Podcast appearances and mentions of Peggy Fleming

GGACP gets into the holiday spirit with this ENCORE of a special episode from 2020, as Gilbert and Frank are joined by writer-producer Craig Schulz (“The Peanuts Movie”) and author-archivist Chip Kidd (“Peanuts: The Art of Charles M. Schulz”) for an in-depth look at the origin and legacy of “A Charlie Brown Christmas” and the genius of the man behind it. Also, Snoopy crushes on Peggy Fleming, Linus makes prime time history, Barney Google inspires a lifelong nickname and Craig introduces his father's work to a new generation. PLUS: Joe Shlabotnik! “It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown”! The artistry of Bill Melendez and Lee Mendelson! And the experts reveal their favorite “Peanuts” strips of all time! (Special thanks to Charles Kochman, Melissa Menta, Lindsey Schulz and John Murray!) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here the many complex dimensions of home are explored including the human need to find a home in nature. Andrews says,” Once you find a home in nature, you are never lost.” She also shares insights on those caretaking family members and other loved ones to age in place including those who choose to die at home and many other aspects of home. Valerie Andrews is a writer, editor, and seminar leader specializing in Jungian psychology and the inner life of home. She's a graduate of the Guild for Spiritual Guidance and the editor of the digital magazine Reinventing Home: Culture, Creativity, Character. She's also a contributor to many journals and magazines and was the host of the PBS documentary featuring Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul. She is the author and editor of A Passion for This Earth (Harper Collins 1994) and Sanctuary: The Inner Life of Home (Editor) (Chiron Publications 2024)Interview Date: 7/19/2024. Tags: Valerie Andrews, Jungian psychology, Sisyphus, Kaiser ACE study, plus-one proton, Ursula Le Guin, aging at home, Peggy Fleming, In the Evening of Life, Grassland Woman, Mary Reynolds Thompson, Eckart Tolle, James Hollis, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, Gilda Frantz, storage lockers, Bayo Akomolafe, Starhawk, Community, Personal Transformation, Psychology

Chuck Heinz and Jamie Lent talk about the NFL Conference Championship games, Peggy Fleming, Red Raider basketball win over OU, where we see the Big 12 Basketball shaking out, and officials and coaches building good will with one another.

The United States Figure Skating National championships was first held in 1914 in New Haven, Connecticut, and has been the spot for fans of the sport to see the best in the history of the sport, including Dick Button, ScottHamilton, Brian Boitano and Nathan Chen on the men's side, to women's sports icons such as Peggy Fleming, Dorothy Hammill, Kristi Yamaguchi and Michelle Kwan. This year's event is in San Jose, California, at the SAP Center. SportsTravel Managing Editor Matt Traub talked with Bob Dunlop, the senior director of events for U.S. Figure Skating about what goes into organizing the national championships, how the event is more than just the elite competition seen on television, working with destinations and venues over the years including during the pandemic, best practices in the business and the one event that he still wants to check off his sports bucket list. We hope you enjoy the conversation.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

California Hall of Fame 2022 class. Sac City Unified's fentanyl warning. New majority women Sacramento City Council. Peter Petty's “Hepcat's Holla'Daze Swingin' Yuletide Revue” returns to The Sofia, Home of B Street Theatre.    California Hall of Fame Amanda Meeker, Executive Director of the California Museum, joins us to discuss the latest class of California Hall of Fame. This year's inductees include actor and singer-songwriter Lynda Carter, ice skater Peggy Fleming, and soccer player Megan Rapinoe. Meeker also shares details of the museum's latest exhibits. SCUSD fentanyl warning Zach Didier was a 17-year-old senior at Rocklin's Whitney High School with dreams of attending UCLA. Although Zach was accepted, he would never step foot on campus. The teen's life was tragically cut short by Fentanyl poisoning just days after Christmas in 2020. Zach was just one of the more than 10,000 Californians who died from drug-related overdoses from October 2020 to September 2021, with Fentanyl accounting for more than half of those deaths, according to the state. Since then, the opioid crisis has only worsened. In Sacramento County alone, over 800 people were hospitalized for opioid overdoses in 2021 and claimed the lives of 174 others. In October, we spoke with the Sacramento City Unified School District about its plans to distribute a potentially life-saving drug to prevent poisoning and overdoses on all of its campuses. CapRadio Sacramento Education Reporter Srishti Prabha joined us to provide an update on that effort and how Zach Didier's family and others are sharing their stories.  Sacramento's majority women city council For the first time in 30 years, Sacramento has a women-majority city council. Three of whom are new faces and will be sworn in Tuesday night. CapRadio Sacramento Government Reporter Kristin Lam joins us with an introduction to the new face of the city council as well as a refresher on what these “hyper-local” elected officials do.   Hepcat's Holla'Daze Holiday music and gatherings are a highly anticipated tradition for some, while others may be done hearing the same songs and may dread the return of holiday parties. If the latter is you, there is a scintillating party in Sacramento to shake up the holiday season. Hepcat's Holla'Daze Swingin Yuletide Revue is making a roaring return this weekend at The Sofia, Home of B Street in Sacramento. It's a holiday tradition like no other, with music that promises to transport you back to the height of the "Swing Era." At the center of it all is Band leader and Master of Ceremonies Peter Petty, along with his Jazz orchestra the "Mercenaries of Merry." The ringleader of this swingin' Christmas celebration joined Insight to provide a preview of the celebration.

For VIdeo Edition, Please Click and Subscribe Here: https://youtu.be/NuUJtfZg55M Debbie Williams was born to gold medal Ice skaters and literally was born in a trunk. Her mom and dad traveled with the ice shows of that era and moved from town to town 11 months out of the year. When she was 2, they put her in a show and she performed with her family in Holiday on Ice and Ice Follies as a featured performer until the age of 15. Later, she did a show in Europe with Peggy Fleming where she met choreographer Bob Paul and he went on to choreograph the skating numbers for the 70's Donny and Marie Show. They needed Skater/ Dancers and he was hired. 4 years on that show and when it was over, Debbie switched into TV production. Produced Casey Kasem's Americas Top Ten TV Show for 5 years among other shows like Portrait of a Legend and others. Debbie had her son and decided to change jobs so that she would have more time with her son…. That's how stage managing happened. Soon she was doing all the big shows like the Oscars, Emmys, Grammys as the token female. It gave me time off to raise her son and it clicked. She did every live special, award show, live tv dramas like Fail Safe with Clooney, ER live, West Wing Live and On Golden Pond live with Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer. It it was live, I did it and became the only woman Lead Stage Manager to do live Variety tv in LA. I eventually did American Idol the first 15 seasons on Fox as the lead stage manager. Debbie is now semi retired but do occasional shows that I want to do. I use my talents to help with activism in LA and DC for Womens March. My kids are 28 and 38. My son was on Broadway in Jersey Boys and my daughter is a therapist. I'm also a new grandma to a 6 month old. And back living in LA after a 4 year Park City adventure and commuting for work in LA.

A Canadian figure skater and choreographer who has won two Emmy Awards for Scott Hamilton: Upside Down and for choreographing the opening and closing of the 2002 Winter Olympics. Kawahara joined the Ice Capades at age 17 and skated with them for seven years. In 1997, she became the first skater to win the Best Choreography Emmy Award. Sarah has choreographed for numerous competitive skaters, including Michelle Kwan, Kristi Yamaguchi, Dorothy Hamill, Peggy Fleming, Kurt Browning, Nancy Kerrigan, Oksana Baiul, Robin Cousins, Victor Petrenko and Tia Babilonia & Randy Gardner. She was coach and choreographer for the films Go Figure, Blades of Glory and I, Tonya, and for the television series Spinning Out. On this episode Sarah tells us when ice rinks were first added to cruise ships and about watching her daughter Hayley Kiyoko perform recently at Kamala Harris's home. 

Are you enjoying the Winter Olympics? 54 years ago today, Peggy Fleming won the GOLD for figure skating. She says you have to love your sport above all. I have an invitation for you. My Daily Phone Message is always complete with some fact and an invitation and sometimes a song. Take a listen every morning. In under a minute, you've got yourself a TOOL to position yourself for success as the curtain rises and you dive into Act 1-your business life. #youonyourbestday #goforit #livewithgusto

This episode is about what it takes to create authentic and loving relationships through the power of sports. We talk about some of the universal principles that successful relationships have in common that create significant impact in the lives of others In this episode, Jim and Jason are joined by Karen Moyer. She has always been a hopeful entrepreneur, a tireless philanthropist/national advocate for children and yet what she loves most of all is being a mother of 8. Her hope is that her children learn from her that they have to find their passion, that they have a purpose and to always try to make the world a better place. Her grit and perseverance has been powered by learning from others and from her own failures and accomplishments with the utmost grace … even when the deep truth was that it was all way much harder than she let it show most of the time. She was the first girl to play little league baseball and playing with all boys made her appreciate the grit it takes when one has the confidence to do something extreme. Her athletic skills helped me from being made fun of but the boys were ruthless – especially from the pressure they made her feel every at bat and in the field. Determined, She had the courage to be the first girl to play because She was supported by her parents, brother, and her team of boys. In High School She decided to work in television sports. Her dream was to be a sports reporter. This was in the 1980s when few women were pioneering this progression. The grit and backbone she needed to stay focused again in a “man's world,” was imperative to have any success. She set goals to work the Olympics on TV and She started that dream 1988 in Calgary with ABC working figure skating setting up the skaters in the “kiss and cry” for the amazing Peggy Fleming to interview after their performance. She attended the University of Notre Dame. She is an ‘87 grad and studied American Studies for television. She worked in the sports information department all 4 years, as well as interned at NBC NFL 84 in NYC after freshman year; worked local TV through graduation. While her TV dream was put on hold (basically for life) because She married into the up and down life of MLB moving 84 times in the 25 year amazing career of Jamie Moyer. She currently lives in Southern California. When she's not helping people find love reimagined, making connections and building corporate responsible programs for companies, She can be found in spin class, Pilates, boxing, walking her dogs on the beach, sailing around the world, or hanging out with her amazing kids … Making every day ridiculously amazing! https://goodmorninggorgeous.com/about-me/ Also be sure to check out https://4dathletes.com/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/4dathletes/message

