community and networking events and celebrations, like, you know, awards, award shows to celebrate the work. So that's kind of my day job. And then I also speak and write a lot you and I share a passion for for education and learning and sharing knowledge. And so I've been, I've probably averaged 25 speaking engagements a year for the last 20 years, and last year was 30. For instance, I fly yours, mentioned your your travel. I'm flying to Tampa on Sunday to present on Monday, on a panel about AI in the senior care space, for instance. And then I come back and I, I, you know, got it. I got one or two more. But I, you know, I typically do a dozen fly flying gigs, and then I do a lot of webinars and local gigs as well. Michael Hingson ** 15:55 So what are you what are you going to say? What are you going to say about AI in the senior care space? Kent Lewis ** 16:01 That's a great question. So what my focus as a marketer is, here's how you can use AI to streamline and automate and maintain or improve quality. So it's not meant to it's not a secret hack, cheat code to lay people off. It's a It's get more out of your current resources, basically, and do more with less, and do it more effectively. That's kind of, that's, you know, that's my, what I'll be talking about is the how you know how to use it for research, ideation, content creation, content editing, reporting, synthesizing information, customer service, that kind of thing. So I only have, you know, it's a panel event, so I'm only doing like a 10 to 15 minutes part, and then there are other presenters doing their part, and then we have a little Q and A, usually, I'm a sole presenter on whatever topic, usually digital marketing or employee engagement, which is what I got passionate about. Once I sold my agency. After 22 years, I became an employee at that the agency that acquired my company, and I was immediately underwhelmed and disappointed in what it was like to be an employee, and wanted to fix it. So that's what I had been focusing on when I given a choice. I want to evangelize. You know, what I learned from my experience, and I've done a good amount of research, and, you know, two weeks ago, I presented in Portland on the topic to entrepreneurs. Then the next day, I flew to Denver and did the same presentation to a group of agency owners. And then the next day, I did a webinar for similar group of entrepreneurs, you know, so three versions, three days in a row, a 3060, and 90 minute version. So, Michael Hingson ** 17:42 pretty fun. Yeah. So how many books have you written? Kent Lewis ** 17:47 Ah, I knew you'd say that so or ask that. I have not written any books, but I have, darn but I've written, you know, probably 200 articles. I could easily AI them into some sort of book, if I wanted to. You know, I went from writing 80% to 90% of my art content was on digital marketing for the first 20 years. And then the last 10 years, I focused almost exclusively on writing about entrepreneurship and and business ownership, leadership and employee intention, retention, engagement. And, you know, so I mostly syndicate my articles, like business journals, occasionally in Ink Magazine, etc. So if I were to write a book, it would be about the business side of things, instead of the second, I would write something about digital marketing. Not only am I no longer an expert, and consider myself an expert relative to others, those books are outdated the second they're printed, right? So, so it doesn't make sense to really write a book on digital marketing, and everything's already been said, etc. So, so if I wrote a book, it would be probably more on the employee engagement side versus anything. But I will say that I don't know if you know who Seth Godin is. He's the number one marketing blogger in the world. He's written many best sellers, Purple Cow, permission, marketing, etc. He's remarkable guy. And I had was fortunate to talk with him and then meet with him over lunch in New York City 15 years ago. And he said, after our two hour lunch, he charges $75,000 for speaking engagement. So it gives you a sense of who he is. He has for for 20 years. And so he said, Kent, you've got a book in you. I was like, I wish you hadn't said that, because now I don't want to, I don't want to disappoint him, right? So there you go. Michael Hingson ** 19:31 Well, if you write one at some point, you have to send us a picture of the cover and we'll stick it in the show notes whenever. Yeah, that sounds great, but yeah, I you know, I never thought of writing a book, but in 2002 we went to the AKC Eukanuba canine championship dog show in Orlando. It was in December, and among other people I met there. Here I met George Berger, who was at that time, the publisher of the American Kennel Club Gazette, and he said, You ought to write a book. And I went, why? Well, because you you have a great story to tell. You should really write a book. Well, it took eight years and a lot of time sitting in front of Microsoft Word to get notes down, but eventually I met someone named Susie Flory who called because she was writing a book called Dog tails. And it was a story of what she wanted to write stories of, actually, 17 different dogs who had done some pretty interesting and miraculous things. And she wanted to write a story about my guide dog at the World Trade Center, Roselle. And she said, Tell me your story, if you would. And I did. And when we were done, there was this pause, and then she said, You need to write a book. And since I've written books, I'll help you. And a year later, underdog was published, and it became a number one New York Times bestseller. So that was pretty cool. Kent Lewis ** 21:01 That's fantastic. Congratulations. Very impressive. Michael Hingson ** 21:04 And then last year, well, in 2013 we published a children's book called running with Roselle, but more adults by a thing kids, because it's not a picture book, but it tells the story of me growing up and Roselle growing up, and how we met, and all that. So it isn't really as much a World Trade Center book. But then last year, we wrote, live like a guide dog. And the intent of live like a guide dog is to say to people, look fear is all around us, and so many people just allow themselves to be paralyzed, or, as I say, blinded by fear, so they can't make decisions. They don't learn how to control it. But if you learn how to control fear, you can use fear as a very powerful tool to help you stay focused, and you'll make better decisions. So we use lessons I learned from my guide dogs on my wife's service dog to write, live like a guide dog. And so it is out there, and it's it's a lot of fun, too. So you know, it isn't the easiest thing to write a book, but I would think you have a book in you, and you should, well, I Kent Lewis ** 22:03 appreciate that vote of confidence. And hey, I mean, you did it, and you had an amazing story, and you've done it multiple times. Actually, it's great inspiration for me. Michael Hingson ** 22:16 Well, I'm looking forward to reading it when it comes out. You'll have to let 22:20 us know. Yeah, will do so Michael Hingson ** 22:23 you at some point, switched from being an employee to being an entrepreneur. How did that all happen? Why? Why did you do it? Or what really brought that about? Kent Lewis ** 22:38 Well, I kept getting fired. Michael Hingson ** 22:40 So why'd that happen? Kent Lewis ** 22:42 Yeah, so that's the fun part. So I I've never been fired for cause like a legit clause. I'm a high powered, high performer, and so I actually, that's why. So the first time I was fired was by the guy that invited me to co found an agency. His name was Ryan Wilson. He was my he was my boss. And then he was fired by our larger agency. He ran a team that I worked on. I worked for him. I was inspired by him. I I was mentored by him. I thought the world of him. So when he came to me three months after he got fired, it was about, it's always about a girl. So he he basically, he got divorced. And so this other woman, they met at the office, and they were soul mates, and they he had to clean up his life. And he did, and he said, I've got an agency die. I've got two clients ready to sign. I need key employees, and you're one, one of them, then I would hope you would join me. I said, No, the first time he got his act together. I said, yes, the second time, and that. So I we built an agency together with, you know, we start with six people. I brought in two other people and another gal that ran the PR side. I was running the digital side. She brought in somebody said we had six of us on day one, and a year later, we didn't have a formal share shareholder agreement for our percentage of the company that went from being worth zero to being worth a few million dollars, and we felt that we should have something in writing, and before he could, we could get something formally in writing. My, my other partner, she, I didn't really want to do the business with her, but I didn't really have a choice. I want to do the business with him. She said, I'm asking for more equity. I said, Okay, I feel like that's fair. I think we've earned it, but, and I'll, I'll be there with you, but I wouldn't have done this if she hadn't said, I'm going in. Are you with me? So when I we asked, she asked me to make the ask. I wasn't necessarily prepared or thinking about it, and it really offended him. He was really mad, and he was playing to fire her, and by me teaming up with her, he felt, you know, slight. And he fired us both, and the next week, I started anvil, my agency, Anvil Media, that I ran for 22 years, I did a couple other starts, one with a college friend and a guy I had met at that that at one of the first, one of the earlier agency agencies I'd worked at. He and we, he and I and my college buddy started an email marketing agency in 02 and then I decided, well, this isn't for me, but I now learn it's not that scary to hire employees. So then I started hiring employees at anvil and late 03 and so I ran anvil with employees for, you know, 20 years. Two of those first two years were just me and some contractors and and then, oh, wait, I started a second agency because I needed a more affordable solution for my partners in small business called Formic media. Ran that for five years before I merged it with with anvil. But in between, I was also fired. When I first started anvil, I was it was just a hang of shingle in 2000 to do some consulting, but I wanted a full time gig, and a year later, I had an opportunity to run my my team from the agency. I was fired from that company. That agency was sold to another agency for pennies on the dollar. And when my old boss died, rest in peace, we hadn't really cleared the air yet, which is it still is one of my greatest regrets. You know, for nine months we didn't talk, and then he passed away. Everybody peace, not before he passed away, I was able to get, yeah, his his soul mate. They weren't married yet, but they were going to get married. She told me that two weeks before he died, he expressed regrets and how we had ended the relationship, how he had fired me, and he was looking forward to reconnecting and re engaging our friendship. And so that made that meant the world to me. I had a lot of peace in knowing that, but I so the first the second place I got fired was this agency again about a girl. So the first time was a girl telling me, you need to ask the boss for more money or more equity. And I did, and that offended him. And the second time was my girlfriend at the time, who's who moved over from that agency to the new agency where my my old boss died before he could really start there. She was dating on the side the Creative Director at that agency, and he'd been there over 20 years. And so when I started there, I saw something was up, and I was like, Is there anything going on? She's like, No. And so eventually I just broke up with her anyway, because I just it wasn't working, even if she wouldn't admit that she was having a side relationship. But I was eventually fired because he was a board, you know, he was on the board. He was, he wasn't my boss, per se, but he was one of the senior partners, and they just wanted me out. You know, she might have money. Wanted me out. He definitely wanted me out. So that was the second time I got fired. And then the third time I got fired was it kept the stakes get given, getting bigger. When I sold my agency 14 months later, they fired me, really, not to this day, not for any cause. It's that they asked me to take an 80% pay cut a year into my buyout, and I and then I they were going to close my Portland office, which I was, I own the building, so I didn't want to lose my own myself as a tenant, so I offered to reduce my rent 30% so I basically, for two and a half months, worked for free for this agency that had bought my agency. So they were making payments to me. I was carrying the note, but they they couldn't. A year later, they're like, I'm sorry. So they a year later, I took a pay cut for two and a half months, and when I asked them, you know, when am I getting back to my pay? They said, Well, you know, we can't guarantee. We don't have a path for you back to your full pay. And I was like, Okay, well, then I told my wife, let him inform them that we're going to go back to, we are going to go back to our full rack rate on our rent. And when I, when we notified them, they they totally, they totally fired me. So they canceled the lease, and they fired me, and so they so it. And you know, I, my team was slowly being dismantled, a 10 of us, 11 of us, I guess 10 or 11 us went over, and within a year, there were only two wait. Within two years, there was only one person left on my team. So it was a really sad, sad experience for me. It wasn't as hard to sell my business as I thought. It wasn't as hard, you know, just emotionally, it wasn't as hard to sunset my brand after 22 years. Wasn't easy, but it was way easier than I thought. What was hard for me was watching them was was closing the office. It broke my heart and and then watching them dismantle my team that I spent, you know, two decades building, most of that team was within 10 years, the last 10 years, last even five years of of our business. Us. There was a relatively new team, but we were so tight, and it was just heartbreaking. So, you know, Michael Hingson ** 30:09 yeah, wow. So what do you think was your biggest mistake in running your own agency? Kent Lewis ** 30:19 That's a great question. I think the biggest, biggest mistake was not understanding the Hire great people and get out of the way. Lee Iacocca, you know, to paraphrase him, I hired great people and I got out of their way. But what I didn't do was make sure they had all the proper training, alignment of core values that they had, there was enough trust between us that they could come to me with they were struggling or failing. Apparently, I was a fairly intimidating figure for my former my young recruits, but most of that time, up until the last five years, I always had a senior VP my right hand. I hired her with the attention that she might take over the business someday, she was totally creating a wall between me and my employees, and I didn't know it until 2012 and so, you know, I had 10 years to try to undo what she had created the first 10 years, basically of a fear based management style, so that that didn't help me, and I didn't believe it. I didn't really see it. So then I rebuilt the company, and from the ground up, I blew it up in 2013 so 10 years after of having employees, 13 years of having the business, I completely dismantled and blew it up and rebuilt it. And what did that look like? It started with me just not wanting to go to work in the building, and I realized I can't quit because I'm the owner, so I have to fix it. Okay? I don't mind fixing things. I prefer to fix other people's problems instead of my own, but I really a lot of people do, right? Yeah. So I wrote a credo, basically, what would it take for me? What are, what are it got down to 10 truths, what? What are the truths that I need to go into work and that others around me, co workers, team members, need to also agree on so that we can work together successfully. So it went from being about clients to being about the team and being about accountability. And you know, it was so it was so decisive. It was so radical for my current team that had been with me five to 10 years of they lose clients, I get more clients. And I eventually told them, I can't replace clients as fast as you're losing them. It's not a sustainable business model, so you need to be accountable for your actions and your decisions. That's the new anvil. You and you're out. I gave them 72 hours to think about it and sign it. Signed literally to these credo. It's not a legal document, it's just a commitment to credo. And half the team didn't sign it, and they quit. And then within 12 months, the rest of the team either quit or we've I fired them because they did not fit in the new anvil. And it's funny because everybody else that I brought in didn't even it didn't even register. The credo was so unremarkable to them, because we were already aligned by the time we hired them, we'd done our research and the work to know who fit, and so they didn't register. So eventually we just dropped the credo was no longer needed as a guide or a framework. It's still on the website, but, but you don't, you know it doesn't really matter. But that's what I got wrong, is I did not build the trust. I did not have I had processes in place, but but without the trust, people wouldn't tell me how they felt or that they were struggling. So a lot of process wasn't recognized or utilized properly. So I rebuilt it to where and rebuilt the trust to where the team that was with me when I sold I was very close with them. There was 100% trust across the board, a mutual respect, arguably a mutual love for the craft, for each other, for the company, for our clients, and it was a lot of fun to work with them. I didn't sell because I was unhappy. I sold because I was happy, and I thought now's a good time to go and find a good home. Plus my wife was my operations manager for five years, and she wanted out. Frankly, I thought it was easier to sell the business than try to replace my wife, because she was very good at what she did. She just didn't like doing it, yeah? And she also didn't like, you know, me being her boss. I never saw it that way. But once she explained it, after I sold, she explained, like, you know, you boss me around at work, and then you try to boss me around at home, and I'm not having it. You pick one? Yeah, so, so I was like, I think, like, I bossed you around. And she's like, Hey, you just, it was your company. It was always going to be your company. And, you know, that's fine, but you know, I want to move on. I was like, Okay, why don't we just sell and so that, yeah, they the operational people. And so it took her, took that load off of her. She's worked for. Nonprofit now, so she's happy, and so that's good. Michael Hingson ** 35:05 Well, it also sounds like there were a lot of people that well, first of all, you changed your your view and your modus operandi a little bit over time, and that's why you also got you fired, or you lost people. But it also sounds like what you did was you brought in more people, not only who thought like you, but who really understood the kinds of goals that you were looking at. And so it was a natural sort of thing. You brought in people who really didn't worry about the credo, because they lived by it anyway. Kent Lewis ** 35:38 Yeah, that's exactly right. And that was, that was my lesson. Was, you know, I always knew there's a concept called Top grading. You know, you thoroughly vet client, you hire slow and you fire fast. Most entrepreneurs or business owners hire fast and fire slow, and it's very, very expensive and but, you know, I got that part and I just better. I was far better at, I was far better at, what would I say, creating processes than kind of feeling, the love? And so once I figured that stuff out, it got a lot it got a lot better. Michael Hingson ** 36:16 It's a growth thing. Yes, 36:18 exactly, yeah. Well, you Michael Hingson ** 36:21 have something, and you sent me something about it. You call it Jerry Maguire moment. Tell me about that. Kent Lewis ** 36:28 Yeah. So that's, you know, I just, I just sort of backed into the story of just being unhappy. But what ended up happening more specifically that Jerry Maguire moment was putting my son to bed in March of 2013 and I mentioned that feeling of not of dread. I didn't want to go to work. I was frustrated with my team, disappointed in my clients, not appreciating the work we were doing, frustrated with some of my partners. You know, in the business, I felt disconnected from the work of digital because I'd worked on the business for longer than I'd worked in the business by that point, and so I just, it was, it was, I was a bit of a mess. And I realized, like, I need a reason to get up and go to work in the morning. And that's when I came up. I was inspired by Jerry Maguire's manifesto from from the movie, and apparently you can find it online. It's a 28 page manifesto. So I ended up distilling into those 10 truths that we called the credo, and so what happening is just again to recap, it took me a like a couple days. I had instant clarity. I like I fell asleep like a rock. Once I realized I had a plan and I had a framework, I felt better about it, even though there was much work to do. So as I mentioned, you know, half the team quit within the first week, the other half bled out over the next year. That meant 100% employee turnover for two years in a row. As like as I upgraded my team, that was painful. I had to hire three people in order to keep one good one. You know, as I as I search, because we don't have formal degrees in the world of digital marketing, right? So it's hard to find the talent, and you want to hold on to the good ones when you get them. So it took a long time to get the team dialed. Meanwhile, my clients got tired of the turnover. As I was trying to figure it out, they started leaving in droves, and so in 2014 in March, a year later, exactly, I lost my five biggest clients in a 30 to 45 day period. So I lost, you know, 40, over 40% of my revenue vaporized, and I could not replace it fast enough. So I didn't take a salary for nine months. I asked two senior execs to take small pay cuts like 10% and as we hunkered down, and so I didn't have to lay off any good talent, and so I didn't, and we sprinted, we rebuilt, you