In this encore of an episode from 2020, Gilbert and Frank are joined by writer-producer Craig Schulz ("The Peanuts Movie") and author-archivist Chip Kidd ("Peanuts: The Art of Charles M. Schulz") for an in-depth look at the origin and legacy of "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and the enduring genius of the man behind it. Also, Snoopy crushes on Peggy Fleming, Linus makes prime time history, Barney Google inspires a lifelong nickname and Craig introduces his father's work to a new generation. PLUS: Joe Shlabotnik! "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown"! The brilliance of Vince Guaraldi! The artistry of Bill Melendez and Lee Mendelson! And the experts reveal their favorite "Peanuts" strips of all time! (Special thanks to Charles Kochman, Melissa Menta, Lindsey Schulz and John Murray!) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

David Santee interviews Peggy Fleming, a former figure skater and the only American in the 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble, France to bring home a Gold Medal. She is the 1968 Olympic Champion in Ladies' singles and a three-time World Champion (1966–1968). Fleming has been a television commentator in figure skating for over 20 years, including several Winter Olympic Games. Also joining the conversation is Peggy's husband and teenage sweetheart Greg Jenkins, a dermatologist and a former amateur figure skater.

To celebrate the 55th anniversary of "A Charlie Brown Christmas," Gilbert and Frank welcome writer-producer Craig Schulz ("The Peanuts Movie") and archivist and author Chip Kidd ("Peanuts: The Art of Charles M. Schulz") for a look back at one of the most beloved and innovative television specials ever produced and the enduring genius of the man behind it. Also, Snoopy crushes on Peggy Fleming, Linus makes prime time history, Barney Google inspires a lifelong nickname and Craig introduces his father's work to a new generation. PLUS: Joe Shlabotnik! "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown"! The brilliance of Vince Guaraldi! The artistry of Bill Melendez and Lee Mendelson! And the panelists reveal their favorite "Peanuts" strips of all time! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Meghan and Neda emerge from their off season cocoons to cover a skating event at long last--the innovative 2020 Peggy Fleming Trophy, which took place in the coolest rink of them all: cyberspace!! Silver medalist Andrew Torgashev joins us for a very exciting peek behind the curtain of how a digital competition is made! Also featuring: Rachmaninoff, the color yellow, the eternal struggle for the attention of Josh Groban, and the future of medals (spoiler: it's Blingees). FOLLOW ANDREW twitter @andrewtorg29 (https://twitter.com/andrewtorg29) instagram @andrewtorg (https://www.instagram.com/andrewtorg/) and @torgashevstudios (https://www.instagram.com/torgashevstudios/) Etsy https://www.etsy.com/shop/TorgashevStudios FOLLOW US twitter @IceTeaPod (https://twitter.com/iceteapod) instagram @IceTeaPod (https://www.instagram.com/iceteapod/) @meghankelleher3 (https://twitter.com/meghankelleher3) @NedaMarie (https://twitter.com/NedaMarie) patreon: https://www.patreon.com/iceteapod “Slappy Theme Song” by Meghan Kelleher

Jack and Vienna speak with American icon Peggy Fleming, the 1968 Olympic gold medalist and three-time world champion, about the Peggy Fleming Trophy, her storied career, Japanese skating, the skaters who reminded her of herself, and the state of the sport today.

There was finally some real skating this week, so we're back to discuss the ins and outs of the 2020 Peggy Fleming Trophy, which was done virtually. We discuss scoring confusions and the programs we most enjoyed, plus a discussion of whether virtual competitions would work for regular season events, and what the ISU seems to be considering for the rest of the season going forward (and why we're quite concerned about it). This episode is brought to you by InSkate! Check them out at inskate.co/flutzes_and_waxels

Tara Lacher is a 2x cancer survivor.  She is the Founder/Owner of My Pink Scarf, Inc.., which is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, that gives knit/crochet pink scarves to cancer survivors.  To date she has given out nearly 12,000 scarves to women in 35 states and 14 countries. Her goal is to cover the world in pink. Numerous people have bought into Tara’s project ranging from school teachers to prison inmates. People who have received her scarfs include: Olivia Newton-John, Peggy Fleming, Sheryl Crow, Robin Roberts and Farrah Fawcett. She has received letters of thanks from former first lady Nancy Reagan and two Supreme Court Justices. She was the recipient of the Bismarck Tribune award in 2007 and has been featured in Women’s World Magazine. In this interview you will learn: 1: Commitments to others help us persevere even when we are having a tough time 2: If you feel worthless, work on a project that helps others 3: Think of three small things you can do to help someone every single day 4: In the Coronavirus isolation, hand write a letter to a friend or family member Website: www.mypinkscarf.com  Email: tlacher@mypinkscarf.com Phone: (US) 701-426-8303.

While tasing some new Bourbon... two friends, Ron Lynch and Eric Louviere, sat down at Ron's house and had an incredible time discussing life, business, failure, success, celebrities, high achievers, how to be great, how to rebound from burn-out, stories and so much more. (Even some tears were shed) This is a journey you’ll love to walk through with Ron Lynch and Eric Louviere…  Talk Hollywood, screenplays, distribution networks, big huge business, your purpose, underserving markets, how to sell things, failure, stories, doing what you love, Bourbon ice clanking in our glasses, being around high achievers, top of the food chain people… Stories about: Peggy Fleming figure skater Olympic Gold Medalist Mitch Gaylord Olympic Gold Medalist So much more, a fun and entertaining and wildly lucrative discussion you must dig into and enjoy!

One of the requirements for the Osmond Brothers to perform on "The Andy Williams Show" was to do something new each week. One particular week, the show centered on ice skating and featured Olympic gold medalist Peggy Fleming. Wanting to perform, the brothers spent the next week learning to skate, and on set pulled off a spectacular routine in one take.

Stanley Kubrick took us on the ultimate trip. Peggy Fleming won the only gold medal for the USA at an Olympics. And then some truly horrible events that show how things today could be much much worse. Seriously, don't even Google it because it will destroy you. But other stuff happened too! What's your favorite year? Well, it'd be weird for us to say that 1968 is ours. Here's 1968! The post 1968 appeared first on Year of the Week.

The Love of Honor So turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians, Chapter 4, be looking this morning at verses 1-5. And as I pray just a moment ago, 1 Corinthians 4 is a marvelous chapter in which we're going to be swimming in the mindset of the apostle Paul as he talks about his own view towards life, and his own view toward ministry. And we're going to begin by looking at Verses 1-5. And as I did this morning as I was praying about this text, and about what I was about to preach, I was consumed by a kind of a unifying theme here to introduce. And that is, I want to ask you the question, just think about human life, what is the fuel that propels the drive for greatness among people? What is the fuel that propels a drive for excellence in every field of human endeavor? What makes an aviator get in a single engine, single seat plane and fly for 33 and a half hours (Charles Lindberg), across the Atlantic to arrive near Paris, France? What motivated him to do that? What motivates a pharmaceutical researcher to spend long hours in lab, pursuing a cure to a disease like the common cold or cancer? What motivates all of those hours? What motivates an explorer, to be the first to stand on the North Pole? Wherever that is. And one after the other said, "I got there." And then science said, "No, you didn't." Then the next one guy, "I was the first." "No, you weren't." But anyway, that's another journey for another day. But what motivated all of those explorers to be that one? Or what motivates a physicist to sit in a patent office and scribble out formulas that would change the way that people saw physics for the entire 21st century? What was the motivation behind that? Or an Olympic athlete? Imagine a female figure skater that gets up way before sunrise and goes again to the rink, and works again on the quad, again and again, hitting the ice more times than she can count, more bruises, more cuts. What is the motivation behind all of that suffering? There are many motives, but there's one I have that dominates my mind and that is the love of honor. Love of honor. It's one of the major drives in human experience toward amazing achievement and excellence in every field. I read some time ago, Napoleon when he was traveling en route to his final destination to the remote island of Saint Helena where he would die, after he had led armies 600,000 strong and more marching over the battlefields of Europe and he built a French empire that dominated continental Europe, and men fanatically followed him across the snows of Russia. Even into burnt out Moscow itself and then on to the blood soaked battlefields of Waterloo. What motivated their loyalty? And he was musing on this, and he said, this, "A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon." For a bit of colored ribbon. Well, it's not the ribbon, but it's the honor that it represents. That's why his soldiers made those kinds of sacrifices. Charles Lindberg, when he landed, after 33 and a half hours, landed to tens of thousands of cheering Frenchmen. And I know you'll say a $10,000 prize. So you're saying that was some of the motivation, but I don't think that's what really moved him. In 1921, Albert Einstein was paraded through the streets of New York with a ticker tape parade. The most famous physicist of our day, of their day. Many Olympic gold medal winners have done so to complete that perfect gold medal winning performance, and just stand there, the music's over and the cheers just come cascading down and then she gets to climb up to the top podium and bend over and receive the gold medal. There's just honor in all of that. A Twisted Aspect Now, there are twisted aspects of this. Our love of honor can be perverted. It can be twisted and it all started with Satan's love of his own honor recorded for us, the primordial movement in Heaven, recorded I think in Isaiah 14, where he said, "I will ascend to Heaven. I will raise my throne above the stars of God… I will make myself like the most high." And then his servants, human servants, followed in his footsteps with the same mentality. We see it again and again in Scripture, but my mind was led this morning to Genesis 11, the men of the Tower of Babel, who said, "Come let us build ourselves a city with a tower in it that reaches up to the Heavens so that we may make a name for ourselves." The culmination of this twisted wicked self-focused love of honor, we see in Satan's temptation of Jesus in the desert where he says to Jesus, "If you are the son of God, tell these stones to become bread." But then just minutes later, he shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and their honor and splendor. And said, "I'll give all of this to you if you will bow down and worship me." Now, how in the world does a creature like Satan was... Creature is a created being, get to the point where he's saying to his Creator, "Fall down on the ground and worship me." So that's the twisted, sick aspect of love, of honor or ambition, would be another way to talk about it. Thomas Brooks, the puritan said this, "Ambition is a gilded misery, a secret poison. Ambition is a hidden plague, the engineer of deceit, the mother of hypocrisy, the parent of envy, the original vice of the angels, and of Adam and Eve. Ambition is the destroyer of virtue, the blinder of hearts. High seats are never but uneasy, and every crown is stuffed with thorns." A Holy Love of Honor Well, that's Thomas Brooks, the puritan talking about ambition. So one would think that all ambition is evil, all love of glory or love of honor is corrupt, but not so. The apostle Paul used the word, translated ambition, three times in his writing. The original Greek is literally, "love of honor." In Romans 15 he said, "It's always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not named so I would not be building on someone else's foundation rather as it is written. 'Those who were not told about him will hear and those who have not heard will understand.'" The overwhelming ambition of Paul's apostolic life, and ministry was to preach the Gospel in uncharted territories. The word literally is love of honor. "I wanted the honor of doing it." That's what Paul's saying. But then you get a different use of the word in 1 Thessalonians 4:11, where he writes to Thessalonian believers, very average brothers and sisters in Christ, who are not called on to be frontier, trail blazing apostles to the gentiles, but just to lead normal lives, he uses the same word, "Make it your ambition, [have the love of the honor] of leading a quiet life, minding your own business, and working hard with your own hands so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and you won't be dependent on anybody." Same word, love of honor different calling though. Very different calling. And then the one that binds them all together, 2 Corinthians 5:9, Paul says, "So then whether we are at home or away from the body, we make it our aim, or we have the ambition, to please Christ." My ambition... I would love the honor of pleasing Christ every moment of my life. Love of honor. Now if the motive is that Christ will honor us for serving him and that Christ will be pleased with us in everything that we do, actually that motive is not evil, it is not twisted. I would say it's required. The alternative here is not live a life with no ambition at all. Too many people are doing that. We're surrounded by them every day. They seem to live for nothing. But instead that we would have a burning ambition and the apostle Paul is probably the best in church history to point the way on how to do that. What are the mindsets of servant hood? What are the mindsets that lead to a life that's going to be lavishly honored and praised by God? But I would say it's required and there are many texts behind this. For example, Hebrews 11:6, where it says, "Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists, and that He rewards those who diligently seek Him." In other words, if you diligently seek Him every day, He will reward you. And actually you can't please him if you don't think like that. Or again Romans 2:7-8, the Apostle Paul is describing in Romans 2, two different ways to live and this is what he says. In Romans 2:7-8, he says, "To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, to them He'll give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking, who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger." Those are just the two different ways to live in this world. So the Christian life is a life of people who by persistence in doing good work seek glory, honor, and immortality. Now, we're not seeking that God would be immortal. He already is. So therefore, it's immortality for us that we would live forever. That we would seek to live forever. So then the other two are self-referential as well. That we would seek to be glorious in Heaven, to shine like the sun, and that we would seek the honor that God will give to faithful servants. That's the way you should live your life. Now, I believe that we are still corrupted in our sin nature. We're still tempted toward vain glory. We're still tempted towards selfish ambition, and so we need to be very careful about this topic. But this is really how I see it. It really just has to do with the vertical axis and the horizontal. If your focus is continually vertical and you're saying at every moment, "All I want is to please and glorify and honor my heavenly Father," He will reward you and honor you. But if you are focused, horizontally and saying, "What I want is to please this audience, or that audience, the others. I want tens of thousands waiting for me outside of Paris, cheering me when I land my plane. I want a whole stadium of people cheering me when I finish my routine. I want the ticker tape parade where everyone sees that I'm the greatest physicist that has ever lived." Now that is the twisted and sick aspect. I'm not saying that any of those individuals did feel that. I don't know what Charles Lindberg thought when he was landing. I think he was straight exhausted, been awake for 55 hours and he just needed to get to a hotel room and go to bed. And I don't know what Dorothy Hamill or Peggy Fleming thought when they won the gold medal. I don't know. I don't know what Albert Einstein was thinking as he's driving down surrounded by a ticker tape swirling. I don't know. But my concerns with your hearts and mine, so we have to be careful. We have to be that, like Paul says of the true Jew, the one whose circumcision is not physical, but spiritual by the Holy Spirit. Such a person's praise is not from men, but from God. Praise from God? Is that... Yeah, that's what we're talking about today. That you, as a servant would live your whole life seeking to please your master so much so that he will say at the end of your life, not just once but many times and not just once, but for all eternity. "Well done, good and faithful servant." That's what we're talking about. I. Christ’s Servants: Stewards of the Mysteries of God And so Paul is our role model. Now, this is the first of three sermons in 1st Corinthians 4, that's going to set Paul up as a role model for us. And so we're going to look and sit at his feet, and we're going to just basically follow his example, so we desire to be faithful servants. We're going to walk through what it means to be a faithful servant of Christ and we're going to begin at verse 1, Paul servant... Sorry, Christ's servants are stewards of the mystery of God. Mysteries of God. Look at verse 1. "So then men ought to regard us as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the secret things of God." So the question in front of us in verse 1 is, how should people regard us? Now the us is not us first. We need to stay in the text. It's how should we regard Paul and the other apostles and the fellow servants of the word of God. That's what that word us means there. But then we're going to try to follow him and try to imitate his example as best we can. So how should people regard Paul? Paul here I think has been walking a tight rope. Remember the problem in 1 Corinthians 1 through 3 has been their overwhelming love for human agency, human servants and workers and all that. They love eloquence, they love gifts, and all that sort of stuff. And so, they were saying, "I follow Paul…I follow Apollos…I follow Cephas…" and all that kind of thing, and Paul's trying to strip that away, and he does it very vigorously in Chapter 3, where he says very plainly, verse 5, "What after all is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered, but God made it grow so neither he who plants, nor he who waters is anything, but only God who makes him grow." So if you take all that and boil it down, Paul is saying, "I am nothing. God is everything." But on the other hand, like I said, he's walking a tight rope. He has to go the other way and say, "Yes, but however, I am the apostle to the gentiles, and I am a conduit of God's truth and of the mysteries of God. And you need to not think too lowly of me either." So don't think too highly of me, I am just a servant, but don't think too lowly either and say, "I can't hear anything from Paul." So he's got to say, "Yes, but I've got a special role to play." And so he has to work against Satan's work to slander Paul and this is going on all the time. Paul was one of the most slandered people that's ever lived. And so they're saying like, "I can hear the word from Apollos and I can hear it from Peter, but I just can't hear it from Paul. I'm done with Paul." Paul's shut down. He's like, "Don't do that. You need to regard me properly. And how would you regard me? Well, you have to regard me, us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. That's how you should look at me." So he wants them to know that he is a servant, but he really isn't their servant. He is Christ's servant. He's answerable to Jesus. And not ultimately them. It's really important to understand that. Some churches I think need to understand this more than they do. Now, I thank God that FBC Durham is not one of them. I think this church has a very healthy esteem for elders and teachers of the Word and pastors and I'm grateful for that, but not every church does. There's some churches who treat their pastors like employees and though they may not say it, they say, "Look, we pay your salary. You're answerable to us." Paul would say, "Nothing could be further from the truth. I'm not answerable to you or to any human court at all. I am answerable to Christ who called me on the road to Damascus, who could have struck me dead on the road to the Damascus, but didn't. Instead now said, "Now get up and go into the city and you'll be told what you must do." I'm answerable to Him. My life is in his hands, my calling is I am Christ's servant." That's what he's saying. So people ought to regard us. That's how you ought to see us. Apostles, me, as would Paul say, the apostle, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God, we serve Christ. He is the master to whom we're going to give an account on Judgment Day. We're going to stand before Jesus and tell him everything that we did in the body, whether good or bad. We're going to talk to Jesus about that, 7 Corinthians 5:10. Not to you. So Christ is the master and we are faithful ministers of the Word and we have to answer to him. And ultimately, Paul says we are also stewards of the mysteries of God. Now, a steward is a servant in a household who manages the master's material possessions. The stuff that the steward manages doesn't belong to him. It's not his stuff. He is under the master managing his money, managing his kegs of wheat, barrels of wheat or of oil, olive oil or wine, whatever it is. He's managing but it's not his stuff. It belongs to the master. But he has to give an account for his management. He's going to give an account. Stewards of the Mysteries of God And he says, we are "stewards of the mysteries of God." Now we have sung some hymns this morning that have just melted my heart and I just wept, praise God for your gifts, just we're swimming in the mystery of the cross. How can we fully understand Almighty God dying for us? I mean, do we have the ability to plumb the depths of that mystery? Do we understand the mystery of the incarnation? Paul says, beyond all question the mystery of Godliness is great. He appeared in a body and was worshipped by angels. How do you figure that out? Christianity is a religion of mysteries. What that means is, things hidden in the mind of God, but then at the right time revealed and made known through the ministry of the Word. And so, there are mysteries that are unfolding in Christianity, things that we wouldn't know any other way, and they focus on Christ. In Christ are hidden all the mysteries of wisdom and knowledge. All of it's wrapped up in Him. Christ in us, the hope of glory is called a mystery. There are mysteries about the future that we don't fully understand, like Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, "Behold I tell you a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed." So there is a future generation of people who will not die physically, they'll be alive when Jesus returns at the second coming of Christ. But they will be transformed, because flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, and so they have to have resurrection bodies. That's all a mystery. We are stewards of these mysteries, the mysteries of God. The greatest mystery of all is, what's this all about, what's the purpose of all of this? He says in Ephesians 1:9-10, "And he made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He first purposed in Christ to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment, that's the end of everything, to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head even Christ." That's a mystery, that's what this is all about. So these mysteries will take the rest of our lives and we still won't plumb the depths of them. Paul says, "You ought to see us as servants of Christ and stewards of these mysteries. So don't think too lightly or lowly of me, because you're going to miss some of the mysteries, you're going to miss some of the instruction. You need to stay under my teaching as I continue to be a faithful steward of the mysteries of God." II. Christ’s Servants’ Requirement: Faithfulness Secondly, Christ servants requirements is faithfulness. What do we... What does Christ want out of us? Faithfulness. Look at Verse 2, "Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful," that's all that Christ wants of his servants, faithfulness, faithfulness. I'm going to set you up each of you, my sons and daughters, I'm going to set you up in a ministry, in a life and it's going to be in some ways very common and similar to others, but in some way unique to you, tailor-made for you. I'm going to set you up in a calling, and I want one thing from you, be faithful to what I gave you to do. Be faithful. If you're a husband, be faithful, be a faithful husband. If you're a wife, be a faithful wife. If you're a mother, be a faithful... Be faithful to being a mother. If you're a father, be faithful to being a father. If you're a pastor, be a faithful Shepherd. Be faithful to what I gave you to do. Faithfulness. Now for me, faithfulness, just means obedience, just do what I told you to do, you