know, the pipeline, and brought some new clients in. By the end of the year, I paid back my my two senior employees, their 10% that they pay cut. I paid them back, but I didn't take a salary for nine months of that year. It was the worst year I'd ever had, and the only time I ever had to take a pay cut or miss a paycheck myself. So that was the price I paid. The plus side is once I realized that the focus should be on the employees, which was what the credo was, I didn't realize at the time that it wasn't about my clients anymore. They were the life blood. They were the blood flow, right? But we have this organism that needed love, so we I breathe life back into it, one employee at a time until we had a higher functioning group. So it took me five or six years, and in 2019 so six years after I blew the business up, I had an offer on the table, had a sale agreement finalized, and we were less than a week away from funding, and I backed out of the deal because I felt, one, it wasn't a good cultural fit, and two, there was more work to do. It wasn't about increasing my valuation more. It was about finishing my journey of an employee first agency and. Three years later, I sold for one and a half x higher multiple, so an additional seven figures to to another agency based on a stronger profitability, even though the revenue is about the same, stronger, you know, profitability right better. Happy clients, stable clients. It was a lower risk acquisition for them and the so that was the high point. The low point was becoming an employee and wanting to be the best damn employee that agency had ever seen to being a very disappointed, disengaged, disheartened, disheartened employee. And I then I decided I started writing notes of everything, not to do that they were doing wrong. And I decided, once they let me go, I need to focus on this. I think I needed to help my other fellow entrepreneurs ways to avoid going through what I went through as an employee, because I had just been one, and most of my employ, my entrepreneur friends, haven't been an employee for over 10 years. You easily, quickly forget what it's like to be an employee, and I want to remind them and as other senior leaders, how important it is to put your employees first, otherwise you can never deliver on your brand promise no matter what it is, because they won't deliver to your standards. Because it's you know, they don't feel the same attachment to a business if they as if they're not owners, right? Michael Hingson ** 41:22 But it sounds like you also, when you did sell, by that time, you had employees, one who had bought into the credo, into the philosophy, and two were satisfied. So it was a much better situation all the way around. Anyway, Kent Lewis ** 41:38 exactly. It's right? And that's, that's the thing is, I realized it's not about throwing money at a problem. It's about throwing time and care at a problem. And the problem is that most employers, there is no loyalty employ to employees anymore, and therefore there's no employee loyalty to brands anymore, to their employers. And so I'm trying to unwind that. And it's not about pension plans, per se. It's not about bonuses, really at all. That's one of 120 items on my punch list of auditing and employee journey is, yeah, do you have a bonus program? Mine was basically spot bonuses, little spot bonuses for timely things, because the big cash bonuses blew up in my face. You know, i i the biggest bonus check I ever wrote. The next day he quit and created a competing agency. Now, he had planned that all along it, the bonus was only helped him do it faster, but I realized there was no appreciation for the bonuses. So stop doing that. So instead, I would bonus, reward the team with experiences rather than cash. And they the cash they got from a really, I paid over market, so that money was not an issue, and so that experiences were the memorable part and the fun part, and it helped motivate when we'd have a little contest with, you know, the wind being a dinner or whatever it was, something fun, right? Michael Hingson ** 43:00 I was, earlier today, talking with someone who's going to be a guest on the podcast. He's in Germany, and we were talking about the fact that there's a major discussion in Germany right now about the concept of a four day work week, as opposed to a five day work week, and in the four day work week. Inevitably, companies that subscribe to the four day work week have higher productivity, happier employees, and some of those companies have a four day work week with a total of 36 hours and up through a four day work week with 40 hours, which is, of course, 10 hours a day. And what he said, I asked the question, did it make a difference as to whether it was 36 or 40 hours? What he said was mainly not, because it was really about having three days with family, and that that whole mental attitude is really it that we, we have forgotten, I think, in this country, about employee loyalty so much, and we just don't see anything like what we used to see. Kent Lewis ** 44:09 100% you are correct, Michael Hingson ** 44:13 and so it is. It is an issue that people really ought to deal with in some way. But you know now the new chancellor in Germany wants to go back to a five day work week, just completely ignoring all the statistics and what's shown. So the discussion is ongoing over there. I'll be interested to see how it goes. Kent Lewis ** 44:36 Yeah, yeah, totally. I would be in Troy. Yeah. We know for whatever reason, for whatever reason that they've you know that well, I guess it kind of makes sense. But you know, you wouldn't think you could be more productive fewer days a week, but the research is showing that these people, that you know, that the like the Northern Europeans, are the, you know, Finnish and Scandinavians are like the half. People on the planet, despite not being in maybe the friendliest climate, you know, 12 months of the year because of a lot of how they value, you know, work life balance and all of that. And I think that's the thing, you know, we we came from an industrial age where unions got us the weekends off. You know, it's a very different we've come a long way, but there's still a lot more to go, so I, I will be interested to see what happens with the with that concept that four day work week. Michael Hingson ** 45:26 Well, the other part about it is we had the pandemic, and one of the things that came out of the pandemic, at least, I think, in the minds of a lot of employees, was even working at home, and having to do that, you still got to spend more time with family and people value that. Now I don't know how over time that's going to work, because I know there's been a lot of advocating to go back to just everybody always being in the office, but it seems to me that the better environment would be a hybrid environment, where, if somebody can work at home and do at least as well as they do at the office. Why wouldn't you allow that? Kent Lewis ** 46:04 Right? Yeah, I think it's that's the other thing is, I do believe hybrid work is the best solution. We were doing three three days, two days in the office, required, one day, optional flex. I ended up going in most days of the week before I, you know, even after we sold and we sell at the office, because I like, I'm a social being, and I really enjoyed the time at the office. And it was, it was, I designed the space, and it was, you know, as my place, and it was my home away from home, you know. So I feel like I've lost a little bit of my identity, losing that office. Yeah, so, but yeah, I do think that it makes sense to be able to do remote work, whatever, wherever people are most effective. But I do know there is a reality that companies are fully remote have a struggle to create cohesiveness and connectiveness across distributed teams. It's just it's just science, right? Psychology, but you can be very intentional to mitigate as much as you can the downside of remote and then play up as much as you can the benefits of remote people having their life and they see, on average, I heard that people valued their remote work about to worth about $6,000 on average, that there's a number that they've quantified. Michael Hingson ** 47:21 Wow. Well, I know I've worked in offices, but I've also done a lot of work at home. So for example, I had a job back in the late 1970s and worked and lived in Massachusetts until 1981 and the company I worked for was being pursued by Xerox. And the the assumption was that Xerox was going to buy the company. So I was asked to relocate back out to California, where I had grown up, and help integrate the company into Xerox. And so I did. And so that was the first time I really worked mostly out of home and remotely from an office. And did that for two and a half, almost, well, a little over two and a half years. And my thanks for it was I was terminated because we had a recession and the big issue really was, though, that Xerox had bought the company and phased out all the people in sales because they didn't want the people. They just wanted the technology. And I've always believed that's a big mistake, because the tribal knowledge that people have is not something that you're going to get any other place. Totally, totally agree. But anyway, that occurred, and then I couldn't find a job, because the unemployment rate among employable blind people was so high, since people didn't believe blind people could work. So I ended up starting my own company selling computer aided design systems, CAD systems, to architects. Some of the early PC based CAD systems. Sold them to architects and engineers and so on. So I did have an office. We started, I started it with someone else, and had an office for four years, and then decided I had enough of owning my own company for a while, and went to work for someone else, and again, worked in an office and did that for seven years. Yeah, about seven years, and then I ended up in at the end of that, or the later part of that time, I was asked to relocate now back to the East Coast, because I was selling to Wall Street and New York and Wall Street firms really want, even though they might buy from resellers and so on, they want company, companies that make products to have them an office that they can deal with. So I ended up going back and mostly worked out of the office. But then, um. I left that company in 1997 and it was, it was a little bit different, because I was, I I had my own office, and I was the only person in it for a little while. We did have some engineers, but we all kind of worked in the office and sometimes at home. But for me, the real time of working at home happened in 2008 I was working at a nonprofit and also traveling and speaking, and the people who ran the nonprofit said, nobody's interested in September 11 anymore. And you know, you're you're not really adding any value to what we do, so we're going to phase out your job. Yeah, nobody was interested in September 11. And three years later, we had a number one New York Times bestseller, but anyway, your face yeah, so I ended up opening the Michael Hinkson Group Inc, and working out of home, and I've been doing that ever since. I enjoy working in an office. But I can work at home and I can, I can adapt. So my exposure to people and working not at home is when I travel and speak and get to go visit people and interact with them and so on. So it works out Kent Lewis ** 51:05 that's, that's fantastic, congratulations. That's awesome. Michael Hingson ** 51:10 It is, it is, you know, sometimes a challenge, but it works. So for you, what is your philosophy? You obviously do a lot of giving back to the community nowadays, is that something that has kind of grown over time, or you always had that? Or what's your philosophy regarding that? Kent Lewis ** 51:29 So I I believe that, as I mentioned, I believe earlier that learn and return us. I believe that you should giving, giving back your entire life, as soon as you're able to, in whatever way. And so I, you know, when I first moved to Portland, I barely knew anybody. I was volunteering at this local neighborhood house where it was, you know, as tutoring this kid, and ironically, in math. And I'm terrible at math. Then I went to Big Brothers, Big Sisters for a while, and then I for the last 19 for last 25 years, I've been a volunteer, and for eight or nine of those years, I was on the board of smart reading. It's a, it's a, it's not a literacy program in that you're not teaching kids to read. You're teaching kids a love of reading. So you just sit with, you know, title, title, one school kindergarteners in an area near you, and you sit and read with them for 10 to 15 minutes, that's it. And it's a game changer, because some of them didn't own any books. And then they get to take books home with them, you know, like scholastic style books. So anyway, I I decided, of all, like I have friends, that their their passion is pets, others, it's like forests or planet or whatever. To me, I think I can, I can solve all of those problems if I invest in children, because they're shaping our future, and we can put them on a trajectory. So for instance, statistically, prison capacity is based on third grade reading levels in blue. So if you're if you can't learn to read, you can't read to learn, so you need to have a be a proficient reader by third grade, or you're left behind, and you're more likely, 10 times more likely, to be in the system, and you know, not in a good way. So I realized, well, if I can help these kids with a love of reading, I was, I was slow to learn reading myself. I realized that maybe we, you know that one kid that you find a love of reading, that finds books they love and is inspired by the books and continues to read and have a successful educational career, then that's that person may go on to solve cancer or world hunger or whatever it is. So that's kind of how I look at so that's my theory in general about giving. And then specifically my passion is children. So that's kind of my thing, and I think there are a lot of different ways to do it. Last night, I was at my wife's auction or the fundraiser for her nonprofit, which is around the foster system. It's called Casa court, important court, court appointed special advocate. So these kids in the foster system have an advocate, that that's not a lawyer or a caseworker, you know, by their side through the legal system. And I think that's a fantastic cause. It aligns with my children cause. And I was, I had seven my parents fostered seven daughters, you know, Daughters of other people, and the last two were very that I remember were transformative for me as an only child, to have a sister, you know, foster sister that was living with us for, in one case, two years. And it was invaluable and helpful to me. She helped me find my love of reading, helped me learn my multiplication tables, all that things that your parents might be able to do, but it's so much cooler doing with somebody that's, you know, I think she was 17 when she moved into our house, and I was, like, nine, and she was so helpful to me, so inspiring. So in a nutshell, that's, that's what we're talking about Michael Hingson ** 54:55 when you talk talk about reading. I'm of the opinion and one of the best. Things that ever happened to reading was Harry Potter. Just the number of people, number of kids who have enjoyed reading because they got to read the Harry Potter books. I think that JK Rowling has brought so many kids to reading. It's incredible. Kent Lewis ** 55:14 Yeah, yeah. 100% 100% I Yeah. I think that even you may, you know, you may or may not like rolling, but I as a person, but she did an amazing thing and made reading fun, and that that's what matters, yeah, you know, Michael Hingson ** 55:33 yeah, well, and that's it, and then she's just done so much for for children and adults. For that matter, I talked to many adults who've read the books, and I've read all the books. I've read them several times, actually, yeah, now I'm spoiled. I read the audio versions read by Jim Dale, and one of my favorite stories about him was that he was in New York and was going to be reading a part of the latest Harry Potter book on September 11, 2001 in front of scholastic when, of course, everything happened. So he didn't do it that day, but he was in New York. What a you know, what a time to be there. That's fantastic. But, you know, things happen. So you one of the things that I've got to believe, and I think that you've made abundantly clear, is that the kind of work you do, the PR, the marketing, and all of that kind of interaction is a very time consuming, demanding job. How do you deal with work and family and make all of that function and work? Well, Kent Lewis ** 56:41 good question. I, I believe that that the, well, two things you have to have, you know, discipline, right? And so what I've done is really focused on managing my time very, very carefully, and so I have now keep in mind my oldest, I have three kids, one's graduating college as a senior, one's a sophomore who will be a junior next next year, and then The last is a sophomore in high school, so I'm there at ages where two are out of the house, so that's a little easier to manage, right? So there's that, but similarly, I try to maximize my time with my youngest and and with my wife, you know, I built in, you know, it was building in date nights, because it's easy to get into a rut where you don't want to leave the house or don't want to do whatever. And I found that it's really been good for our relationship at least once a month. And so far, it's been more like almost twice a month, which has been huge and awesome. But I've just intentional with my time, and I make sure 360 I take care of myself, which is typically working out between an hour and an hour and a half a day that I'm I really need to work on my diet, because I love burgers and bourbon and that's in moderation, perhaps sustainable, but I need to eat more veggies and less, you know, less garbage. But I also have been at the gym. I go in the Steam Room and the sauna, and I'm fortunate to have a hot tub, so I try to relax my body is after my workouts, I've been sleeping more since covid, so I work out more and sleep and sleep more post covid. And because I'm working from home, it's really I find it much easier to get up and take breaks or to, you know, just to manage my time. I'm not traveling like I used to, right? That's a, that's a big factor. So, so anyway, that's, that's kind of my take on that. I don't know if that really helps, but that's, that's kind of where I'm at. Michael Hingson ** 58:59 The other part about it, though, is also to have the discipline to be able to be at home and work when you know you have to work, and yeah, you get to take more breaks and so on, but still developing the discipline to work and also to take that time is extremely important. I think a lot of people haven't figured out how to do that Kent Lewis ** 59:19 right exactly, and that is so I do have an immense amount of, I do have an immense amount of, what would you say discipline? And so I don't know, yeah, I don't have that problem with getting the work done. In fact, my discipline is knowing when to stop, because I get into it, and I want to get things done, and I want to get it off my plate, so I tend to do sprints. But the other lesson I have from covid is listening to your biorhythms. So, you know, we're a time based society, and we look, you don't want to be late for this and that I you know, that's great, fine. But what's really more important in my mind is, um. Is to, is to be thinking about, is to let your body tell you when it's tired, if and and more importantly, is to not stress about in the mornings when I wake up early. By that, I mean between four and 6am before I really want to get up at 630 and I just if I'm awake, then I'll write stuff down to get it out of my head, or I will just start doing my start my day early and and not stress about, oh, I didn't get enough sleep. My body will catch up, yeah, it will tell me to go to bed early, or I'll sleep better the next day, or whatever it is. So that was important, and also to learn that I'm most I can get a lot of tasks done in the morning. And I think bigger picture, and that's what, that's why I wake up early, is all the things I need to do that I forgot. I didn't write down or whatever, and I think of them at between four and 6am but the other is that I do my best writing in the afternoon, like between four and six. So I told my, my wife and my, you know, my my kids, you know, my first figures out when they were both in the House. I was like, I may be working late, jamming out an article or doing whatever right before dinner, or I might be a little late. Can we can wait for dinner for a little bit? They're like, Yeah, that's fine. We don't care, right? So, but normally I'd be like, I gotta get home because it's dinner time. But now that I'm already home, I just keep working through, and then, and then, oh, I can take a quick break. But my point is, they're totally adaptable. Michael Hingson ** 1:01:27 But you communicate, yes, communication issue is key. Is key, absolutely. That's really the issues that you do communicate. Kent Lewis ** 1:01:36 It's all about setting expectations. And they had no expectations other than eating dinner. And we've been eating dinner later. Just, just a natural evolution. So it's not, it's not even an issue now, because I don't want to, I don't want to, what, right? What? Late at night, I just found it late afternoon, I just in a zone. Anyway, yeah, you listen to your body, and I'm way less stressed because I'm not worried about, oh my god, I have to get to bed at a certain time or wake up at a certain time. It's like, just kind of run with it, you know, and and go from there. So what's next for you? What's next? So I want to shift from going from speaking for free to speaking for a fee. There you go. And the re the reason why is I never asked for, and I'd even waive, you know, honorarium or pay because I got more value out of the leads. But now that I don't have an agency to represent, two things. One is, I want to get paid to do my employee engagement retention talks, because it's I'm getting great feedback on it, which is fun. But I also am being paid now by other agencies, a day rate, plus travel to go speak at the conferences. I've always spoken on that like me and want me and I just represent. I just changed the name that I'm representing. That's it, you know, Michael Hingson ** 1:02:56 well, and there's value in it. I realized some time ago, and I k

Carry On Don't Lose Your Head!

For Screen and Country

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 30, 2025 65:00

Junehead continues? What? How? With a movie with the word "head" in the title, of course! The fellas return to the Carry On series with Don't Lose Your Head! Is it racist? Is it funny? Does it have a lot of fourth wall breaking? Find out inside! Next week: Trumpets! Questions? Comments? Suggestions? You can always shoot us an e-mail at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠forscreenandcountry@gmail.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Full List: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/war-movies/the-100-greatest-war-movies-of-all-time⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Facebook: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/forscreenandcountry⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.twitter.com/fsacpo⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠d⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Our logo was designed by the wonderful Mariah Lirette (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://instagram.com/its.mariah.xo⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠) Carry On Don't Lose Your Head stars Sid James, Kenneth Williams, Charles Hawtrey, Peter Butterworth, Jim Dale, Dany Robin and Joan Sims; directed by Gerald Thomas. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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One Page at a Time: Book 4, Page 231

The Real Weird Sisters: A Harry Potter Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 14, 2025 62:25

Alice and Martha discuss page 231 of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Alice gets to practice long-form Jim Dale impressions, Barty Crouch Jr. gets to make some weird decisions as Moody, and Harry's at of defiance has the potential to become a pretty sick meme. Please consider supporting us on Patreon! www.patreon.com/realweirdsisters New episodes are released every Monday and special topics shows are released periodically. Don't forget to subscribe to our show to make sure you never miss an episode!

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Book Besties Season 8 Episode 7: A Tempest of Tea

Book Besties

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 18, 2025 69:14

Book Besties Season 8 Episode 7: A Tempest of TeaWelcome back, Besties! This week the Besties take on the YA paranormal fantasy book A Tempest of Tea by Hafsah Faizal. Join us as we talk about world building and book maps, books that break the formula, and speculate wildly about the sequel. Things talked about in this episode:Hafsah Faizal: https://www.hafsahfaizal.com/ Spindrift Sparkling Water: https://drinkspindrift.com/ Harry Potter is narrated by Jim Dale in the US version and Steven Fry in the UK: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Narrator Emma Barry: https://authoremmabarry.com/ Book Besties Patreon: patreon.com/BookBestiesPodcast Meet Molly and April, they bonded over books and became Book Besties. So, what do you do when you find your book bestie? Start a podcast of course. Hang out with April and Molly as they talk about everything they love and hate about books.

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Be Our Guest with Scott Logsdon and Aaron Gandy

Musical Theatre Radio presents "Be Our Guest"

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 15, 2024 46:07

SCOTT LOGSDON has written the book/lyrics for STICKS & STONES (with composer John McDaniel) which had a premiere concert starred Audra McDonald, Javier Muñoz, and George Salazar for Lady Gaga's Born This Way Foundation/BC/EFA; 12 DAYS TILL CHRISTMAS (with composer Dana P. Rowe, currently in development as a film with Jerry Mitchell attached); JOYCE JACKSON'S GUIDE TO DATING, (with composer Steve Marzullo) which premiered in Orlando and was seen in concert at 54 Below; AN AMERICAN COUNTRY CHRISTMAS CAROL (with various CMA winning and nominated composers) THE CRINOLYNNS and LOVE (r)EVOLUTION, a song cycle covering 120 years of LGBTQIA+ history, both written with Aaron Gandy. Both STICKS & STONES and JOYCE JACKSON won the Florida Theatrical Association's New Musical Discovery Competition. JOYCE was featured in the NAMT Composer's Concert Series and was a finalist for Richard Rodgers/ Jonathan Larson Awards. Scott has written Broadway specialty lyrics for Roundabout Theater Company's Tribute to Alec Baldwin (directed by Scott Ellis) and the GYPSY OF THE YEAR Competition for the LES MISERABLES company, as well as for notable performers including Jason Alexander. Logsdon was vetted by the Cole Porter estate to rewrite lyrics for the documentary, Fabulously Fake: The Real Life of Kenneth Jay Lane. With Dana P. Rowe, he wrote the theme song for the series Stars In the House. His non-musical plays include THE BOIS (an all-male, contemporary take on the classic play THE WOMEN), which received a staged reading at the Abbey in Orlando, and THE MOURNING AFTER (a dark comedy.) As an actor, he was an originating cast member in the LES MISÉRABLES national company. He's been seen in such roles as Thenardier, Sweeney Todd, Billy Bigelow, Che, El Gallo, and King Herod. He has performed across North America as a soloist with symphonies and as a guest star in the award-winning Sondheim Unplugged at 54 Below in New York City. His many directing credits include CHESS, THE FANTASTICKS, DRIVING MISS DAISY, THE GLASS MENAGERIE, and the southeastern premiere of SECRETS EVERY SMART TRAVELER SHOULD KNOW. He holds a degree in musical theatre from Shenandoah Conservatory and received a Distinguished Alumni Award for work in the field of musical theatre. Aaron Gandy A specialist in American musical theater and American popular song, Aaron Gandy's concerts and recordings embrace the best of Broadway from Kern to Lloyd-Webber, while encompassing Swing, Jazz and the golden age of Hollywood. Recent recordings include the all-star Jule Styne In Hollywood (PS Classics) and the upcoming Busker Alley (Jay Records). In 2004 he conducted the premiere recording of Kay Swift's Fine & Dandy on PS Classics featuring Broadway's Carolee Carmello and HBO's Mario Cantone. Upcoming recordings include Alec Wilder's Miss Chicken Little (originally broadcast on CBS television in 1953) and a restoration of Walter Donaldson's jazz-age romp Whoopee! Regarded as a leading authority on composer Vincent Youmans, Mr. Gandy restored and conducted the premiere recording of Youmans' final Broadway score Through the Years starring Metropolitan Opera Soprano Heidi Grant Murphy. Mr. Gandy restored the original film orchestrations for Rodgers & Hammerstein's The King and I, and Irving Berlin's White Christmas. His restoration of the original film orchestrations for Rodgers & Hammerstein's Oklahoma! was performed by the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra in 1997. Mr. Gandy's Broadway credits include Disney's The Lion King, Urinetown, and Dora the Explorer Live! at Radio City Music Hall. He has concertized with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, The Chicago Humanities Festival, 42nd Street Moon, Cami Hall, San Francisco's 42nd Street Moon, The Museum of Television and Radio, Symphony Space, Tribeca Performing Arts Center and solo appearances with Davis Gaines, Leslie Uggams, Christianne Noll, Jerry Hadley, Jim Dale, Dick Hyman, Lainie Kazan and Glenn Close.

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Jim Dale, Expert on Marketing and Communications | The Jeff Crilley Show

The Jeff Crilley Show

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 28, 2024 20:23

At my heart, I'm a storyteller. That's what I've done throughout my professional career, first in news and now in public relations and podcasting. I love to interview other professional storytellers. And I can't think of a better person to introduce you to right now than Jim Dale. He's an expert in marketing and communications.

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Do wind farms have an effect on the weather?

Question of the Week - From the Naked Scientists

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 20, 2024 4:39

Thanks to Jim Dale for the answer! Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

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What are the carbon emissions of wildfires?

Question of the Week - From the Naked Scientists

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 16, 2024 3:46

This week, Jon wants to know, in the wake of wildfires across the world in recent years, should we be concerned about their carbon footprint? James Tytko asked Jim Dale from British Weather Services for the answer... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

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Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: Ch 21-24