can't do any better than what Christ commanded you to do. This just destroys all worldly ambitions. There's so many ambitions that men and women have. It's like, I want this and I want that and I want to do great, it's like, you can't do any better than what Christ wants you to do. That's the highest calling you can ever have. I actually reject what Martin Lloyd-Jones and some others say, the highest calling is preaching the Word. I actually don't think that's true. The highest calling for any servant is what the master called you to do. There is no higher calling than that for you. So just be obedient. What that means is, you're a soldier, you're put at a post, stay at your post. Do what your commanding officer told you to do, and don't get lured by temptations toward treason or cowardice. Stay at your post, don't give yourself over and become a traitor, having been bought with gold and silver, worldliness. Don't become a traitor to Christ and don't be a coward when the bullets start flying, stay at your post and do what you're... Even if you have to die, that's what courageous soldiers do. Stay at your post, don't give yourself... Be faithful to what I've told you to do. Paul met this criteria in amazing ways. He said to King Agrippa, "So then King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision," "I did what Christ wanted me to do. Everywhere I go, I'm beaten up for the Gospel, and I'm still at my post, I'm still doing what Christ called me to do on the road to Damascus." What is Your Calling? So the question before all of us, just right in the middle of the sermon, I just want to apply this. How about you? What is your calling? What are your spiritual gifts? Where are you positioned? Are you being faithful? Are you being faithful? Now, you may be in a process of preparation, you may not really know what your spiritual gifts are, you might be a teenager, for example, you know Christ as your Lord and Savior, but you don't know what your spiritual gifts are yet. I understand that, there's a process, but you know... And it could be even beyond that. You still don't know, but in the end, what are you gifted, what are you called to do and are you being faithful to your calling? That's all that the Lord requires of us. III. Christ’s Servants’ Freedom: Concern Over Human Judgments Now, Paul's clarity on this, frees him up entirely from human evaluation. It brings us to point 3, Christ servant's freedom is concerned over human judgments. This is a very bold Verse, I love it. 1 Corinthians 4:3, Paul says this, "I care very little if I'm judged by you or by any human court." There are a lot of ways I could rephrase that. I'll try to be careful, not give him an attitude he really didn't have, but "I don't give a flip what you think about me." We are at that point now, I really don't care. The funny thing is, he clearly does care in other ways, but he doesn't care like we think he cares. He writes basically, almost all of 2 Corinthians to defend himself and his ministry against the super Apostles, so he does care very much what they think about him, but not in the way you and I, through our ego-maniacal ways would, not like that. He says, "I care what you think about me in that I want to be certain you can continue to receive the Word of God from me." But in an ultimate sort of sense, I have seen the resurrected glorified Jesus. I've seen Christ. I know I deserve to die on the road to Damascus. Paul wrote the words, "If anyone destroys God's church, God will destroy him." "I deserve to die. So my death sentence is a suspended sentence and I'm walking under that and I realize that my life, for the rest of my life, isn't mine anymore. It was bought with a price. I am a servant of the king. So putting it a little more gently, I care very little what you think about me, and frankly, I care very little what any human being thinks about me." It's a very powerful thing. Because we are so dominated by concern about other people's opinions. I remember watching years and years ago, one of my first children was a little baby getting a little bit older, starting to be aware of other human beings did something that everyone in the room thought was funny. And he liked that so much, he did it again and again and again until it wasn't funny anymore, alright? But I was just thinking about that feedback loop from infancy, how we care about facial expressions and expressions of pleasure. And I like you and I'm happy with what you're doing. And then we become addicted to that. And we have to have that severed in some very vigorous ways in order to serve Christ as faithfully as we can. So Paul says, "I care very little if I'm judged by you or by any human court." Now, no one was in my opinion, I don't know anybody in church history that was arraigned before more human courts than the Apostle Paul. I mean, it's almost like the last third of the Book of Acts it is court trial after court trial, after court trial. That's just Paul on trial. So he knew what it was like to be arraigned before human tribunals. But he said, "I'm actually freed up. I'm freed up from what they think, I'm freed up from what Agrippa thinks about me, or Herod thinks about me. I'm freed up from what any of the Romans think about me. I'm freed up from what the Emperor Nero thinks about me, I'm freed up from that. And I'm freed up Corinthians from what you think about me. I care very little. It's a light thing." Their judgment of him will mean literally zero on Judgment Day. Do you understand that? Literally nothing. What anybody thinks of you, any other human being will vanish into nothingness when you stand before Christ. As Paul wrote in Romans 8:31, "If God is for us, who can be against us?" Or you could it say this way, "If God is for us, who cares who's against us." Or "If God is for us, what does it matter what anybody is either for or against us?" None of it matters. All that matters is God is for us. But so, also, when it comes to evaluation, all that matters is what God, what Christ thinks about us. Even Our Conscience Cannot Vindicate Us And you know, it's interesting, Paul here includes himself in this. He says, "I don't even judge myself." "I don't even evaluate my own life in ministry. My own evaluation of my life, my deeds, the seeds I planted, the harvest that came from it, I don't know." Frankly God hides most of our fruitfulness from us. We are called on to broadcast seed sow, and just sowing and sowing and sowing, and sowing. We don't know. I have no idea how fruitful I've been. And I'm pretty convinced God doesn't want me to know, because I'm pretty convinced that I can't handle it if it's good. If I find out, I've been incredibly used by God, I will become an egomaniac, and none of you will want to be around me. So God does a lot of things to humble me, and he does a lot of things to humble you. Now I believe in heaven we'll be able to handle the truth and we will see our full harvest of righteousness then. But it won't matter at all, what any human audience thought or what I thought about myself. All that will matter is what Christ thought about me. Now he says, "My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent." Do you realize how important a statement that is? Hey, I have a clear conscience. I have a clear conscience. People say that. I have a clear conscience, as though that's the final word. Friends, it isn't. Your opinion about yourself is not the final word on you. Christ's word is the final word on you. And so, just because you have a clear conscience doesn't mean you're innocent. Now, don't go too far. Conscience is important, it's part of the original equipment that God gave us in the image of God. It's that internal part of you that presses you to do right and not do wrong, and then evaluates you after the fact of whether it thinks you did right or wrong. And it's a good thing. And so Paul says, "there will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked, so I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and man." It is a very good thing to have a clear conscience. It's not a bad thing. As a matter of fact, as a Christian, I can say, I think almost 100% of the time, if you violate your conscience, you have sinned. So don't violate your conscience, don't do something your conscience tells you not to do. Now, if you press me and say, "Pastor, what's the difference between the voice of conscience and the voice of the Holy Spirit?" I'll say, "Let's have a long discussion over coffee. I don't know that I can tell the difference. But I do know that our conscience can be corrupted and hardened, but then it can be healed and redeemed, and the Holy Spirit can use it. So Paul mentions it positively. All he's saying is, his clear conscience is not the final word on his life. Christ's evaluation is all that matters. IV. Christ’s Servants’ Judgment: Secrets Exposed, Rewards Given Fourthly, Christ servant's judgment secrets exposed, rewards given. Look at verse 5, "Therefore, judge nothing before the appointed time. Wait till the Lord comes, He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of people's hearts." Well, since human judgments mean nothing, he's saying to them, "Stop evaluating my ministry. Stop weighing it." Now listen, it is essential that Paul be proven as a faithful minister of the Word of God, that's essential. And all congregations should evaluate their teachers, their pastors, their elders continually in some sense. Because it is possible that elders, pastors, teachers of the Word can be wolves in sheep's clothing. But keep in mind, Jesus said, "By their fruit, you will recognize them." He taught that you would be able to identify wolf-ish behavior and be able to see the snarling teeth under the sheep clothing. So it is important to evaluate the teachers of the Word, and also Luke in Acts 17:11 talked about the Bereans, you remember the Bereans? He said, "Now the Bereans were more noble-minded than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness, and then examined the scriptures daily to see if what Paul said was true." Let me ask you a question, do you think I'm going to be offended if I find out that you guys went home today and read over 1 Corinthians 4:1-5, to see if what I said was true? No, please do it. Please go back over the Scripture and see if what I said is true, see if this is what Paul is teaching about how a faithful servant of Christ should be. If on some point you think differently, let's talk about it, etcetera. But that's exactly what Bereans should do. But once you've settled, if the pastors are faithfully expositing the Word of God and are faithfully teaching the Word of God, then be thankful for them. And keep receiving the Word from them. That's what Paul's zealous about here. However, ultimately only Judgment Day when Christ returns will we be able to see the final truth. Like was said of George Whitfield, he said he wanted this in this tomb, here lies George Whitfield, what sort of man he was that day will reveal. In other words, that's all there needs to be said about George Whitfield. At the second coming of Christ, wait till the Lord comes, and on that day, everyone's works are going to be tested, and there'll be gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay and straw, there's going to be all of that, all of that will be revealed on that day. Final analysis. The Lord alone then can read the human heart. Christ is going to lay bare all of our hearts, he's going to lay bare our motives, why we did what we did. Some people, we will find serve the Lord from pure motives, as much as sinners can ever do that, love for God vertically, love for others horizontally as best as we can do it, never perfect. Our works all need to be purified. But the motives, why we did what we did will be laid bare. Jesus said to the church in Revelation 2:23, "I am He who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds." So he's going to test our motives. Why we did what we did? And our works, what we did? So the Psalmist says in Psalm 1:39, "O Lord, You have searched me and You know me." I think one of the best things we can do as servants of Christ to say, at the end of the Psalm, "O Lord, search me and know me. Try me, and test me and show me myself, and see if there's any hurtful way in me, any unrighteous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." Psalm 139:23-24, do that. Just say, "Oh God search me, give me a fore taste of that judgment, so I can do a course correction." V. Christ’s Servants’ Reward: Praise from God Christ servant's reward ultimately is praise from God. Now, we come full circle to where I began. 1 Corinthians 4:5 is, in my opinion, one of the most important Verses in the Bible on rewards. If you were to ask me, what are the rewards, what are we getting? I want to boil it down to these three words, in one of the translations. Praise from God. ESV has commendation, that's fine, but I just like simply praise from God, not praise for God, we'll be doing that for all eternity, giving God the praise, giving God the glory. No, this is something else, this is God praising us. And this is not in the sense of fall down and worship me, it's not that. It's the sense of a pleased father commending a beloved son, or daughter. This is good fathering, we'll talk about this at the end of the chapter. But Godly fathers commend their children and say, "Well done." And so Godly master say, "Well done, good and faithful servant." And I love the rest of that statement. Not so famous, but I've talked about it so many times. "Well done, good and faithful servant. You've been faithful of a few things. I'm going to put you in charge of many things, enter into the joy of your Master." That's the reward. Come, you and me, Father, Heavenly Father, and adopted son or daughter, let's the two of us share together the joy that I had over that particular good work. Let's have a relationship over the time you went into your room, closed the door and prayed to your Father as unseen and I will reward you with how much that pleased me. The time that you gave to the poor and needy, and no one knew what you did, no one knew what your right hand or your left hand was doing, you just did it to please me, I saw it, well done. Enter into my joy over that. That's the reward, praise from God. And my feeling is, this is the very thing that Jesus told you to store up in heaven. When he talked about your giving and your praying and your fasting, none of those things should be seen by others, to be praised by them. You should do them all vertically that God would see you and praise you and He will and then he said, "Do not store for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal, for where your treasure is there, your heart will be also. Store up, praise from God. Store it up, store it up, every day, store it up this afternoon. Store it up tonight, store it up tomorrow morning, that God would praise you, praise you, praise you, praise you for what you did. Such as, I'm pleased with you, I'm pleased with you, I'm pleased with you. So many Scriptures teach this. Paul says in Ephesians says to find out what pleases the Lord. Don't you think the implication is to do it. Find out what makes God pleased with you, and just for you to have a father-centered life, and say, "I just want everything I do to please you Father, all the time," and he will express it to you. And actually, Hebrews 11:6 says that you must believe that He will express it to you some day. VI. Applications Alright, so that's 1 Corinthians 4:1-5, let's apply it. Let me just start by speaking to you, who are as yet perhaps unbelievers. Maybe you're invited here today, maybe you came in off the street or maybe you've been coming to church for a long time, but you know that you're not a Christian. Here's the thing, the Bible makes it very plain in Romans Chapter 2, that we're either storing up praise from God or storing up wrath from God. One or the other. There's no third option. Every single day, if you're an unbeliever, you're storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. But here's the beauty of the Gospel, we've already sung it, we praise Jesus for this. God sent His son to stand under His righteous justice and wrath against you and take it from you on the cross, so that He, Jesus stands before you and says, "Give me all of your sin and guilt and I will absorb the wrath of God for that and you'll be free, there'll be no condemnation for you." And all you need to do for that is trust in Him. No good works will merit him doing that for you, He just offers that to you freely by grace through faith. So trust in Christ. And once you do that, once you trust in Him, you will immediately flip and start storing up treasure in Heaven, start storing up praise, praise from God in heaven. That's a whole different way to live. Secondly, let me just speak to you who are already redeemed. You came in here, you're believers, you've been listening, I just want to set before you an ambition. Just have an overwhelming ambition all the time. 2 Corinthians 5:9 tells us to please God every moment of your life. Don't live a flaccid, lazy, pleasure-seeking, indulgent kind of... I could keep going and will next week, American life that seeks a truce with the surrounding Christ-hating world and seeks a lazy, pleasure-seeking, sodded way of life that is so endemic here in the west. Let's not live like that. Let's instead live a life of ambition, a life of fiery ambition. I don't know, some of you might be like Paul called on to go overseas and preach the Gospel where Christ has never been named. There's still unreached people groups. Others of you may be more called like 1 Thessalonians 4:11 to lead a quiet life, mind your own business, work hard with your hands and live a glorious life. There's an honor in that too, but whatever God's calling you to do, live every moment, a life of ambition. I want to please my master every moment. In order to do that, finally I just would urge you more and more free yourself from care about what other people think about you. What difference does it make what your acquaintance in the cubicle over there or the person sitting next to you on the plane, or the neighbor diagonally across the street or your unsaved relative thinks about you? What difference does it make? If that's hindering you from sharing the Gospel with them, get over it. It doesn't matter what they think about you. Free yourself up and then say, "Lord," vertically, "All I want in each of these relationships is to please you," and God will give you power to share the Gospel with each of them. Close with me in prayer. Father, thank you for the Apostle Paul, thank you for the things that he taught us, thank you for the example that he is to us. And Father, I pray that you would please strengthen each of us, free us up from fanatical commitment to self. Free us up from caring too much what people think about us. Free us up O Lord, to do the river of good works that you have prepared in advance for us. Help this church to be on fire for Christ, to be on fire for souls, to see more and more people in the community and even to the ends of the earth, brought over into safety and salvation through faith in Christ. Strengthen us Lord, and fill us with your spirit. Thank you that you've loved us enough to tell us the truth in Jesus's name, Amen.