Harry Potter and the First Time Readers

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 21, 2024 52:52

Chapter 21 - The Eye of the SnakeʹOi!ʹ bellowed Ron, finally losing patience and sticking his head out of the window, ʹI am a prefect and if one more snowball hits this window—OUCH!ʹ He withdrew his head sharply, his face covered in snow. ʹItʹs Fred and George,ʹ he said bitterly, slamming the window behind him. ʹGits…ʹ ʹDonʹ worry, it wonʹ hurt yen,ʹ said Hagrid patiently. ʹRighʹ, now, who can tell me why some oʹ yeh can see ʹem anʹ some canʹt?ʹ Hermione raised her hand. ʹGo on then,ʹ said Hagrid, beaming at her. The only people who can see Thestrals,ʹ she said, ʹare people who have seen death.ʹ Thaʹs exactly right,ʹ said Hagrid solemnly, ʹten points ter Gryffindor. Now, Thestrals— ʹHem, hem.ʹ Professor Umbridge had arrived.Q1 - What do you think of ThestralsQ2 - Is Umbridge still okay after this?ʹYou can see the Thestrals, Longbottom, can you?ʹ she said. Neville nodded. ʹWho did you see die?ʹ she asked, her tone indifferent. ʹMy… my grandad,ʹ said Neville.Q3 - Harry is going to the Burrow for Christmas…what's the most memorable Christmas you've had?ʹWell,ʹ said Angelina dully, pulling off her cloak and throwing it into a corner, ʹweʹve finally replaced you.ʹ ʹReplaced me?ʹ said Harry blankly. ʹYou and Fred and George,ʹ she said impatiently. ʹWeʹve got another Seeker!ʹ ʹWho?ʹ said Harry quickly. ʹGinny Weasley,ʹ said Katie.Q4 - You think Ginny will be good at Quidditch?Q5 - When Cho was hanging back during the DA meeting, did you know everything that was going to happen, like Hermione did, or were you oblivious like Ron.ʹWell?ʹ Ron said finally, looking up at Harry. ʹHow was it?ʹ Harry considered for a moment. ʹWet,ʹ he said truthfully. Ron made a noise that might have indicated jubilation or disgust, it was hard to tell. ʹBecause she was crying,ʹ Harry continued heavily. ʹOh,ʹ said Ron, his smile fading slightly. ʹAre you that bad at kissing?ʹʹWell, obviously, sheʹs feeling very sad, because of Cedric dying. Then I expect sheʹs feeling confused because she liked Cedric and now she likes Harry, and she canʹt work out who she likes best. Then sheʹll be feeling guilty, thinking itʹs an insult to Cedricʹs memory to be kissing Harry at all, and sheʹll be worrying about what everyone else might say about her if she starts going out with Harry. And she probably canʹt work out what her feelings towards Harry are, anyway, because he was the one who was with Cedric when Cedric died, so thatʹs all very mixed up and painful. Oh, and sheʹs afraid sheʹs going to be thrown off the Ravenclaw Quidditch team because sheʹs been flying so badly.ʹ A slightly stunned silence greeted the end of this speech, then Ron said, ʹOne person canʹt feel all that at once, theyʹd explode.ʹ ʹJust because youʹve got the emotional range of a teaspoon doesnʹt mean we all have,ʹ said Hermione nastily picking up her quill again.Q6 - Is Hermione the best?He had to tell Ron, it was very important that he tell him… taking great gulps of air, Harry pushed himself up in bed, willing himself not to throw up again, the pain half‐blinding him. ʹYour dad,ʹ he panted, his chest heaving. ʹYour dadʹs… been attacked…ʹ ʹWhat?ʹ said Ron uncomprehendingly. ʹYour dad! Heʹs been bitten, itʹs serious, there was blood everywhere…ʺ Q7 - Was this dream real?ʹNo!ʹ said Harry angrily; would none of them understand? ʹI was having a dream at first about something completely different, something stupid… and then this interrupted it. It was real, I didnʹt imagine it. Mr Weasley was asleep on the floor and he was attacked by a gigantic snake, there was a load of blood, he collapsed, someoneʹs got to find out where he is…ʹ Professor McGonagall was gazing at him through her lopsided spectacles as though horrified at what she was seeing. ʹIʹm not lying and Iʹm not mad!ʹ Harry told her, his voice rising to a shout. ʹI tell you, I saw it happen!ʹ ʹI believe you, Potter,ʹ said Professor McGonagall curtly. ʹPut on your dressing gown—weʹre going to see the Headmaster.ʹQ8 - Was Harry the snake or was he watching the whole thing happen?Chapter 22 - St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and InjuriesProfessor McGonagall rapped three times with the griffin knocker and the voices ceased abruptly as though someone had switched them all off. The door opened of its own accord and Professor McGonagall led Harry and Ron inside.Q1 - What are those voices? And what are they talking about?ʹHow did you see this?ʹ Dumbledore asked quietly, still not looking at Harry. ʹWell… I donʹt know,ʹ said Harry, rather angrily ‐ what did it matter? ʹInside my head, I suppose—” ʹYou misunderstand me,ʹ said Dumbledore, still in the same calm tone. ʹI mean… can you remember —er— where you were positioned as you watched this attack happen? Were you perhaps standing beside the victim, or else looking down on the scene from above?ʹ This was such a curious question that Harry gaped at Dumbledore; it was almost as though he knew…Q2 - What does Dumbledore know?Q3 - Dumbledore tells Fawkes that they will need a warning…what is he talking about?The instrument tinkled into life at once with rhythmic clinking noises. Tiny puffs of pale green smoke issued from the minuscule silver tube at the top. Dumbledore watched the smoke closely, his brow furrowed. After a few seconds, the tiny puffs became a steady stream of smoke that thickened and coiled in the air… a serpentʹs head grew out of the end of it, opening its mouth wide. Harry wondered whether the instrument was confirming his story: he looked eagerly at Dumbledore for a sign that he was right, but Dumbledore did not look up. ʹNaturally, naturally,ʹ murmured Dumbledore apparently to himself, still observing the stream of smoke without the slightest sign of surprise. ʹBut in essence divided?ʹ Harry could make neither head nor tail of this question. The smoke serpent, however, split itself instantly into two snakes, both coiling and undulating in the dark air. With a look of grim satisfaction, Dumbledore gave the instrument another gentle tap with his wand: the clinking noise slowed and died and the smoke serpents grew faint, became a formless haze and vanished.Q4 - What does Dumbledore mean, in essence divided? What is happening here?ʹYour father has been injured in the course of his work for the Order of the Phoenix,ʹ said Dumbledore, before Harry could speak. ʹHe has been taken to St Mungoʹs Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. I am sending you back to Siriusʹs house, which is much more convenient for the hospital than The Burrow. You will meet your mother there.ʹ ʹHowʹre we going?ʹ asked Fred, looking shaken. Floo powder?ʹ ʹNo,ʹ said Dumbledore, Floo powder is not safe at the moment, the Network is being watched. You will be taking a Portkey.ʹ He indicated the old kettle lying innocently on his desk. ʹWe are just waiting for Phineas Nigellus to report back… I want to be sure that the coast is clear before sending you—” There was a flash of flame in the very middle of the office, leaving behind a single golden feather that floated gently to the floor. ʹIt is Fawkesʹs warning,ʹ said Dumbledore, catching the feather as it fell. ʹProfessor Umbridge must know youʹre out of your beds… Minerva, go and head her off—tell her any story.”ʹQ5 - Does it scare you that Dumbledore is being this intense?It happened in a fraction of a second: in the infinitesimal pause before Dumbledore said ʹthreeʹ, Harry looked up at him—they were very close together—and Dumbledoreʹs clear blue gaze moved from the Portkey to Harryʹs face. At once, Harryʹs scar burned white-hot, as though the old wound had burst open again ‐ and unbidden, unwanted, but terrifyingly strong, there rose within Harry a hatred so powerful he felt, for that instant, he would like nothing better than to strike—to bite—to sink his fangs into the man before him — ʹ… three.ʹ Q6 - What is going on here?Q7 - Do you side with Sirius or the Weasleys wanting to go see their dad?If Harry had ever sat through a longer night than this one, he could not remember it. Sirius suggested once, without any real conviction, that they all go to bed, but the Weasleysʹ looks of disgust were answer enough. They mostly sat in silence around the table, watching the candle wick sinking lower and lower into liquid wax, occasionally raising a bottle to their lips, speaking only to check the time, to wonder aloud what was happening, and to reassure each other that if there was bad news, they would know straightaway, for Mrs Weasley must long since have arrived at St Mungoʹs.Q8 - Maybe this is too personal but have you ever had a moment of waiting for bad news like this?Fred fell back into his chair with his hands over his face. George and Ginny got up, walked swiftly over to their mother and hugged her. Ron gave a very shaky laugh and downed the rest of his Butterbeer in one. ʹBreakfast!ʹ said Sirius loudly and joyfully, jumping to his feet. ʹWhereʹs that accursed house‐elf? Kreacher! KREACHER!ʹ But Kreacher did not answer the summons. ʹOh, forget it, then,ʹ muttered Sirius, counting the people in front of him. ʹSo, itʹs breakfast for— letʹs see— seven… bacon and eggs, I think, and some tea, and toast—”ʹBut thatʹs not all,ʹ said Harry, in a voice only a little above a whisper. ʹSirius, I… I think Iʹm going mad. Back in Dumbledoreʹs office, just before we took the Portkey… for a couple of seconds there I thought I was a snake, I felt like one ‐ my scar really hurt when I was looking at Dumbledore ‐ Sirius, I wanted to attack him!ʹ He could only see a sliver of Siriuss face; the rest was in darkness. ʹIt must have been the aftermath of the vision, thatʹs all,ʹ said Sirius. ʹYou were still thinking of the dream or whatever it was and—” ʹIt wasnʹt that,ʹ said Harry, shaking his head, ʹit was like something rose up inside me, like thereʹs a snake inside me.ʹ Q9 - What do you think is happening here?ARTEFACT ACCIDENTS… Ground floor Cauldron explosion, wand backfiring, broom crashes, etc. CREATURE‐INDUCED INJURIES… First floor Bites, stings, burns, embedded spines, etc. MAGICAL BUGS… Second floor Contagious maladies, e.g. dragon pox, vanishing sickness, scrojungulus, etc. POTION AND PLANT POISONING… Third floor Rashes, regurgitation, uncontrollable 2, etc. SPELL DAMAGE… Fourth floor Unliftable jinxes, hexes, incorrectly applied charms, etc. VISITORSʹ TEAROOM / HOSPITAL SHOP… Fifth floorQ10 - What floor would you want to work on?Q11 - What was Mr Weasley guarding?ʹCourse heʹs worried,ʹ growled Moody. ʹThe boyʹs seeing things from inside You- Know-Who's snake. Obviously, Potter doesnʹt realize what that means, but if You-Know-Who's possessing him —ʹQ12 - What does this mean?Chapter 23 - Christmas on the Closed WardQ1 - What is Voldemort after? Is Harry really the weapon?ʹYou know,ʹ said Phineas Nigellus, even more loudly than Harry ʹthis is precisely why I loathed being a teacher! Young people are so infernally convinced that they are absolutely right about everything. Has it not occurred to you, my poor puffed‐up popinjay, that there might be an excellent reason why the Headmaster of Hogwarts is not confiding every tiny detail of his plans to you? Have you never paused, while feeling hard‐done‐by, to note that following Dumbledore's orders has never yet led you into harm? No. No, like all young people, you are quite sure that you alone feel and think, you alone recognise danger, you alone are the only one clever enough to realize what the Dark Lord may be planning—”Q2 - Is Dumbledore right to keep his secrets?The feeling of being unclean intensified. He half-wished he had not obeyed Dumbledore… if this was how life was going to be for him in Grimmauld Place from now on, maybe he would be better off in Privet Drive after all.Q3 - Is it crazy to you that Harry would rather be back with the Dursleys now?Q4 - It's great that Hermione comes, but is she being a bad kid to her parents?ʹWell, that was a bit stupid of you,ʹ said Ginny angrily, ʹseeing as you donʹt know anyone but me whoʹs been possessed by You‐Know‐Who, and I can tell you how it feels.ʹ Harry remained quite still as the impact of these words hit him. Then he wheeled round. ʹI forgot,ʹ he said. ʹLucky you,ʹ said Ginny coolly.Q5 - What's the best gift you've ever given?Thanks for the book, Harryʹ she said happily. ʹIʹve been wanting that New Theory on Numerology for ages! And that perfumeʹs really unusual, Ron.ʹ Q6 - Thoughts on Ron giving Hermione perfume?Q7 - One of the healers thought Ron had Spattergroit…do you think he does?Q8 - What do you think about them seeing Lockhart again?ʹWhat?ʹ said Ron, looking amazed. (Harry wanted to stamp on Ronʹs foot, but that sort of thing is much harder to bring off unnoticed when youʹre wearing jeans rather than robes.) ʹIs that your dad down the end, Neville?ʹ ʹWhatʹs this?ʹ said Mrs Longbottom sharply. ʹHavenʹt you told your friends about your parents, Neville?ʹ Neville took a deep breath, looked up at the ceiling and shook his head. Harry could not remember ever feeling sorrier for anyone, but he could not think of any way of helping Neville out of the situation. ʹWell, itʹs nothing to be ashamed of!ʹ said Mrs Longbottom angrily. ʹYou should be proud, Neville, proud. They didnʹt give their health and their sanity so their only son would be ashamed of them, you know!ʹ ʹIʹm not ashamed,ʹ said Neville, very faintly, still looking anywhere but at Harry and the others. Ron was now standing on tiptoe to look over at the inhabitants of the two beds.Q9 - What do you think of the group meeting Neville here?Nevilleʹs mother had come edging down the ward in her nightdress. She no longer had the plump, happy‐looking face Harry had seen in Moodyʹs old photograph of the original Order of the Phoenix. Her face was thin and worn now, her eyes seemed overlarge and her hair, which had turned white, was wispy and dead‐looking. She did not seem to want to speak, or perhaps she was not able to, but she made timid motions towards Neville, holding something in her outstretched hand. ʹAgain?ʹ said Mrs Longbottom, sounding slightly weary. ʹVery well, Alice dear, very well ‐ Neville, take it, whatever it is.ʹ But Neville had already stretched out his hand, into which his mother dropped an empty Droobleʹs Best Blowing Gum wrapper. ʹVery nice, dear,ʹ said Nevilleʹs grandmother in a falsely cheery voice, patting his mother on the shoulder. But Neville said quietly, Thanks, Mum.ʹ His mother tottered away, back up the ward, humming to herself. Neville looked around at the others, his expression defiant, as though daring them to laugh, but Harry did not think heʹd ever found anything less funny in his life. ʹWell, weʹd better get back,ʹ sighed Mrs Longbottom, drawing on long green gloves. ʹVery nice to have met you all. Neville, put that wrapper in the bin, she must have given you enough of them to paper your bedroom by now.ʹ But as they left, Harry was sure he saw Neville slip the sweet wrapper into his pocket.Q10 - What do you think of Neville after this?Chapter 24 - OcclumencyQ1 - What is Kreacher up to?“Occlumency, Potter. The magical defense of the mind against external penetration. An obscure branch of magic, but a highly useful one.”Q2 - Thoughts on Occlumency?Q3 - What's in the package that Sirius gave Harry?Q4 - What's the best story you have of asking someone on a date?“Only muggles talk of ‘mind reading.' The mind is not a book, to be opened at will and examined at leisure, Thoughts are not etched on the inside of skulls, to be perused by any invader. The mind is a complex and many-layered thing, Potter — or at least most minds are.” He smirked. “It is true, however, that those who have mastered Legilimency are able, under certain conditions, to delve into the minds of their victims and to interpret their findings correctly. The Dark Lord, for instance, almost always knows when somebody is lying to him. Only those skilled at Occlumency are able to shut down those feelings and memories that contradict the lie, and so can utter falsehoods in his presence without detection.”Q5 - Would you want to be good at Occlumency or Legilimency?“Then you will find yourself easy prey for the Dark Lord!" said Snape savagely. "Fools who wear their hearts proudly on their sleeves, who cannot control their emotions, who wallow in sad memories and allow themselves to be provoked so easily - weak people, in other words - they stand no chance against his powers! He will penetrate your mind with absurd ease, Potter!”Q6 - Would you be good at controlling your emotions like this?Q7 - What's in the department of mysteries?Q8 - Why is Snape hiding his memories?Q9 - Why is Voldemort so happy at the end of this chapter?

Penmanship and The Revolver

Drep and Stone

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 12, 2024 35:45

The Summer of Cocktails continues as we mix and sample The Revolver while discussing Jim Dale reading Harry Potter, concern for Nick's beard, expressing an orange, dark after dinner cocktail, Val Kilmer as Doc Holiday with a Coupe Glass, journaling, penmanship, content and flourish, growing up in an era when cursive was important, legibility, writing in all caps, and approaching penmanship from an artist's mind versus a writer's mind. The Revolver: 2 oz bourbon 3/4 oz coffee liquor Splash of Gran Marnier Couple of dashes of orange bitters orange peel Shake first two ingredients with ice. Pour into coupe glass, float Gran Marnier, garnish with an expressed orange peel. Flaviar.com Promo Code: DSP10 for $10 off RationAle Promo Code: WELCOME25- 25% discount on an order of 2 or more 6 packs! Support Us On Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/DrepandStone We'd love to hear from you! https://linktr.ee/DrepandStone Don't forget to subscribe! Music by @joakimkarudmusic Episode #246

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Neville Longbottom: Character Study, Part 7

The Real Weird Sisters: A Harry Potter Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 8, 2024 70:02

Alice, Martha, and Jim Dale are back to finish discussing Neville. In the seventh book, Neville becomes--there's no other word for it--cool. As usual, this is obvious to readers through his long hair, his casual demeanor, and his habit of calling people by the first syllable of their name. Neville's arc is one of the best of the series, and Alice and Martha do take a break from mocking him to praise his final moments. Please consider supporting us on Patreon! www.patreon.com/realweirdsistersNew episodes are released every Monday and special topics shows are released periodically. Don't forget to subscribe to our show to make sure you never miss an episode!

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Ep 231: "Pete's Dragon (1977)" Revisited

Old Roommates

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 20, 2024 74:24

He had the head of a camel and the neck of a crocodile, but back in 1977, the one thing Pete's Dragon didn't have was much love from the critics. For all its star power, courtesy of Helen Reddy, Shelley Winters, Jim Dale, Red Buttons, and Mickey Rooney, the Disney live-action-meets-animated adventure did only flittering box office. But now, decades later, was the movie as misunderstood as Pete? How does the Oscar-nominated ballad “Candle on the Water” hold up against other Disney songs? And why was this flick a childhood favorite of (co-host) Brian's? The Old Roommates review “every little piece” of this boy-meets-dragon fantasy through their middle-aged lens. Listen to this.Old Roommates can be reached via email at oldroommatespod@gmail.com.Follow Old Roommates on Instagram and YouTube @OldRoommates for bonus content and please give us a rating or review!#Helen Reddy #Mickey Rooney #Jim Dale #RedButtons #shellywinters

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Hollywood Avalon, Episode 11 - Unidentified Flying Oddball

Mary Versus the Movies

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 20, 2024 5:29

From the nadir of Disney filmmaking comes yet another spin on Mark Twain's Connecticut Yankee, this time featuring Dennis Dugan as a NASA engineer accidentally sent back in time with his android twin Hermes. It's not the worst movie we've covered for the show--the supporting cast of English comedians as Arthur's court are fine--but it's not exactly Bedknobs and Broomsticks. Starring Dennis Dugan, Sheila White, Kenneth Moore, Ron Moody, and Jim Dale. Written by Don Tait and directed by Russ Mayberry. This is a preview of our latest episode from Hollywood Avalon. Join the Mary Versus the Movies patreon for $3/month to hear this entire episode and the series Hollywood Avalon, where we watch Arthurian films: https://www.patreon.com/maryvsmovies.

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How Heat Pump Chiller Manufacturers are Responding to Electrification and Decarbonization

The Engineers HVAC Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 26, 2024 7:01

In this episode, Jim Dale from LG Electronics USA shares insights into the surge in demand for heat pump chillers in the United States. The interview highlights vital points, such as the substantial increase in heat pump chiller demand, LG currently having $5,000,000 worth of heat pump chillers in stock, and the versatile applications of these products for dedicated heating, dedicated cooling, and changeover scenarios. Additionally, Jim elaborates on the benefits of employing inverter-driven chillers in mission-critical settings that rely on a backup generator. Where to find support for LG HVAC products: Insight Partners in Georgia: ⁠www.insightusa.com⁠ Hobbs & Associates in VA, TN, MD, and AL: www.hobbsassociates.com⁠ Energy Transfer Solutions in the Tri-State area of Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey: ⁠www.etshvac.com⁠ Klima New Jersey LLC: ⁠www.klimanj.com⁠ Klima New York, LLC: ⁠www.Klimany.com⁠ Etairos HVAC in Tennessee, Mississippi, and Arkansas: ⁠www.etairoshvac.com

Jim Dale and Don Pavek summarize Red Kettle Campaign

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 10, 2024

Jim Dale and Don Pavek recap the 2023 Salvation Army Red Kettle Campaign and thank the generous volunteers and donors for their support.

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The Morning Show - Don Pavek and Jim Dale on Red Kettle Campaign, 1-10-24

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Play Episode Listen Later Jan 10, 2024 14:26

Jim Dale and Don Pavek recap the 2023 Salvation Army Red Kettle Campaign and thank the generous volunteers and donors for their support.

Jim Dale of Salvation Army reports on KYMN friendly bell ringing competition, more bell ringers needed

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 22, 2023

Jim Dale of the Rice County Salvation Army Red Kettle Campaign reports on the results of the friendly bell ringing competition between two KYMN teams. There are still spots for bell ringers today and tomorrow, Dec. 22-23. Visit registertoring.com or call Jim at 715-733-0575.

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The Morning Show - Jim Dale of Rice County Salvation Army Red Kettle Campaign, 12-22-23

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Play Episode Listen Later Dec 22, 2023 7:02

Jim Dale seeking volunteers for Salvation Army Red Kettle campaign

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 13, 2023

Jim Dale, Red Kettle Campaign Coordinator for the Rice County Salvation Army, is seeking volunteers to ring bells for the red kettle campaign during the week of Christmas. Visit registertoring.com or call Jim at 715-733-0575 to schedule.

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The Morning Show - Jim Dale seeking volunteers for Salvation Army Red Kettle campaign, 12-13-23

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Play Episode Listen Later Dec 13, 2023 8:29

Rice County Sheriff Jesse Thomas and Jim Dale discuss Salvation Army Red Kettle Campaign

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 2, 2023

Rice County Sheriff Jesse Thomas and Jim Dale of the Salvation Army, talk about the services of the Salvation Army and the need for volunteers during the Red Kettle bell-ringing campaign that begins November 10. The Salvation Army’s mission emphasizes aiding the poor and people in need and offers human services through its programs, including […]

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The Morning Show - Rice County Sheriff Jesse Thomas and Jim Dale discuss Salvation Army Red Kettle Campaign, 11-2-23

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Play Episode Listen Later Nov 2, 2023 13:43

Rice County Sheriff Jesse Thomas and Jim Dale of the Salvation Army, talk about the services of the Salvation Army and the need for volunteers during the Red Kettle bell-ringing campaign that begins November 10. The Salvation Army's mission emphasizes aiding the poor and people in need and offers human services through its programs, including disaster relief and public emergency services. To volunteer, visit registertoring.com.

How do you approach life when a famous, larger than life, Oscar winning woman is your mother? LUKE YANKEE figured it out and has come into his own as a successful Producer, Director, Actor, Author, Playwright, filmmaker and so much more.

Becoming Wilkinson

Play Episode Listen Later May 28, 2023 36:04

Luke Yankee Has written, directed, produced, taught, lectured and acted throughout the country and abroad. He has run two regional theatres, serving as Producing Artistic Director of the Long Beach Civic Light Opera and the Struthers Library theatre.Luke's published plays include THE LAST LIFEBOAT and A PLACE AT FOREST LAWN, both published by Dramatists Play Service. His other plays include THE JESUS HICKEY (which premiered in Los Angeles starring Harry Hamlin) and THE MAN WHO KILLED THE CURE, which had it's world premiere in Southern California in February 2017. He has also written numerous TV spec scripts and pilots.His book, JUST OUTSIDE THE SPOTLIGHT: GROWING UP WITH EILEEN HECKART is published by Random House (under the imprint of Back Stage Books), with a foreword by Mary Tyler Moore. Critics have praised it as “One of the most compassionate, illuminating showbiz books ever written.” (Musto, The Village Voice) It was recently cited by PaperMag as “One of the Ten Best Celebrity Memoirs of All Time.”He has taught and guest directed extensively at colleges, universities and conservatories throughout the U.S. and abroad, including five years at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Northwestern, Ohio State, AMDA, Denison, University of New Mexico, the Folkwang Hochschule (in Essen, Germany) and three years on the faculty of Columbia College-Hollywood. He has been a panelist and guest instructor at the William Inge Theatre Festival, where he has performed with Marybeth Hurt, Holland Taylor and George Grizzard. He is also a member of their Advisory Board. He is currently on the faculty of The American Musical and Dramatic Academy (AMDA), teaching advanced acting and scene study.His theatre acting credits include “Our Town” at the American Shakespesare Theatre with Fred Gwynne, the U.S. premiere of “The Greeks” at The Williamstown Theatre Festival with Gwyneth Paltrow, Blythe Danner, Christopher Reeve and Celeste Holm and “The Dream Watcher” with Eva LeGallienne. In film and television, he has appeared in “The Hiding Place” with Julie Harris, “Ragtime” with Elizabeth McGovern, “Evergreen” with Armand Assante and “The Equalizer” with Jim Dale.Luke has studied at the Juilliard School of Drama, New York University, University of California – Riverside, Northwestern University, Circle in the Square and the Herbert Berghof Studio.He is the son of the late Eileen Heckart, who won an Academy Award for “Butterflies Are Free” and appeared in over 15 feature films, 20 Broadway plays, and countless television programs. Ms. Heckart is a member of the Theatre Hall of Fame and a multiple Emmy and Tony Award winner. In her honor, Luke created the Eileen Heckart Memorial Scholarship Fund at Ohio State University, her alma mater.Luke toured internationally for more than ten years with DIVA DISH, his one-man show about the golden age of Broadway and Hollywood. There was such demand for a sequel, he created DIVA DISH: THE SECOND HELPING, which he premiered at the Desert Rose Theatre in Palm Springs.Luke and his husband Don Hill spend time at their homes in Long Beach, CA and Palm Springs, CA.For more info ( including his full Bio) or to contact Luke: https://yankeehillproductions.comLuke's email is: luke@lukeyankee.net Photo: Copyright Wilkinson/2022Opening and closing music courtesy the very talented Zakhar Valaha via Pixabay.To contact Wilkinson- email him at BecomingWilkinson@gmail.com

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Jim Dale of Rice County Salvation Army

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 9, 2023

Jim Dale, Red Kettle Campaign Coordinator for the Rice County Salvation Army, discusses the various services and agencies that benefit from donations made to the Salvation Army and the importance of volunteers during the Red Kettle Campaign in November-December.

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The Morning Show - Jim Dale of Rice County Salvation Army, 3-9-23

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Play Episode Listen Later Mar 9, 2023 11:46

Episode 44: Exeter Fan - Jim Dale

My New Football Club

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 10, 2023 93:46

Exeter fan and radio broadcaster Jim Dale joins us to chat about his love for Exeter, being on the radio and Uri Geller.Thanks for listening! You can follow us on Twitter @mynewfootyclub and on instagram @mynewfootballclubAnd if you'd like to receive episodes early and be part of an Exeter community - where we chat once a month and talk lower league football and Exeter amongst other stuff, sign up to Patreon.com/davidearlAlso, this podcast is now being streamed LIVE on Sunday mornings at 9.30am. You can watch here, with a mug of tea - if you'd like. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Our Goblet of Wine is Better Ep. 35 - So Why Does Nagini Need Milking? Asking Because Confused (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Ch. 1 & 2)

Books, Movies, and Musicals! Oh, My!

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 5, 2023 51:03

We're not SUPER enjoying this chapter there was just nothing to discuss because it was so dry, BUT we do get into a pretty serious convo about Nagini AND we discuss the strange music that happens at the beginning of the Jim Dale audiobook. Hope you enjoy! ANNOUNCEMENT: Starting on January 8, 2023 we will be recording our episodes LIVE over on Twitch! You will get to see and hear us as we discuss books, movies, and musicals, and you can even interact with us during the episodes! Don't worry though! We'll still be editing our episodes and posting them on your favorite podcasting platforms! Be sure to catch our first LIVE episode on January 8, 2023! https://twitch.tv/karenalyse https://twitch.tv/coll__n Come join us in our discord and hang out with us! You'll get to know us there through memes and discussions and occasional possible game/movie nights! The link to join is below! Also! We have notes for each episode (the things we reference as we discuss) and those are published on our patreon as a patreon perk. We also have bonus episodes that will be released soon. Thank you for your support! It means the world to us. Email: books.movies.and.musicals.ohmy@gmail.com Website: https://bmmohmy.wixsite.com/home Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/bmmohmy Discord: https://discord.gg/Ph4Eq2YAkJ Instagram: @bmmohmy Twitter: @bmmohmy Tumblr: bmmohmy.tumblr.com --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/bmmohmy/message

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Jesse Thomas, Jim Dale and Don Pavek discuss Red Kettle Program

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 16, 2022

Jesse Thomas, Chair of the Rice County Salvation Army Board, announces a matching grant up to $7,000 for donations made to the area red kettles Dec. 19-23; Jim Dale discusses the need for bell ringers next week. You can volunteer at registertoring.com; and Don Pavek announces frontrunners for collecting donations at local businesses.

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The Morning Show - Jesse Thomas, Jim Dale and Don Pavek discuss Red Kettle Program, 12-15-22

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Play Episode Listen Later Dec 16, 2022 13:04

Jim Dale and Jesse Thomas on Salvation Army Red Kettle Campaign

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 10, 2022

Jim Dale and Rice County Sheriff Jesse Thomas talk about the Salvation Army, its mission, resources provided to people in need, and the Red Kettle Campaign that provides the funding for its services. The campaign begins tomorrow, November 11. To volunteer to ring the bells, visit registertoring.com.

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The Morning Show - Jim Dale and Jesse Thomas on Salvation Army Red Kettle Campaign, 11-10-22

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Play Episode Listen Later Nov 10, 2022 13:33

Jim Dale and Jesse Thomas talk about the Salvation Army, its mission, resources provided to people in need, and the Red Kettle Campaign that provides the funding for its services. The campaign begins tomorrow, November 11. To volunteer to ring the bells, visit registertoring.com.

How do you approach life when a famous, larger than life, Oscar winning woman is your mother? LUKE YANKEE figured it out and has come into his own as a successful Producer, Director, Actor, Author, Playwright, filmmaker and so much more.

Becoming Wilkinson

Play Episode Play 60 sec Highlight Listen Later Nov 6, 2022 36:04

tv director university hollywood los angeles mother coach germany ms drama teacher greek broadway southern california circle lgbt new mexico academy awards filmmakers opera square essen ohio state critics bio new york university northwestern university american academy ohio state university long beach palm springs northwestern gwyneth paltrow evergreen advisory board playwright wilkinson tony award pixabay equalizer coming out figured random house christopher reeve tv film hiding places ragtime dramatic arts juilliard school producer director mary tyler moore denison oscar winning our town larger than life american musical producing artistic director california riverside amda harry hamlin director actor holland taylor armand assante julie harris musto zakharvalaha blythe danner jim dale elizabeth mcgovern fred gwynne williamstown theatre festival celeste holm don hill theatre hall of fame dramatic academy amda winning woman luke yankee folkwang hochschule george grizzard