GAY GORDON-BYREN is Executive Director of The Repair Association at repair.org. She was born into a computer geek household and grew up around computer parts and designs. She wanted nothing to do with computers as a kid, but wanted to be a figure skater like Peggy Fleming or an opera singer, but didn’t have the right stuff.REPAIR.ORG believes that every time a farm equipment manufacturer inserts a computerized part into their product – they seem to take that as an opportunity to monopolize repair. Its wrong on every level – so it must be stopped. Farmers do own their equipment but they often give up those rights with a hidden agreement that states otherwise. MODERN FARM EQUIPMENT is very much like computer mainframes were in the 1970s.  When they break – it’s a very big deal.  There is little or no tolerance for downtime. They are expensive, bulky, and have to be repaired in the field. It’s as impossible to fix a modern tractor as it is a computer without the tools, parts, schematics, diagnostics and firmware that only the OEM can provide.  Same Stuff – Different Covers.  Where others see differences, Gay sees similarities.  Find out more at www.repair.org 

To close 2016, we want to celebrate some of our Solid Gold Satellite Sisters. The great podcasts just keep coming! Today, we talk to figure skater/commentator/hair idol Peggy Fleming. Listen and you can hear Satellite Sister Julie Dolan hyperventilate as she talks to her idol. Someone get the smelling salts. Peggy Fleming is as gracious with the Satellite Sisters as she could possibly be. And for that, we send her holiday cheer. Of course, we wanted to dish a little bit on some of the skaters-- but it's clear Peggy Fleming does not operate that way, so we stuck to her standards. You're the best, Peggy Fleming!Who is your your Olympic hero? Which medalist would you love to have the chance to talk to ?