Episode 61 – Unstoppable Polymath with Pat Daily

The Fox and the Foxhound: Love, Marriage, and Harry Potter

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 27, 2022 65:24

So what is a “polymath”? Come on in and listen to this week's episode to find out from our guest, Pat Daily. After hearing my conversation with Pat, not only will you know the definition of the word, but you will see why Pat fits the Polymath mold. In his life, Pat has served as a pilot in the military, a pilot for a commercial airline, a successful employee at Honeywell, participated in starting a company and he is now even a successful science fiction author. I very much enjoyed reminiscing with Pat about some of my and his early days around aircraft as we both have similar experiences in a lot of ways. By any standard you can invoke, Pat is not only inspirational, but he also is easy to talk with and he is easy on the ears as well. I hope you like this episode and that you will please reach out and tell me what you think. As always, please feel free to email me at michaelhi@accessibe.com. Also, I hope you will give this episode a 5 rating after hearing it. Thanks for listening. About the Guest: Pat Daily is a polymath, serial entrepreneur, gamer, and the author of SPARK, a near future science fiction novel. Pat began his professional career as an engineer and Air Force test pilot. After leaving the military, Pat worked at NASA's Johnson Space Center on both the Space Shuttle and International Space Station programs before launching his first company. He has worked globally as a human performance and safety consultant. When not writing or trying to bring new airplane designs to life, Pat can be found gaming. He is a fan of role-playing games – particularly open worlds with engaging storylines where actions have consequences. Pat and his wife live in Houston. Social media links: Website: https://thepatdaily.com Blog: https://feraldaughters.wordpress.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/patdailyauthor Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/patdailypics/ Twitter: @patdailyauthor Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/21521042.Pat_Daily About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is an Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app. Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes* Michael Hingson 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us. Michael Hingson 01:20 Hi, wherever you happen to be, and welcome to another edition of unstoppable mindset. Today, we get to chat with Pat Daily, who describes himself as a polymath. He is also an author, and entrepreneur. And specifically, he's the author of a book called spark. And we're gonna get into that, but I'm gonna start with tell me what is a polymath? Because some people won't quite probably know that. Pat Daily 01:47 That's a good question, Mike. And I appreciate the opportunity to be here and talk about that. The I fell in love with this word when I discovered it just a couple of years ago. And really all it is is somebody that's polymath is someone who's had professional success in different lines. So not all sales, not all leadership, not all engineering. Cool. Michael Hingson 02:15 So where have you had success? Well, I've Pat Daily 02:18 been an Air Force Test Pilot. I've been an engineer at NASA. I've started my own business. I've been a safety consultant. I've been Michael Hingson 02:30 now an author. There you go. Well, tell us a little bit about you maybe growing up just to learn about you and your background and stuff. And we'll go from there. Pat Daily 02:38 Sure, sure. I grew up in Seattle, Washington up in the rainy northwest corner of the country. From there, I graduate from high school, went into the Air Force Academy, graduated from there and started pilot training in the Air Force flew was a pilot in the Air Force for about 13 years and then decided that my, my life lay in commercial aviation. And so I went to went to work for American Airlines. And they agreed with me up until about the one year point, and then they decided that they had too many pilots and furloughed, me. And at that point, I thought, maybe I need to rethink this, this whole pilot as a career thing. So I went off and did some other things. Michael Hingson 03:29 So you when you went to the Air Force Academy, did you miss Pike's fish market? Pat Daily 03:38 Yeah, yeah, I actually worked there a little bit when I was in high school at a restaurant whose name I can't even remember right now. But But yeah, that's a place that's got a lot of interesting energy. Michael Hingson 03:51 It does. I've been there just once. And I know someone who worked there in in one of the places in the market, but it does have a lot of interesting and somewhat unusual energy. Pat Daily 04:04 That's certainly true. So Michael Hingson 04:07 you, you worked for American, why did you go off and do after American? Pat Daily 04:11 Well, after American, I went to work for Honeywell and ended up working for Honeywell, Defense and Space electronic systems. And we did guidance, navigation control stuff for the space station and the space shuttle down at Johnson Space. Michael Hingson 04:30 So what what did you do there? Can Pat Daily 04:31 you talk a bunch about it? Oh, yeah. And then there's, we didn't do anything classified there. I mean, the whole human space thing, at least as far as NASA is concerned, is pretty much an open book. The probably my favorite project that I worked on was a thing that was supposed to be a lifeboat for the space station and it was the x 38 project. And it was kind of a lifting body. So it had some have swept back and swept up wings that that became well we ended up calling a rudder Vader because it was a combination of an elevator and rudder, although it was way more rudder than it was elevator. And, and it was a lot of fun. Got to actually watch it do a few drop tests from NASA aircraft. And then of course, somewhere along the way, it was decided that we were going to use Sputnik capsules and Soyuz capsules to to get us back from orbit so we no longer pursue that project. So it was a sad day when they shut that down but still a lot of fun to work on. Michael Hingson 05:43 I grew up and near Edwards Air Force Base. So my father worked out there as the supervisor, the head of the precision measurements equipment lab, so he was in charge of calibrating all test equipment and things like that. So worked with Joe Walker, of course, who was famous with the x 15. Going back a long way from the x 38. And, and was there actually at the time of the m two lifting body which was kind of probably the precursor of all of that Pat Daily 06:10 down. Were bounced because I spent a bunch of years at Edwards. Whereabouts Did you live? Michael Hingson 06:15 We lived in Palmdale. Okay, and one of my favorite memories, boy I don't know about today, but was when my dad would come home from work and tell us that he left our street, which was Stan rich Avenue in Palmdale, California, and drove all the way to Edwards without stopping once, which was, which was definitely amazing back in those days, just in terms of no traffic, no cars to interfere. And he oftentimes did it both ways. And in the evening, when he was coming home, I would talk with him, we both got our ham radio licenses. When I was 14, he waited for me because he could have gotten at any time. And we would chat as he was coming home from work and had a lot of fun just talking up on the two meter band a lot. And he would just keep going and going and never stop until we got to our street and there was stop signs. So we had to stop. Pat Daily 07:09 That is really neat. That was a great memory to have your dad. Michael Hingson 07:13 It was and you know, there were a lot of things that happen that he couldn't talk about a couple times we went out and visited him. And we would go to his lab and he said, Well, I can't let you in quite yet. We have to hide things that you can't see. Well, that really didn't matter to me a whole lot. But I guess my mom and my brother were there. So they had to do that. But it was it was fascinating going there. And he introduced me to Joe Walker. He knew Neil Armstrong, but I never got to meet Neil. But did spend some time with Joe Walker, which was a lot of fun. Of course. Yeah. He was one of the first real astronauts taking the x 15, up above 50 miles. What an airplane that was oh, and we actually would occasionally sit on our roof at home. And watch as the B 52. Took it up and dropped it. And they they didn't have anything on the radio that we could listen to. But he would he told us where to look. And so we actually looked and and watched it drop and then fly and do the things that it did. It was pretty fascinating. Pat Daily 08:17 Could you hear the sonic booms? down upon do? Michael Hingson 08:19 That is a really good question that I'm glad you asked when we first moved to Palmdale in 1955. We heard sonic booms all the time. Never thought about it didn't bother us that they were there. And I remember once we knew that we're going to be playing war games between us and a couple of the other bases in Southern California. And the way you scored, especially when they did it at night was to see how close you could get to the other bases General's house without being detected. And break a sonic boom. So I gather we at Edwards were pretty successful at getting getting close to the generals house. But yeah, we heard a lot of sonic booms. And then one day, they just weren't there anymore. Pat Daily 09:06 Yeah, I wasn't there during that. That era. But but when I was we had a we had a corridor, we actually had a low altitude and a high altitude supersonic corridor. And that's where if we were going to intentionally go supersonic, that's where they wanted us to be. And that ran mostly east west. Yeah. So so that Sonic Boom would have had to propagate quite a ways for folks down in Palmdale to hear it. But yeah, don't ever do. We heard them all the time. Michael Hingson 09:39 Well, yeah. And I would I would expect that. And the reason that they disappeared from us was because I guess too many people started complaining but you know, GE, it never bothered me. I guess, however, that they decided that they could be somewhat destructive, especially if they were close enough or loud enough to buildings and so on. So they had to do it. And then I didn't hear any until actually, we were down near Cape Kennedy once when the shuttle was coming back in for a landing, and we got to hear the sonic booms, which was fun to hear. Pat Daily 10:15 Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I've Michael Hingson 10:16 heard them loud enough to be startling. But the ones like the shuttle threw off. It was always like, Ah, good. They're home. Boom, boom, the double sonic boom, yeah, which was great. We were at a number of Armed Forces Day, events doubted it out at Edwards. And it was really fun when the Thunderbirds were there. Other people were flying the jets, and they would come almost right down on the deck, past us. And we were we were all together. So my dad said, well, here they are. And I said, I don't hear anything all of a sudden boom, and you hear the whole sound, because they had already gotten faster than the speed of sound. So the plane was there about two seconds before the sound of the engine, which was kind of fascinating. Yep. But we, we enjoyed it. And it was part of growing up. Never thought about it. And then all of a sudden, one day, I haven't heard sonic booms in quite a while. And it was I know, because people were complaining about the noise. Oh, what a world war two world. You know, the sonic booms were there before they were but nevertheless, as I said, probably there were some complaints about the noise. And I've read in recent articles that they they did decide that some of the the sonic booms could be destructive to structure. So Pat Daily 11:35 I know they've they've broken windows before. And I know that sometimes livestock react poorly. And now NASA and industry are working on a thing called Quiet spike, which was programmed to reduce the the intensity of the sonic boom, so that an airliner for example, that would be traveling supersonic. To hear them Passover would be no more loud than the sound of a car door closing. Michael Hingson 12:05 Right? There was I think something on 60 minutes about that either earlier this year, or late last year, which is where I first heard about it. So far. I guess it's still somewhat theory, because they haven't built the airliner yet that they believe will be able to have that low level of noise. But it'll be pretty fascinating if they can make that happen. Pat Daily 12:26 It will be because it it seems like we've been stuck, essentially traveling around the world at about point eight Mach. Yeah, for for 50 years, and forever, longer now forever. Michael Hingson 12:38 And it will be I think it will be great if we can really do that. And also have it on an aircraft that's small enough that we could even do supersonic inside the United States that will speed up a lot of air travel. Pat Daily 12:52 It will. It will no it'd be wonderful. Michael Hingson 12:54 But if I recall, right, they said they were going to have the first generation of that aircraft sometime later this year. Do you know anything about that? I know they've got the Pat Daily 13:03 flying testbeds already. In fact, one of them is flying out of Palmdale. Michael Hingson 13:08 Oh, okay. Well, we are now living in Victorville, so maybe we'll hear it on Victorville. Pat Daily 13:15 I used to live in Victorville when I was able to George Air Force Base. Michael Hingson 13:19 There you go well, and when I was growing up, compared to Palmdale Victorville was hardly a blip on the radar scope. And now, we have over 120,000 people in Victorville. And in the whole Victor Valley area here we have over 600,000 People go the heck and figure it out. Pat Daily 13:37 I had no idea that it had grown that much. Michael Hingson 13:39 And continues to we just learned that there is a new housing development, about two miles from here that will have 15,000 new homes, low cost housing, but still 15,000 new homes. Oh, my gosh, I know, go figure. Now. It'll be interesting to see how more how many more come along, but they're building a lot of stuff up here. And at the same time we see open stores that is vacant stores that don't understand why they're doing the building that they're doing when they got all this vacancy. And where are those people going to work? Are they are they commuting down into the LA basin? I work? Yes, that's I guess that's what's happening. And there is of course, a lot of that but I hope that they come up with something other than just going down I 15 Because already the traffic on Interstate 15 going from Victorville down through Cajon Pass and down the other side is horrible. Almost 24 hours a day. I've gone to Ontario airport early in the morning like at four and still take an hour and 20 or minutes or an hour and a half or longer to get to Ontario. Pat Daily 14:52 And Ontario has got to be getting busier and busier too because I remember that that was when I first moved out to that area. It was the like the secret gym that the airport nobody knew about and had very little traffic and and you didn't have any jet bridges you just walked walked out to the aircraft and up the stairs. But still it was so much easier to navigate than lax, Michael Hingson 15:18 sort of like Burbank airport. I don't think that they've gotten totally into jet bridges. At least the last time I flew into Burbank they hadn't. And the value of that is that they have people exit the aircraft from both the front and the back. So it hardly takes any time at all to evacuate an airport. Not evacuate, but get people off a plane when they land. Yeah. Which is kind of cool. Much faster. So as a test pilot, what kinds of of aircraft Did you test? What was kind of maybe the most unusual one? No flying saucers, I assume are Pat Daily 15:52 flying saucers. Got to fly a bunch of different things. Most of my test time was in variants of the F 16. But probably the most unusual aircraft that I got to fly was the Goodyear blimp. There you go. Yeah. And I mean, did going through a test pilot school. And it felt an awful lot like climbing into someone's minivan because the gondola was that spacious that that roomy had plenty elbow room, plenty of people could sit around. It certainly wasn't, was a passenger compartment back in the days of the Hindenburg or anything, but it was, it was still pretty roomy for a modern aircraft cockpit. And we we went in and got to fly out over Long Beach and that whole area and I was the only airplane I've ever flown that only had one wheel. And I know because they tie the nose of the blimp to a big mast. And it just has one large wheel that casters around and as the wind blows it, it can weathervane into the wind and just pivot around on that little wheel. Michael Hingson 17:09 Did you ever have any involvement with the flying wing? No, no at the time was probably before, well, Pat Daily 17:17 well before but then the b two is a streamline wind design. And other than watching it, you know seeing it fly around. I never had any any interplay with it or never got to fly it. I do remember having to go out to their facility for something, a meeting or a test mission. And if you weren't cleared into the program, they had to turn on a beeper and a flashing light to let everybody know that that uncleared scum were entering the area and hide all the secret stuff, Michael Hingson 17:54 tell people what the flying wing is a Pat Daily 17:56 flying wing is if you can imagine, and airliner with its left and a right wing. And now take away the fuselage where all the people sit and where most of the gas is and the luggage, and then just join those two halves of the wing together. Now you're gonna have to beef it up a little bit, scale everything up. But it turns out that the flying wing design can be incredibly efficient. But it also comes with some pretty scary instabilities that you have to have to be ready to deal with. And so the earlier version, I think the XB 49 was the original flying wing. And it had small rudders to to help it maintain its directional stability. But the b two comes out at completely differently by using kind of differential speed brakes and spoilers. And, you know, that gave us differential thrust, I guess, but it's, it's a much more efficient and much more UFO like looking aircraft than we're used to seeing. Michael Hingson 19:11 Yeah, well, it will. It will be interesting to see, well, I don't know whether they'll ever use that and probably not for an airliner or anything like that, because there's just not room for much in the way of passengers is there? Pat Daily 19:23 No, although I've seen the whole design Yeah, and the whole design every once in a while when you see something in Popular Mechanics or something like that, where it's a hugely scaled up flying wing design. And of course, the downside of that maybe it's an upside is that everybody is now stuffed in the middle and and very few people get window seats, but the the times I've found recently hardly anybody is looking out the window anyway. And they tend to close the window shades and just get on their electronic entertainment devices Michael Hingson 20:00 he up and it has its pluses and minuses to do that. But you know, I put on my earphones but I do try to listen to what's going on around me and try to stay aware. But you have people do that. And, of course, lights are brighter or when you're 30,000 feet or more. You're you're dealing with a lot of things. And as you said, people just want to get on their entertainment devices and escape. And so so that happens and then there you go. I'm still waiting for flying saucers and jetpacks, I'm ready for my jetpack. Yeah, that would be fun. I'm not sure how well I do with a jet pack. We need to get more information that comes in an auditory way rather than visually, but we can get there. Down. Yeah. Or tactically? Well ordered and tactically tactically. Yeah. Which would be both. There's an experiment that the National Federation of the Blind did actually now it's it started. Well, it started in 2001. Soon after September 11, I was at an event in Baltimore when a new building for the National Federation of blind was started called the Jernigan Institute. But one of the things that the President of the National Federation of the Blind back then did was to challenge private industry and the school systems, the college technical college systems to build a car that a blind person could drive. And in 2011, what they created was between Virginia Tech and some companies that worked with Virginia Tech came up with this device, they actually modified a Ford Escape. And what they did is they put a number of different kinds of radar and sonar devices on it. Other technologies that they felt would ultimately not even cost very much. But then the driver sat in the car and had some very long gloves on that would go up their arms, that had haptic or tactile devices that would vibrate, there was also a pad that he sat back against. And there were also something similar to the gloves that would would go around their legs so that there are a number of different kinds of vibrating things that were available to them. And a person was able to drive a car successfully. In fact, there's a demonstration of it's still on the National Federation of the Blind website or a subdomain. It's called www dot blind driver challenge.org. And what you see if you go to that website is a video where the now president of the National Federation of the Blind Mark Riccobono, gets in this device and drives around the Daytona Speedway right before the January 2011 Rolex 24 race, going through obstacle courses, driving past grandstands, and people cheering and all that driving behind a van that is throwing up boxes that he has to avoid, and then passing the van and eventually getting back to homebase. But no one's giving him directions. It's all from the information that the car is transmitting to him. And the reality is that, that it is doable. And he was driving at something like 30 miles an hour, so he wasn't going slow, and had no problem doing any of that. So the reality is, I think it's possible to develop the technology that would make it possible for a blind person to have a safe and good driving experience. And especially as we get into the era of autonomous vehicles, where things are not necessarily totally as failsafe oriented as we would like. And as perfect as we would like, I see legislatures already saying, well, even if you're going to have an autonomous vehicle, someone has to be in the driver's seat who can drive the car, and there should be no reason why that can't be a blind person as well. Pat Daily 23:51 No, absolutely not. I mean, it's, it's all just a matter of data and input channel, right? I mean, right, whether it comes tactically or haptically, or auditorily, or we could have olfactory cues, maybe, but that that starts sounding a little messier, Michael Hingson 24:09 probably a lot less efficient to do that. But but the fact is that Mark did this. And I think that car has been driven a number of times, I think he drove it around the streets of Baltimore as well. But the fact is that, that it is possible, which is another way of saying that eyesight isn't the only way to do stuff. But unfortunately, it is the main way that most people use and I understand that but the fact is not using some of your other senses, I think limits drivers a lot. I'm still surprised that for example, with Apple who has constructed all of its technologies to be accessible. So VoiceOver is built into every device that it releases. I'm surprised I haven't done more to make voiceover involved with interactions in automobiles. And there's an android version of, of all of that called TalkBack. But I'm surprised that with cell phones in cars, that they don't use more auditory output. And then like, you've got the Tesla where everything is driven by a touchscreen, which means no matter what you do you still have to look at the touchscreen. Why aren't they doing more with audio? Pat Daily 25:20 Yeah, that's, that's a great question. And it, I think it gets to something I've heard you say on some of your interviews about sighted people have a disability in that we are light dependent, and you take away the light from us and and the world by and large becomes a navigable right to most of us. And that's just because we haven't tuned our other senses in the way that Michael Hingson 25:49 you have. And there's no reason that we can't make it possible for people to use more of their senses. But the the automotive industry doesn't tend to do that. I think there's probably although it's still more emergency oriented. In aircraft, there's a lot of information that comes out auditorily, but probably a lot more could as well. Pat Daily 26:12 Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And so much in aviation now is, is really autonomous, that the biggest problem that aircraft like the the Boeing purple seven have is, how do we make sure that on a 16 hour flight, the crews are still awake? Yeah. And so they they build checklists to require them every so often to actually physically do something that the aircraft is perfectly capable of doing on its own. But we we want, it seems to still have that that pilot in the loop that pilot and control, do we get alarms or something that makes the pilot pay attention then to do whatever it is they need to do? Yeah, yep, get chart chimes, you get verbal cues, where the aircraft is actually talking to you. Michael Hingson 27:05 Yeah, it makes perfect sense to to do that. And I've seen times where aircraft have flown, although pilots are still there, completely autonomously landed themselves gone right up to the, to the hangar or to the place where they let off passengers and so on. And all of that technology is accurate enough to do that today. Absolutely. There are several of us that are talking about the concept of trying to use some of the same technology I described with the the car that a blind person could drive to create, or build it into an airplane and have a blind person, fly the plane. And there's one person actually who wants to see this happen, and then be the first person to fly the same route Lindbergh did across the Atlantic, but be a totally blind person doing the flight. Pat Daily 27:56 Well, that would be one heck of the demonstration of concept. But I'm with you. I don't think there's any reason they couldn't do that. There shouldn't be Michael Hingson 28:07 any reason why we do have the technology today. It's the usual thing of a matter of finding a matter of will on the part of enough people to to make that happen. But I see no reason why with the technology we have today. We can't do that. Yeah, I think it all comes down to what you said. It's Pat Daily 28:26 desire and funding. Sounds like a lot of fun down. Michael Hingson 28:29 We'll see it be a fun project. Well, maybe you can help us. But oh, I have to ask this. In all your flying. Of course, you I'm sure you have flown in like the plane that everybody calls the vomit comment and had your experiences of weightlessness. Absolutely. And but you haven't gone yet fully into space? Pat Daily 28:52 I have not. That's that's been one of my major disappointments. I always wanted to be an astronaut. And got a shot, got interviewed got to go down to NASA and then try to plead my case. And, and unfortunately, I was not selected, had a lot of friends that were selected, but I was not among them. You know, Michael Hingson 29:16 Scott Parazynski? I do, we interviewed Scott, not too long ago. So he was talking to us about a number of the space station events and thought things that he has done. He wrote his book with the help of the same person who assisted me with underdogs. Susie Florrie. So that's how we got very good, which is which is kind of fun. So you went off and did Honeywell and and all that and got to work. I've never been to the Johnson Space Center. I'd love to do that sometime. I think it'd be a lot of fun. I have spent some time at NASA Goddard. And of course a little bit at the Kennedy Space Center but nothing really too involved in some didn't really get a chance to look at much of it but it'd be fun to go to the Johnson Space Center sometimes. So we'll have to come down and visit you and go there. Pat Daily 30:05 Yeah, come on down, we'll take you. Michael Hingson 30:07 But what did you do after Honeywell and all of that? After Honeywell, I, Pat Daily 30:12 I launched a consulting company where we did safety consulting, and training and professionalism, professional development. And I really loved them, I really enjoyed the work. But after about 15 years doing that I was kind of done. So I left that behind, sold my share of the company to my partners, and wish them all well and, and move back into the flight test world. And so what did you go off and do? I went up to Moses, Lake Washington to work for Mitsubishi Aircraft Corporation. And at the time, we were trying to build and certify a thing called the originally was called the MRJ, for Mitsubishi regional jet. And then they rebranded it, and called it the space jet, which, which, I don't know, I probably would have picked a different name, but hey, I'm not in marketing. And the thought behind the name was that they had reconceived reconceptualized, the way an airliner is built, traditionally, all the all the luggage, and everything goes in the belly. And that moves the floor of the aircraft up into the aluminum tube. And so you start losing head room and overhead, luggage space. And Mitsubishi had the idea, well, what if we just put all the luggage in the back, and then we have more room in the tube, and even fairly tall guys could stand upright in the in the aisle without having to duck. And that gave us the opportunity to build to build bigger luggage, overhead luggage compartments, and things like that. Unfortunately, that, you know, we, we got to flight test we built maybe seven of them that actually flew me see for here too, there are six that actually flew and then some that were just being used for structure testing. And then and then COVID happened and Mitsubishi decided that the program was far enough behind schedule and far enough over budget, that they needed to really rethink it. And so they they put it on what they call an extended pause. So extended that personally, I don't think it's ever coming back coming Michael Hingson 32:39 back. It's yeah, permanently pause. So that kind of didn't help your job any? Pat Daily 32:44 No, no, I got I got laid off from there. And thought that well, you know, I'm not I'm not working when I want to try writing. And so I'd already been playing around with the whole writing thing when COVID hit, and then just took it to the next level and got really serious about it finished the novel. And then, you know, long Behold, found somebody that actually wanted to publish it. You know, Michael, I don't know if you have this problem. But But I have a bit of an ego problem. I think that what I do is pretty doggone good. And so I wrote this book and draft one I thought, okay, it's no, it's no Of Mice and Men. It's it's not great literature, but it's a good book. And so I started sending it out. And and then I joined some writing groups, and the writing groups. It turns out, it's a little harder to get honest feedback than one would hope. Because everybody's worried that they're going to hurt your feelings and offend you. Yeah. And when they tell you you've got an ugly baby. But I had, I had a hideous baby. And it wasn't until well, she's become a friend of mine, another author, Alex Perry, who wrote a wonderful children's book, not children mid grade book, called pig hearted that she finally told me she said, Pat, it's boring. She said, your writing all makes sense. You can put a sentence together but it's like watching somebody else. watch somebody else play. A video came. And, and it hurt. But but it was exactly what I needed to hear. Yeah. And so I joined another writing group. And then I guess after about four or five revisions and 22 queries later, that Inklings publishing, said, Hey, you know, we think you got something here. So, you know, why don't we pair you up with a developmental editor and we'll see you We can do and they paired me up with a wonderful woman named Steph Mathias son. And she shepherded me through three more revisions of the book. And every time it got better, and largely because of the people that were willing to give me that honest feedback people like stuff, so that it you know, it got published and and now I've submitted book to to Inklings, and that should be coming out in December. And I've started on Book Three. So it's been, it's been a lot Michael Hingson 35:34 of fun. And sequel is booked to a sequel, Book Two as a sequel. Yeah, great. Well, you know, there's nothing like a good editor, they're, they're worth their weight in gold and more. They're editing, right. And I learned that, not the hard way. But I learned it in a great way when we were doing fender dawg, because Thomas Nelson paired us with an editor who said, My job isn't to rewrite this in my own style. And to tell you how to write my job is to help you make this something that people will want to read, and to fine tune what you do. And and he did. We had, for example, I don't know whether you read thunder dog, but one of the parts about thunder dog is that it starts every chapter with something that was occurring on that day in the World Trade Center for me are around it. Then we went back to things I learned in my life. And then we came back and ended each chapter kind of continuing on in the World Trade Center. And what what our editor said was that your transitions lose me there, you're not doing great transitions from one scene to the other. And you got to fix that. And that was all he said. So I volunteered to do the transition examinations and try to deal with that, because it just clicked when he said that. I know exactly what he's saying. And I never thought about it. And and Susie says the same thing, you know, we hadn't really thought that they were as much of a problem as they are. But now that you mentioned it. So literally over a weekend, I've just went through and created transitions for every chapter. And I think that's one of the strong points of the book. And others have have said the same thing that the transitions absolutely take you where you want the reader to go. And it all came about because of the editor. Yeah, and I'm with you there. I Pat Daily 37:31 think transitions are key. And I largely ignored them as well, in my in my early writing, that that of reading or consuming a book is actually requires work on both ends. And it's easier for the reader, if you pull them along as the writer if you seamlessly pull them into the next scene or seamlessly transition them. So yeah, transitions are huge. Michael Hingson 38:00 They are and as soon as I heard that it made perfect sense. And the thing about it is I know now that I knew it, then I just never thought about it. So it's it's great to have a wonderful editor who can guide you. Well, your first book is called spark tell us about it, if you would. Spark is a near future science fiction novel, it. Pat Daily 38:26 It takes place, mostly in Southern California, because when I was flying out there, I remember there being a solar power facility called solar one. And you could see it from probably 100 miles away during the daytime because it was one of these solar facilities where it relied on mirrors to reflect the solar energy up to a central collecting vessel that that normally has some sort of molten salt in it because it turns out that's really good for retaining heat. And then then they use that to transfer the heat to water turn that into steam to power a turbine and voila, electricity, by all always was fascinated by the whole solar power idea. And so spark itself is an acronym. It stands for Solar prime augmented reality Park. And, and as one of my readers pointed out, will pat that should be spark than not Spark as well. Yeah, but but spark doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. So I took a little license there. And the spark is a theme park for gamers. And it is an augmented reality theme park that makes use of both haptic technology as well as auditory cue News and visual cues in a thing I call augmented reality glasses that present the the player with a blended version of the real and the virtual. It's close enough in time to us that most people recognize a lot of the technology. But it posits some pretty impressive changes in artificial intelligence and solar power. And of course, it's it's got action adventure, there are good guys bad guys. The hero of the story a young man named wil Kwan shows up at the park, as you know, after his parents passed away, is his father dies in the second Korean War, which when I wrote it, wrote the book seemed much farther away than it does today. And, and that his his mom suffered mightily from the loss for her husband. And she ends up dying just few years later, and will is left as an orphan and things don't go well for him in foster care. And he ends up running away his goal is to run out to spark where his parents took him when he was younger. And he figures he's gonna get a job and just live there forever. Except that spark won't hire miners. And so he's got to figure out another way around it. And as he does, he realizes that there are far more layers to the game, and to spark itself than are normally perceived by others. And so he starts, he starts hunting a little bit, trying to learn more, he, he meets a young woman that or he has a disastrous first encounter with like, by the end of the novel, even though they still butt heads, they're now holding hands. And so you get a little little action, a little adventure, little romance, little mystery, and it ends up I think, just being kind of a fun novel. Michael Hingson 42:12 So I would gather from augmented reality and everything else that, that there must be a lot of adventures and quests, and so on in the book. So if somebody were to buy the rights for the book, what quest would you like to see them convert into real life? Pat Daily 42:29 That's a good question. That's a good question. I think my favorite and I D, detail a couple of the quests pretty deeply in the book, and one is called war on Mars. And I think it would be the most fun because it is the most expansive it, it takes place in mostly in Mariner Valley on Mars, which is so much larger than the Grand Canyon, in the United States. It is seven kilometers deep, that's four and a half miles deep. And it's it's nearly as wide as the United States is or long as the United States is east to west. And so I thought there were some cool things you could do with that out elevation change and, and of course, then there's got to be aliens involved in there, too. Michael Hingson 43:28 I was just going to ask. Pat Daily 43:32 Yeah, so So there are some aliens who don't take kindly to us being on Mars, and there's combat but but will is the kind of guy that he would rather think his way through things and fight his way through things. So he's, he's hung up on trying to find a more peaceful solution to our conflict with the aliens and I think that ends up being a lot of fun and wouldn't be a lot of fun to play out in real life. Michael Hingson 44:03 Hopefully he figures out a way to get some peace and make some new friends. Pat Daily 44:08 He does. Oh, good. Michael Hingson 44:09 What character given that you're you're doing this a little bit future mystic kind of where what character was the hardest to develop Pat Daily 44:18 the the young woman whose name is Shay Cree Patel, but her avatar name is feral daughter, and, and that name came out of something. My own daughter said that I misunderstood. We were on a on a vacation and they were in in shopping and I'd had enough of shopping in that particular store. So I just wanted to go stand outside for a little bit. Enjoy the fresh air. And she came out and she said something that I misunderstood as feral daughter. And I jumped all over that I said, that would be a great name for kind of a counter culture. clothing line, or, or you know, a boutique for women's clothes at a university or something like that. And she goes, Dad, what are you talking about? I said, Well, feral daughter isn't that we such no I and I don't even to this day, I don't remember what she actually said that it was not Farrell daughter. And it turns out that while I think I am a good husband, and good father, I am not very good at writing female characters. And again, my writing groups came in and were tremendously helpful. You know, some painful feedback, but also very good feedback to help me develop the female characters make them more authentic, so that, that neither of my daughters or my wife were embarrassed by the by them at the end Michael Hingson 45:51 of the day, you mean, your daughter didn't help you? Right? She gave me Pat Daily 45:55 one daughter, God bless her read all the way through one of the early drafts and gave me a lot of good feedback. The second one, the second daughter was far more interested after the book came out. And she was better at answering specific questions about well, you know, would this would this girl do this? Or? Or what do you think about this? Or how should he or she approached this? So they both been helpful in very different ways? Like, yeah, I, I was embarrassed enough by my writing that I put them through too many revisions of the of the novel Michael Hingson 46:36 well, but if they, if they looked at it, and really helped unless you just were way too graphic with the sex scenes? Pat Daily 46:44 No, no. And, and honestly, them that factored into it, I wanted to write a book that I wouldn't be embarrassed for my goats to read any of eventually, their children to read a call. They're calling you now. They're calling me now Dad, what are you saying? So, you know, interestingly, when I got the idea for the book, I was pitching it to my wife when we were out to dinner one night, and she's a fourth grade school teacher. And she started asking me all these questions, what about this, and this and this and this, and it would not be an understatement to say that I reacted poorly to the feedback. And at the end of the night, we ended up still married and still loving each other. But she told me that she was not going to read it until it was published. And so I lost my opportunity to have my first best writer critiquer Michael Hingson 47:45 How about now with future books and the book you're working on now? Pat Daily 47:49 Now, I think she is much more open to it. Michael Hingson 47:52 And are you more open to Yes, Pat Daily 47:55 yes. And I I'm better at taking feedback. And that helps tremendously. Because now I can I can discuss it a little more dispassionately and talk about what works what doesn't work in a scene and, and how characters might actually react. How old are your daughter's daughter number one is 36. Donner number two will be 33. The end of this year? Michael Hingson 48:27 Do you have any sons? Nope. Pat Daily 48:29 Just daughters. Michael Hingson 48:30 So you've got two daughters, and they still and your wife still has some time to read and comment on your writings. Indeed, Pat Daily 48:40 although my I'm probably not her favorite genre. Now she she loves historical fiction. So she'll, she'll jump on one of those books more eagerly than a science fiction book. Michael Hingson 48:56 Well, okay, science fiction book. I guess we have to get to some other questions about that. So if we're dealing with science fiction today, Star Wars or Star Trek? Pat Daily 49:07 Oh, gotta say I love them both. But I was born and raised on trek. And so I'll always be a Trekkie, even though I am a little disgruntled with some of the decisions they've made and some of the recent movies. Michael Hingson 49:21 Yeah, yeah, my I hear you. But I like them both. I, especially the earlier Star Wars movies. I think, again, they've they've lost something in some of the translated translations later on. But they're fun. There are a lot of really nice Star Wars and Star Trek books, however, that are fun to read. Pat Daily 49:44 Yeah. Yeah. And I actually, I actually tried to write a Star Trek book years ago, and I thought it was it was going to be good but it never I never finished it and The series move beyond one of my central characters I made Lieutenant Saavik a central character and, and things just move beyond her. Michael Hingson 50:11 Mm hmm. Things happen. Yep. Well, and I was, you know, I like all of the Star Wars movies and I guess they they dealt with it but like the the last well of the original Nine with Luke Skywalker I guess in a little in a sense I was a little disappointed of course, I was disappointed that that Han Solo son killed him and what was that number? That would have been what number seven? But nevertheless, they're they're, they're fun. They're great adventure scores. So was Indiana Jones. Pat Daily 50:46 Yes, yes. Indiana Jones that Raiders of the Lost Ark was actually the first movie I took my wife to go see Michael Hingson 50:56 her you go down and how she liked it. She loved it. Pat Daily 51:01 She loved it. I knew nothing about it other night heard other people say great things about it. And so I was delighted that it turned out to be such a good movie. I think it made a positive impact. Michael Hingson 51:13 And were you afraid of snakes? I had to ask. Pat Daily 51:16 I hate snakes. Michael Hingson 51:21 Then as far as more I guess you could say science fiction, probably more fantasy, but something that I think has had a major impact on the lives of a lot of people, especially kids and helping them read is Harry Potter. Pat Daily 51:33 Yes. That completely hooked. My daughter's my my first daughter got hooked on the red wall series. Brian jocks but then as soon as the Harry Potter's came out, she started devouring those and that is what really turned my second daughter into a reader was all the Harry Potter books. So II and that's the point, right? Yep. Yep, Michael Hingson 52:01 I think we discovered Harry Potter with the third one in the series, prisoner basket band, we heard about it, and saw some new things about it. And at that time, there was still this company books on tape and we went in and we got copies, we got a copy and started reading the first one. And we got hooked. It was a little while getting into it. But it was a little boring at first, but we got hooked on it. And so we read the Sorcerer's Stone. And then we were hooked and couldn't wait for each of them the rest of the books to come out. So we read the first three pretty quickly because we were already on the Prisoner of Azkaban when we learned about it, but then we grabbed books as soon as we can. We got the audio books because my wife liked to listen to them as well, although we also got a print copy of all of the books, but we enjoyed listening to them. Jim Dale was such a great reader. And one of my favorite stories about all of that is that he was scheduled to read part of the fourth book in the series. I think that was the one published in 2001. When September 11 happened and he was supposed to be in Manhattan and was in Manhattan. He was supposed to do a reading outside of scholastic publishing, publishing. And so when the Goblet of Fire was published, he was going to be there doing a reading at Scholastic because they're the publisher of it. And of course, it was on September 11 And September 11 happened so he didn't get to read it. And we didn't get to go up and listen. But I remember that that was supposed to all happen on September 11. Pat Daily 53:41 Oh my goodness, I never knew that. So she was going to be an evening thing. We're going to have to take off work, go play a little hooky to listen to the reading Oh, Michael Hingson 53:50 we we could have gone up there without any difficulty during the day because we were working with scholastic publishing and sold them tape backup products. So it's not even a hard problem to go off and deal with going up there. Ah, okay. And when only going from the World Trade Center up to Scholastic, which is Midtown Manhattan, so was likely we'd be up in that area. Anyway. My favorite though thing about scholastic was we went in once I and a couple of wire other people. And one of the elevators was out of order, and they had a sign on the one that worked that said, this is for muggle use. And then the one that was out of order for wizard use only, which was really cute. I like that. Yeah, it was kind of fun. But you know, I really admire authors and books that promote reading and encourage people to read and I'm glad that that Harry Potter has done that and, you know, I'm looking forward to reading spar have gotta figure out a way to get access to it. I assume it may not be in audio format yet or is it? Pat Daily 54:53 It is not. But I just started conversations with someone who could be the the narrator and I I've just learned that there's a huge difference between narrators and voice actors. And so I may need someone with voice acting skills, rather than just narration. Because I've got a lot of characters and some drama, and I want somebody that that can do more than simply read the words off the page. But I don't know how long it takes from day one to final release of an audio book. But I will let you know when it happens. Michael Hingson 55:30 It you do have to get somebody who can read it. Well, I enjoy books where the reader is a as an actor and puts different voices into it. I've been reading talking books from the library of congress, of course, my whole life and early on, especially, they sought actors to do the reading. One of my favorite series has always been the wreck stop series near wolf, the private detective. Yeah, in the in the reader who did the best job was a radio actor named Carl Webber, who I never heard much of in radio, although I clicked radio shows, he did do a show called Dr. Six Gun. And I've discovered that and listened to him. And it does sound like our a Weber. But he read the neuro wolf books, and they were absolutely incredibly well done. So it does make a difference to have someone who's a good actor reading it, as opposed to just somebody who reads the lines, because they will help draw you in. Yeah, yeah. And I actually Pat Daily 56:35 just downloaded thunder dog. I still do a fair amount of driving and I like to listen to books while I'm driving. So I'm I'm looking forward to hearing that. Well, Christopher Michael Hingson 56:48 prince did a did a good job with it. I, I don't know how he would be at well, actually, I take that back. I have heard another book of that he read where he did. It was a fiction book. And I'm trying to remember the name of it, I'd have to go back and find it. But he did a pretty good job. He did this for Oasis audio. But there are some good actors out there. And so I hope that you have some success. Let me know. And if you need somebody ever to listen, I'd be glad to help. Pat Daily 57:17 Oh, excellent. Thank you. I'll take care on that. Michael Hingson 57:20 I have one last question I've been thinking about not book related. But talking about aircraft. Again, the 747 I keep hearing is probably the most stable passenger airliner that has ever been really produced. What do you think about that? Why is it so stable? Oh, I've Pat Daily 57:38 got to agree with that a real champion of design. And it's got a couple things in his favor. One is one is the wings are Anhedral, which means that they can't up a little bit and especially when, when they get a little lift on him, they they get pulled up as all their aircraft wings do. And then the enormous vertical stabilizer lends a lot of a lot of stability to the aircraft. And then finally, I think Boeing just did an absolutely spectacular job of, of harmonizing the flight controls and putting everything together to make it a very docile airplane, certainly for something of its size. I mean, it carries so much fuel that he uses fuel for structural integrity when it's more full. And so we have that 747 is a spectacular airplane. And, and unfortunately, it's it's kind of aging Michael Hingson 58:38 out. But how come they haven't done other things with that same level of design and stability? At least? I haven't heard that they have. But yeah, I Pat Daily 58:48 think I think the triple seven is close to it. There have been very very few mishaps with the with the triple seven. And it's it's another marvelous airplane. I don't think they got exactly what they're hoping for with the 787. They did have some design issues, some manufacturability issues, but it's it's certainly a highly efficient and remarkably quiet appointment. So Michael Hingson 59:20 what prompted the question was when you were talking about the Mitsubishi aircraft and so on, and putting the luggage at the backs of taller people could stand up. It reminded me of the 747 with the upper level for first class, the lounge where the pilots and so on were so it almost was to a degree at least a double decker aircraft. Pat Daily 59:38 Yeah. Yeah. And of course Airbus has made the a 380 which is a true double decker full length. But that's that's another aircraft that hasn't exactly lived up to its hype. Well, Michael Hingson 59:51 still holding on for flying saucers. There you go. Well, Pat, I want to thank you for being on unstoppable mindset. How do people reach out and maybe learn more about you? Where can they get the book? You know, love all your contact information and so on. Pat Daily 1:00:08 Okay, probably the easiest way is the website, which is thepatdaily.com. And it's t h e. P a t d a i l y.com. And that has links to to my blog to the bio to all my other socials. I'm on, of course on on Facebook at Pat Daily, author and on Instagram at Pat daily pics and then Twitter at at Pat Daily, or I think it's at Pat Daily author, but easiest way, just the website, everything is there. Down. Cool. Michael Hingson 1:00:48 Well, I know I'm looking forward to finding a way to read spark and your other books as they come out. That will be fun being a science fiction fan, of course. And I think we talked about it before we were doing this particular episode. But we've talked about science fiction and some of my favorite authors, I would still like to see somebody take Robert Heinlein to the Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and make it into a radio series. Talking about actors. I just think that do. I think you're right. I loved that book. Pat Daily 1:01:19 I loved so much of what Heinlein wrote, you know, one of the one a great masters of the genre. Michael Hingson 1:01:25 Yeah, yeah. And I think that's his best book. A lot of people say Stranger in a Strange Land was and it was very unique, and so on. But the Moon is a Harsh Mistress is so clever. And there's so much to it. And of course, then there are books that follow on from it, where some of the world's the same characters are involved. Heinlein created a whole universe, which was fun, did it just sort of like as I did with the foundation series? Well, thanks, again, for being here. We need to do this again. Especially when you get more books out, when you get your next book out, we got to come back and talk about it. I'd love to. Pat Daily 1:02:02 And and thank you so much for having me on your show, Mike, I really appreciate it. Michael Hingson 1:02:05 Well, I really appreciate you taking the time to be here. This has been fun. So people go find the Pat daily.com and contact Pat reach out and enjoy the book. And let me know what you think of it. I'm going to get to it as well, I'm just going to find a way to be able to read it. So we'll get there. But for all of you who listened in today, thanks very much for being here. If you'd like to reach out to me, please do so. My email address is Michaelhi@accessibility.com. That's M I C H A E L H I at A C C E S S I B E.com. Where you can go to www dot Michael hingson.com/podcast where you can reach out to us as well. I hope you'll give us a five star rating. And Pat, we didn't talk about it. Well, we should probably at some point, talk about how accessible your website is and get you in touch with people in accessibe. Pat Daily 1:03:01 Absolutely. I did check out accessibe and it looks like something that once I get the website fully developed, we'll be in contact. Michael Hingson 1:03:09 Well, we'd love to help you with that. But again, everyone thanks for being here. Please give us a five star rating and we hope that you'll be back again next week for unstoppable mindset. And again, Pat, thank you for being here as well. Pat Daily 1:03:20 Thank you, Mike.Take care, Michael Hingson 1:03:22 you too. Michael Hingson 1:03:26 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com. accessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.