On today's Satellite Sisters, we bring you a favorite interview we did about personal finance with Mellody Hobson of Ariel Capital and Good Morning America.  It's tax time, people, so we figured you could use the financial inspiration.   Mellody helps us think about all the issues about friendships and money.  Her first piece of advice is "Get straight with who you are." You have made life choices and career choices along the way.  Those choices have implications.  Accept them.     Next piece of advice is "Stop trying to keep up with the Jones'". If you can't afford it, you have to say so. A friend wants a fabulous destination wedding in Italy and there's no way you have the money to go?  You have to fess up early. You'll stay friends as long as you don't flake out late.  Picking a restaurant for dinner? Be sure it's something everyone can afford. Don't get into the habit of always treating if you are the one with more resources.  Your friends do not want to be your charity case.  A caller has a questions about money secrets.  Should you loan friends money without telling your spouse?  Even with the best of intentions, Mellody says everything needs to be on the up and up.  No subterfuge. No surprises.  And finally, how about loaning money to friends or family? Mellody says yes, as long as it's above board and documented.  After all, if you can't count on your friends to help once in a blue moon, who can you count on?  But never loan more than you can afford to lose.  For more "You're the Best" Encore Interviews from the Satellite Sisters, go to iTunes or www.satellitesisters.com.  You can listen to Bill Clinton, Peggy Fleming, J J Abrams, and Nora Ephron among other solid gold Satellite Sisters conversations.  To order copies of "You're the Best", try amazon, vromans or bookstores near you.  

A pre-Olympic conversation with one of our heroes-- the wonderful Peggy Fleming. Someone get Julie smelling salts because she just might faint talking to her idol! As lovely on the show as you imagine her to be. Thank you, Peggy Fleming. You're the best! 

On today's Satellite Sisters, Julie and Liz tackle: The latest on our Satellite Sisters "You're the Best" book tour:  reports from Dallas, Portland and Bend.  Sales are brisk.  A good time is being had by all.  Thank you, Satellite Sisters and Misters!  Good news about Jimmy Carter being cancer-free.  We are happy for you, Mr. President.  Why Vladimir Putin should not become your vegetable vendor despite what he claims in The New York Times. Julie has shopped for vegetables in Moscow with a geiger counter and has some tips of her own. The awful news from San Bernardino, CA. The Los Angeles Times has a story about the two sisters of the female perpetrator.  Mark Zuckerberg and Pricilla Chen's new baby and their plan to donate 99% of their wealth to charity.  To those people who have a beef with how they did this, we ask how many billions have you donated lately?? Stay tuned this week for some of our new Satellite Sisters "You're the Best" Encore Interviews.  Coming up next: George Foreman, Robin Roberts and Julie's teenaged heroine, the great Peggy Fleming.  Plus, we've already posted classics like Nora Ephron, Julia Louis Dreyfus, Elizabeth Gilbert and J J Abrams. We are loving all your photos of your "You're the Best" gifts to your own Satellite Sisters.  Keep 'm coming on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.  Follow us @satsisters and use the hashtag #satsisters and #satsistersYTB. 

VHS Rewind! Season 2 Episode 8 The Osmond Family Christmas Special (1980) Mark and Chris discuss the heavily produced and popular Donnie and Marie 1980 Xmas Special! Stars such as Peggy Fleming and Doug Henning perform!