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The Jim Dale/Keith Morrison Venn Diagram (Book 7 Prophecy Round-Up and Owl Post)

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 15, 2022 81:53

It's time again for that old End-of-A-Book Hootenanny known as The Kevlawney Prophecy Round-Up and the HOOTenanny known as Owl Post. How many of Kev's Book 7 prophecies came to pass? Which series-wide prophecies are the all-time greats? What are the Wilsons' go-to karaoke songs? And, perhaps most importantly, whose patronus is Prison Mike?Support the show

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The Transformational Power of Reading | Adri Johnson S2 E59

The Thy Neighbor Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 17, 2022 39:50

Adri Johnson is a reading extraordinaire! Her love of reading and the skills she has picked up from her efforts to learn and find pleasure in reading shine through. All the books and references are listed below. Follow Adri on Instagram @therealadrijo or on GoodReads adrizzell@yahoo.com Show Notes: More Than a Body by Lindsay & Lexie Kite Mindless Eating by Brian Wansink, Ph.D. Slim By Design by Brian Wansink, Ph.D. The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom Tramp for the Lord by Corrie Ten Boom What Would a Holy Woman Do? By Wendy Watson Nelson The Spirit of Revelation by David A. Bednar **audio version read by Elder Bednar & Sue R. Bednar available on Desert Book Shelf Plus app Yearning for the Living God by F. Enzio Busche Ellen Conford's books (Adri read her books as a young girl) Green Lights by Matthew McConaughey The Growing Season by Carol Lynn Pearson (Read the poem: The Ninth Month) What Kind of Woman by Kate Baer Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen Persuasion by Jane Austen The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow The Charlotte & Thomas PItt Series by Anne Perry Short Christmas Stories by Anne Perry Lady Emily series by Tasha Alexander The Read Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease The Enchanted Hour by Meghan Cox Gourdon Headphone recommendations: Sound Core headphones Bone Conduction headphones Library: Book Club in a Bag Apps: Libby app (online library) GoodReads Audio reader recommendation: Audio books by Jim Dale, narrator of Harry Potter The Night Circus Seinfeld episode when George pretends he is blind to get an audiobook

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Carry On film series | Episode 34

Don't Know Her?

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 5, 2022 76:31

Welcome back for another episode. This time around we fancied a little camp diversion and decided to change things up with a discussion of a film franchise. So here we bring you a foray into the Carry On films. The joy of this episode for us was in being able to talk about some iconic screen presences who truly deserve continued recognition for their iconic contributions to British cinema. The Carry On series is the largest franchise in British film history, spanning 31 films released between the late 50s and the early 90s. With the films becoming a staple in many households, the familiar faces of the series are still so intrinsically tied to the British comedy scene. They delighted audiences with the returning faces of Kenneth Williams, Barbara Windsor, Joan Sims, Sidney James, Charles Hawtrey, Hattie Jacques and Jim Dale to name just a few. With so many to choose from we decided to focus on a small, but mixed selection for this episode: Carry On Nurse (1959), Carry On Camping (1969), Carry On Cleo (1964) and Carry On Columbus (1992); all directed by Gerald Thomas, who was at the helm for the entirety of the franchise. Following on from this Scott quizzes Michael on some Carry On trivia then tests his knowledge on some connections between the series and some classic British Soaps. We then suggest some things we'd have loved to have seen some of those iconic stars of the series do as well, as we suggest our fantasy film outings for some of our Carry On heroes. Please join us, enjoy this episode and follow us on social media to stay updated! We're @dontknow_her on Twitter and Instagram. And you can support us here. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/dontknowherpod/message

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Top Five Fantasy Books - Audio Version With Guest Andrew Head

Mythmakers

Play Episode Listen Later May 23, 2022 33:49

There has been a flourishing of audio versions of books. In today's episode, Julia Golding talks to Andrew Head, a creative writer and fantasy fan from Australia. Andrew is blind so accesses many of his stories through the audio version so is something of an expert on the subject. Listen for his top five and see if you agree! Jim Dale or Stephen Fry? Which version of the Narnia Chronicles? And much more! Visit http://oxfordcentreforfantasy.org for great gift items, event information, and sign up for our newsletter for super surprises!

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Hot Lead and Cold Feet (1978)

Hellbent for Letterbox

Play Episode Listen Later May 6, 2022 69:29

Michael and Pax complete their Disney Westerns marathon with Jim Dale, Don Knotts, Darren McGavin, and Jack Elam in Hot Lead and Cold Feet. Pax also watches a bonus Disney Western with The Castaway Cowboy while Michael discovers the Call of Juarez video games with Call of Juarez: Gunslinger.

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Unidentified Flying Oddball

Medfield College Film Society

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 6, 2022 108:48

This week the society boards their version of the Satellite of Love and experiences the 1979 madcap adventure Unidentified Flying Oddball, directed by Russ Mayberry and starring Dennis Dugan and Jim Dale. Join us if you dare for this trip into space and back in time to King Arthur's Court, and see if Robert can break Andy down further than ever before. You'll need plenty of space gear and perhaps some salacious periodicals from your own time... I'll be honest I don't even know what one needs to survive this one, just strap yourself into this rocket with us and take the ride.Follow us @medfieldfilm on social media for the latest updates

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Ep 128 Captain America: The Winter Soldier : Do You Expect Us To Talk?

Do You Expect Us To Talk? – Cinematronix

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 10, 2021 105:59

Finally...... DO YOU EXPECT US TO TALK IS BACK...... sorry for the delay folks. what did we miss? Anyway, we're picking up where we left off with Marvel's Captain America: The Winter Soldier. This sees Steve Rodgers, now living in a modern world struggling to find what's right and wrong, as Shield appears to be up to some crooked shit. Meanwhile, the mysterious assassin Winter Soldier seems to have a familiar resemblance. Join Becca, Chris and Dave as we discuss Chris's hot take on Robert Redford, somehow making this episode one of the filthiest episode yet (guess we needed to get it out of our system), why do we think the world cup is important, Sam Jackson's light-saber, wasted potentials, Jim Dale, and of course... how could you not talk about Captain America: The Winter Soldier without talking about.... Carry On Columbus. You can follow us on Becca, Chris and Dave on Twitter If you like to throw us a buck or two you can do it on Patreon You can find us on iTunes and Stitcher and if you like us leave us a lovely review as it helps us grow. If that wasn't enough, you can even you can follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook. Do You Expect Us To Talk Will Return with Guardians of the Galaxy

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Episode 10 – Meet the Other Voice - An Interview with Susy Flory