February 2014An interview with the legendary Dick Button. What hasn't he done? He's practically the father of our sport (if Jackson Haines were Grandfather). The two-time Olympic Gold medalist invented many of the jumps and spins we see today, and he invented figure skating commentary. He's a skater, producer, commentator, actor, truth-seeker, hall-of-famer, stirrer-upper, and figure skating's biggest fan. This first episode focuses on his new book Push Dick's Button, a fantastic book that is a really wonderful conversation on skating. 55 minutes, 50 seconds. [display_podcast] AM: Allison ManleyDB: Dick Button AM:  Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Manleywoman Skatecast. I'm your host, Allison Manley, and this is Episode 73, an interview with Dick Button. That's right!  You heard it, here it is! Any longtime fan of my podcast knows I have been chasing this interview for years. Years! And it only took writing a poem, some polite stalking, a pinch of begging, and quite a bit of persistence and tenacity — and let's face it, it doesn't hurt that he was trying to spread the word about his new book. All I know is that I'm thrilled to have been finally able to interview him. So, in case you don't know his many accomplishments, I'm going to list them off first. Here is the general overview of what Dick Button has done for this sport. He was the first skater to have won the men's novice, junior and senior titles in three consecutive years. He was the first skater to land a double axel. He was the first skater to land a triple jump, which was a triple loop, and the first male skater to perform a camel spin. And he was the inventor of the flying camel spin, also known as the Button camel. He's the only American to win the European title. He's the first American world champion, the first American to win the Olympic title in figure skating, the first and only American back-to-back champion. He is the first and only American skater to simultaneously hold all of the following titles: national, North American, European, World and Olympic. That's five. He's the youngest man to win the Olympic title in figure skating, at age 18, and it shocks me still that this record stands today. He is the winner of the Sullivan Award. In the 1960s he began doing television commentary, and has been gracing our television sets for decades since. He was inducted into the World Skating Hall of Fame in 1976, which was the initial class. He won an Emmy Award in 1981 for outstanding sports personality/analyst. He was a producer of skating shows including The Superstars, which was the first of the reality shows. He starred in movies and on television, and on the stage. The autobiography he wrote in 1955 is a fount of knowledge, and is incredibly well written. I highly recommend that you all find a copy and give it a read. And, of course, he is the author very recently of Push Dick's Button, a fantastic book that is a really wonderful conversation on skating. Dick and I decided to do this interview in two parts. The first will be focused on his book and all the ideas within. The second part will focus more on his career and life in skating, and will follow at a later date to be determined.  Anyone who knows my podcast knows that I've been dying to capture his voice on tape for the fans. So, ladies and gentlemen, may I present — Dick Button. ----- AM:  All right, Dick Button, are you ready? DB: I am. AM: So, thank you so much for your book. It's wonderful. I have to ask, why did you write it at this time? DB: And my question to you is, what do you mean by “at this time”? Are you saying that I'm a very old poop [laughs] and therefore don't have any understanding of what the hell is going on in today's world? Or are you asking it because it's been a long time since I have written? I wrote a book in 1952 or 1954, when I was a very young person, and then I did one other paperback kind of book a couple of years later. I don't understand the question “at this time”?  I mean, that does that mean? Am I missing something? AM: I guess it is curious that it has been such a long time. I do actually have the book from the 1950s, and I think it's interesting that the book that you chose to release now, rather than being a biography or an autobiography, is such a conversational book. So I suspect that you felt the need to have this conversation, so that's why I'm asking. Is skating frustrating you to the point where you felt like you had to tell these opinions? DB: I'll tell you what it really is. Number one, it was in the past exceedingly difficult for me to write. The advent of the computer and the lectures that I give on gardening introduced me to an entire new way to write. If you write on your computer, you can erase things, you can change things, you can move things around, and you don't have to rewrite painfully every single word. So the system and the ability to write was exceedingly pleasant. Then I also have a very good friend who had gotten me a major contract ten years ago, that was with Simon and Schuster, and I had a great opportunity to write a very good book at a very high-priced contract. And that was at the same time that I had gone skating on New Year's Eve, and fell and fractured my skull, and got concussions and lost the hearing in my left ear. And I also had a co-writer with me, and it didn't work. We just didn't work out. In other words, it was too much. I couldn't handle it at that time. It took me about two or three years to really get my act together and to recoup from that fall. So the important thing was, this same lady, who is a great friend of mine and who got me that contract, her name is Pat Eisemann-Logan — I finally said to her, Pat, what can I do for you? And she said, I'll tell you what you can do. I would like it if you would come and sit on the couch next to me and tell me what the heck is going on with what we are watching. So I sat down one day and I just wrote out a couple of things, a few chapters, and she said, yeah, that's terrific. And I love it because, number one, it doesn't have to be The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire of Skating. It is a simple conversation. Conversations are meant to be interrupted, to have answers, to have somebody kvetch about it. Conversations can range from any subject to any subject, and that's why I like the idea of this. I did not want to do a history of skating, which others have done before this, and I did not wish to do a biography. I think there's far too much more of great interest around the world of skating. I wanted to do what subjects came up to my mind, what it is to watch for at the Olympics, and most of the questions you've asked me about this are  all in that book. So it was a very pleasant experience for me, I enjoyed it no end, and I'm happy to have done it and done it the way I did. Although I will tell you that there are three books that you write and three skating programs that you skate and three pictures that you paint.  They are, number one, the book you plan, number two, the book you do, and number three, the book you wish you'd done [laughs]. So if you can put up with that, you're a good gal. AM: It does seem to have worked out that this is the book you wish you had done. You seem very pleased with it. DB: Oh, yes, but there's a lot of things that I . . .  listen, if I had started with all the things I made notes of, I would have had six more volumes [laughs]. I don't think so. AM: Well, I do love the fact that even though it's not biographical, that you have a lot of sprinklings of your history in there. I mean, I think that's a great addition to the opinion pieces that are in there, because there's definitely opinions in there as well. DB: Well, it's a conversation. It covers whatever's on your mind. The one chapter that many people have criticized, they say, we know what jumps are, you don't have to put a chapter in there saying the different jumps. But my doctor said to me, "Dick, my daughter skates and we all really like watching the skating, but I can't tell one jump from another, how can I do that?" And it annoyed him. So I put in this brief explanation, if you don't know what a jump is, there's three or four or five or six pages of it, and if you already know which jumps are which — skip over it! This is not the end of the world book. This is not the end of the world subject. It is a conversational piece. And I hope like the devil that people can figure out that they can learn something from it. Because I enjoyed very much doing it. AM: Well, great. And I do want to ask you some questions about it, obviously without giving away too much, because people should buy it and read it, of course [laughs]. DB: [laughs] Well, we don't have long enough on this conversation, so go ahead and spring your questions. AM: Well, one of the things you are concerned about is losing the theatrical part of skating. And I wonder, from a competitive standpoint, how you think it can be preserved. There are a lot of people trying to preserve it outside of competition, but in the competitive arena, what are your thoughts on that? DB: Let me also start out by saying that competition, the Olympic Games which we're about to start into in another day or two — they get the most audience. Figure skating and dancing, they're kissing cousins, and figure skaters have the opportunity to become instantly famous and household names. Dancers don't have that. So if a figure skater has that opportunity, and the Olympic competition is there, it's marvelous that they take part and do it. However, figure skating is a complete sport. It's a sport that has music, choreography, costuming, performance level, story level — it has so many different aspects that are intimately intertwined with each other. Figure skating is theatre, and I don't care who tells me that it's not. The head of the ISU, the head of the Olympic Committee, and a lot of guys get all honked about it and say it's not a sport. Well, don't watch it! If you think it's not a sport, don't watch it, and I couldn't care less. However, the point is very simply that it is all of these things. It is theatre, it always has been theatre, and it will always continue to be theatre. And that is the very reason that makes it so popular at the Olympic Games. Now the reason I'm saying this is, there's an old saying that Oleg Protopopov used to tell me all the time, and that was, “Deek! Deek! You cannot have artistry without technique. But neither can you have technique without artistry”. The old votes, the old judging system had two marks. They were for technical merit and for artistic impression. The new marks, in essence, if you really want to see what the icing on top of the cake is, the subterfuge of it all, is they have all the marks that you get on your point system first, and then they have the component scores. Have you ever read the component scores? AM: I have. DB: Then you know that they mix together choreography, step sequences, footwork, et cetera, et cetera, and they have something like 27 or 28 different criteria to figure and allot to a skater's program within about two seconds. That's almost an impossible thing. And also, you will never know what it's about because it's secret. All I'm saying is that yes, there are many other organizations — there's Disney on Ice and Stars on Ice and individual singles skating here and there, and there's ensemble skating with the Ice Theatre of New York, and there's synchronized skating, and there's all kind of things. But it's the theatrical performance level that mesmerizes us. I mean, why did we look at Katarina Witt? Not only was she sensational looking, but she had personality and pizzazz. Let me ask you a question. Why is Evgeni Plushenko such a hot subject? I'll tell you why. Because he has personality. He's a great jumper, not a great spinner. But he has personality. He has pizzazz. And you can't take your eyes off him, watching what he's going to do. He will bamboozle you with his wrist movements . . . AM: He'll make you think he's skating with those wrist movements [laughs]. DB: Of course, I've seen him do that half a dozen times. He stops and does a bunch of fancy wrist movements around his belt line, and that's supposed to be great theatrical skating or something. Let me tell you something. Who is it that you want to watch at this Olympic Games? Who is it they are looking forward to watching? AM: Jeremy Abbott and Jason Brown. DB: You mean you want to see the competition between them. AM: The competition between them, but I think both are so wonderful. They bring something so different. DB: Absolutely right. And so do half a dozen of these skaters. I think what you really want to see also is Davis and White and how they impact the show. And who do we remember out of the past? Come on, you remember the stars that had pizzazz, that had presence, that grabbed you. There's a whole chapter in my book there about entrances and exits, and it's all about the difference between an Irina Slutskaya entering the skating arena — the first thing she does is skate over to her coach, takes a swig of water, high fives her coach, and adjusts the pants on her dress. And the next thing she does is blow her nose. Now, come on, is that theatre? That's not a humdinger of an entrance. The point is that, how does Katarina Witt do it? She doesn't lose for one moment the presence, the theatre aspect of it. And the gal we remember most of those two has gotta be Katarina Witt. And that's why there's a chapter in the book called "Where Are You When We Need You, Katarina Witt?" And . . . what else can I tell you? [laughs] This is my favorite rant. AM: You're passionate and I love it. I love every minute of it. DB: Well, come on, you know, it's a fun activity. It's a very complicated activity. It has so many elements to it that you simply cannot avoid any one of them. And the level of performance is one of those characteristics. AM: Yes. Well, you are a vocal critic of the judging system, but I am curious because you have said that there are parts of it that you think are worth preserving. What parts would that be? DB: Well, for example, I think you should always have a markdown if you fall. Right now what we are seeing is — how many people fell in the last [2014] National Championship, both men and women, in the different parts. How many people fall down? AM: Not a lot this year, actually. DB: Well, Ashley Wagner, she did. But you're being rewarded if you do a quadruple jump and you fall down but you're rotated almost enough to complete the thing in the air. This is all part of Ottavio Cinquanta's desire to — if he had his way, he would not have any judges there at all, and it would all be based on points and timing. I would like the fact that there would be no reward at all for a fall. And a deduction if you fall down.  I write about this in my book, there was a communiqué from the ISU explaining what falls were. You don't know what a fall is, I don't know what a fall is, certainly. But this rule came out and then three months later, there was — I mean, the question was, what part of the body was the fall on, was it on your bottom, was it on your core, and if you were on your fanny, were you on one buttock or another buttock or were you on both buttocks [laughs]. And then along came three months later this explanation, this clarification, and then changes to the rule that explained what a fall was [laughs]. So you have to read all that to understand the sense of the nit-picking. Now listen, let me tell you something else, and I write about this in the book . I challenge you to count — take one of the ladies anywhere, not necessarily Ashley Wagner, but start with a young lady and start counting the number of times when they're doing step sequences and all of those wonderful things, where they raise either one or the other or both arms over the level of their shoulders. And if you start counting, my bet is that you will get to 20 very, very quickly, and then you can stop. They're like flailing windmills. That's exactly the point. That does not augur well, in my book. First of all, there's just gotta be less talk about it. Why do you have to have something that is exactly two minutes with so many seconds on either end of it? That isn't the way. You should have one program that is your technical program, and one program that is your creative or other program, but neither one should be acceptable or be able to be marked well unless it has the qualities of the other one. One should be of technical merit and one should be of — the old judging captions, artistic impression, they are in a sense that way now, they're just called something different, it's technical marks and the program components. AM: So I wonder, you do outline at the end of the book your wishes and suggestions for better scoring, and they do include that the two programs should be different and that there shouldn't be a time limit. DB: Put it this way, there should be a time limit, but a generous one. I mean, during the World Professional Championships, we recorded the length of time of every skater, and only once did somebody ever go over, I think, maybe four and a half or five minutes.  So if you have three and a half minutes or four minutes, a generous thing — what difference does it make? Why do you just have to limit yourself? This is just the one program, not the technical program, the artistic impression program. AM: Well, I'm curious, what do the powers that be think about your ideas? Have you gotten any feedback? DB: No, I don't have feedback, because they . . . Ottavio Cinquanta does not want any subjective judging there. Remember, he is a speed skater, and all he can see — number one, he has two goals to his agenda. And once you understand a man's agenda, you will understand what he will do. His agenda is to have, number one, to never have another scandal like we had in Salt Lake at the pairs skating competition. And number two, he's all for eliminating anything subjective about the sport. He would like it to be like speed skating. You get over the line first, you've won. Now that is not figure skating. And besides he's said it too many times, and he's the one who put the new rules system in. My chapters go into all of that and show the chicanery that was involved with it. And now because he [laughs] made a contractual offer and placed every officer in their position for an additional period of time, he will now remain as head of the ISU until the year 2016. It's a chapter in the book as well. AM: You have always been an advocate for great spinning. You've talked about Dorothy Hamill, Lucinda Ruh, Ronnie Robertson, so I have to wonder, that in the new judging system, it has to be nice that at least you see the spins getting rewarded even if you don't always love the positions. DB: Well, I find that the multiple levels — you know, everything that you look at, there's a grade of execution, there's a level of difficulty. If you add more moves and turns into your spin, you get more points. But nobody gets points for blurred spinning. Nobody gets points for the things that used to make the audience stand on their feet and cheer. Spinning is just as important as jumping, and it's one of the two major technical elements in skating, the other being jumping and then of course there's spinning. And when you see somebody moving from position to position and changing their edges, all that sort of thing, you're not looking at the spin. At least have one spin that reflects the total true quality of a fast, delayed, long lived spin, where everything counters on the centering and everything counters on the blurring of it and on the finishing of it. Look, I don't have to have everything that I like, it's what other people like too, but I will tell you, there's very little to cheer for when you get a 243.8 personal best score. That doesn't give the average person an understanding of what the heck the score is all about, except that somebody else can get 283.9. And I trust that was more than the first number I gave [laughs]. AM: Well, I've actually always wanted that. I've always wanted there to be at least one spin that was skaters' choice, if you will, that they could do just for choreographic effect. Just like they've finally done with the step sequences, where you can just do one that you don't have to do without so many turns and flailing and windmilling, but it's one that just works with the music. DB: Well, there's very little — you can't really create things that are unusual or unexpected or different and expect to get anywhere under the current judging system. AM: Well, you have of course mentioned before that the ISU needs to be split, that skating shouldn't be run by a speed skater any longer. It's going to be a while, of course, since Ottavio wrote his own contract . . . DB: Well, of course he did, and nobody stood up to him. Nobody was able to stand up to him because he has cultivated so many federations which are all speed skating federations which get their money from figure skating. So what do they care? Why would they care what the rules for figure skating are, any more than a figure skater would care less whether the speed skating race is another 50 meters or not?  That's up to the speed skaters to understand that. And the very fact that they — did you know that there are over 80 federations in the world of skating? AM: I didn't know there were that many. DB: Over 80, and most of them all — the majority either are speed skating or joint speed skating and figure skating. And they get money from figure skating, the ISU pays them money from figure skating. And the end result is that of course they're going to do what he wants. AM: Do you think there's anyone out there right now who can challenge him, who can be the next great leader, to separate the two? DB: I think probably everybody is scared beyond belief. You see, the impact of the Olympic Games is always the most publicized event, but I can guarantee you, even the world championships which are taking place after the Olympic Games, they're not going to be on live. They're going to be in about two weeks in a summary program on NBC. Now maybe there's some obscure cable system or Ice Network that will show them, but you have to buy that cable system. I'm sure there will be recordings of it. But [laughs] here's a world championship that will be coming up a month later than the Olympic Games. Wouldn't you think it should deserve — and it used to always be very much of a highlight. Now it's sloughed off and it's shown a week or two weeks later after the world championship is over. I don't like that. AM: I don't either. All right, well, let's move on from the judging and talk about which skaters for you right now are really exciting. You've mentioned Davis and White. DB: Well, look, let me tell you something. My book covers a point about to wilt or not to wilt. When you have somebody who simply does not wilt, that in itself is exciting. And many a time, those people that can rise to the occasion, and suddenly pull together a program that is phenomenal — it's what you want to see. I mean, I found myself rising out of my seat when Jason Brown performed, because he in a sense broke the rules. It will be very interesting to see how he fares in this international competition, when he has competition from not only Jeremy Abbott but from Chan, Plushenko, Denis Ten, Javier Fernandez, and the Japanese skaters. It'll be very interesting to see how he compares in that to them. Remember, the national championship is one where it's a single country. And there aren't countries that are vying to improve their lot because that's the way they get money from the ISU. It's a different situation. I hope like the devil that he does brilliantly. I find him a fascinating skater and I was entranced by the choreography. And the choreography was done by Rohene Ward. I remember talking to him a couple of years ago, saying, you are going to keep on skating, aren't you? And he said, no, I'm not. And I felt that was a great loss. I'm very happy now to see him back in force as a choreographer. AM: Yes. And I'm happy to see someone, that he has a student that can interpret that choreography so well. Because, you know, Rohene was a very unusual talent, and oddly enough Jason has a lot of the same qualities, with his extreme flexibility and his showmanship. DB: Wait a minute. Are you telling me that that flexibility can't be gained by other people? They can, if they would understand what that is and follow that. AM: No, but I think Rohene was very unusual for a male skater to be able to use it to choreographic effect. DB: Why as a male skater? AM: Well, because most men, if they could do the splits like that, they certainly wouldn't lower themselves on the ice and pull themselves back up and do a lot of — Johnny Weir could lift his leg all the way up before a lutz, too, just like Jason and Rohene can, but it is unusual. DB: Well, that's because they don't follow that either. If you look at the number of skaters among the ladies that – well, look, there's a totally developable way. Guys can learn. You see it in gymnastics, for heaven's sake, If they do it, why can't figure skaters? Look, this is called the development of the — right now, I can guarantee you there's very, very little of the component score voting for some of the stuff that Jason Brown did. He was marvelous in the fact that he did not open his program with the single most difficult jump that he could. I'm really fascinated to see how the international version of this will work out, the international competition coming up in the Olympic Games. AM: So you did mention that he is a bit of a rule breaker in that sense, and you have said in your book that rules are made to be broken. And you did use Torvill and Dean as a perfect example of that, of course, from 1984. Is there a rule that you see right now that you wish someone would break, or push a little more? DB: Yeah. If you look at the rules of the component scores, you will see that, number one, they include skating skills, transitions/linking footwork and movement, performance and execution, choreography, and composition. Now what is the difference between choreography and composition, and transitional and linking footwork and movement, et cetera? I mean, aren't these the same things? AM: To me they are. To me it's semantics. DB: That's right. And isn't it better to have a skater develop that through their own intelligence rather than having to control those step sequences through it? And the linking movement and the linking footwork? And the transitions and the linking movement? [laughs].There was a wonderful English lady who would always comment on English television, and she had a very high voice, and when it came out, linking movements, we were all happily amused [laughs]. AM: Well, that's a good challenge for the next person listening to this, to try to push those boundaries a little bit per Dick Button's request. All right. So, you have a chapter on music choices, and there are a lot of choices as you know that are constantly overused and that we are all tired of hearing about. So is there a piece of music that you have never gotten tired of hearing, that you feel is underutilized? DB: Look, these pieces of music are time-honored pieces of music. So if you look at, for example, Swan Lake, I still will go, when I go to the theatre in the winter time, I still will go to New York City and see Swan Lake. I mean, it doesn't stop any more than certain songs that you get tired of. It is the way they're developed, and I do a whole thing in this book on the development of music by the skater, and whether they understand what the music is saying. And when you pick a piece of music like Carmen or Swan Lake, it comes with over a hundred years — one comes with much more than a hundred years and one comes from close to a hundred years — of very fine history and development and interpretation. Are you telling me that because six skaters do it within a two-year period of time that you're tired of it? I find it's that the skater hasn't developed it. We're always seeing different interpretations of dance, and if you get tired of Swan Lake being done, then try to bring a great quality into it that makes it sing. Swan Lake is wonderful for skating because it has long sweeping movements. It is not Irish clog dancing or step dancing. AM: Well, I think if you're going to pick, and this is my opinion, but I think if you're going to pick one of the commonly used pieces, you better make it good and different and that's what I think — Samantha Cesario, I don't know if you saw her program, when she did it this year at Nationals I thought it was fantastic. And I am not a fan of using Carmen because I think that after Debi Thomas and Katarina Witt had the battle of the Carmens, you'd better leave Carmen pretty dead. You know? [laughs] DB: But one of the things is, you have to understand what the music is. I write about this in the book, and I talk about Mao Asada who is a lovely skater and a very nice person. But she had all the white feathers and all the music, et cetera, but there was no understanding of the movement of a swan in that. There was no understanding of the history of Swan Lake. I mean, you can't have a program that has been performed for more than one hundred years now, nearly one and a half centuries, in great companies with great choreography and great sweeping music, and not understand what that performance level is. You must understand the music, you must be able to — and there are different interpretations of the music, different orchestrations, there are many times different ones. Whatever the piece of music it is that you choose, you can find sometimes more than one interpretation, and unfortunately we don't hear about that on the commentary, I don't think. AM: Is there a piece of music you would like to hear more? DB: Look, that's like saying is there a great skater that I'd like to see more of. Always! Always.  I like great skating. That's all I'm saying, I like the best. And I want to be — it's theatre, it's athletic ability, it's competition, it's technical demands, it's music, it's choreography, it's costuming, it's the whole kit and caboodle. And I guarantee you, do you think they're going to cut out — I wouldn't be at all surprised, if Ottavio Cinquanta had his way, that he would make everybody wear the same costume for the team competition. AM: They were talking about that. One of the articles this week was talking about putting all the athletes in Nike outfits [laughs]. DB: Yeah, yeah, yeah, remind me of one event I don't want to see if that's the case [laughs]. Oh, gawd. If you have a great product, don't mess with it. Skating was a great product. Now we've messed with it so completely and for so long that it's very disheartening. Remember, you're not a member of the rules committee if you're not making rules. If you're a rule maker, you have to be making rules or otherwise you're not a rule maker. AM: [laughs] They got a little over-zealous. All right. Your commentary is epic. People still talk about it, they miss hearing you, your catchphrases have inspired a drinking game and compilations on YouTube. And you have gotten some heat for your comments such as “refrigerator break”. DB: I'd like to address that. What the heck, would it have been better if I had said, it will give you an opportunity to make a toilet break? I don't think so. A refrigerator break — you know, I think I got over 1100 letters from people saying that I had only said that, I wouldn't have said that if this, that, and the other thing. And I wrote each one of them back and I said, look, Angela Nikodinov was a very talented skater, but she was skating against Michelle Kwan, and there is no problem coming in second behind Michelle Kwan, but she was coming in fifth, fourth, second, third, fourth, that sort of thing, floating around. But what she allowed you to do was to lose your sense of concentration on her. That's where performance level comes in. She was a gorgeous, lovely skater, with wonderful technique and very, very beautiful on the ice. But she allowed you to lose your sense of concentration. She allowed you to switch off and take a refrigerator break. And after I answered that, I never heard anything more about it. AM: But she did listen to you, though. Because she came back amazing the next year. She made you pay attention. DB: [laughs] Well, that's my gold medal. My gold medal is when I hear, when I make a criticism of somebody and then I see later that they have either improved it or changed it. One of the things I always said about Evgeni Plushenko was, way back in 2002, I said, he's a wonderful jumper but he's a lousy spinner. And the next year, or two years, I was at a championship, and he said, how are my spins? Are they better? So he was listening, and he made it good. And his spins were better. And that's a great compliment to me, when somebody does that. AM: So how many skaters would you say have come up to you and talked to you about your comments about their performance? DB: Well, I had a lot of skaters say, can you point it out to me. One of them was Jason Dungjen and his partner, Kyoko Ina. Kyoko Ina had exquisite posture and stretch and arching of the back, and Jason was like a nice all-American skater without that same stretch. So when they did a pair move, hers was extended beautifully and his was not parallel to it. As soon as I pointed that out to him, he understood exactly what I was talking about, and I think they worked hard on it. So that was a great honor to me. That is my gold medal, my reward, when a skater will do that. And look, you really only criticize, I say this in the book, you really only criticize a skater if they're talented. If they're not talented, it doesn't spark comment. AM: Would you say the refrigerator break comment was the largest reaction you've gotten over the years from fans, or was there another one? DB: It was one of them. Another one of them was when I commented one time about, I think it was crossing the street in New York, and everybody said, oh, you wouldn't have said that if the skater that I was referring to wasn't black. And come on, I encourage my kids to cross the street, I say, stop and look in both directions, otherwise you'll get run over and then you'll look like a pancake on that road. It's about an awareness of your surroundings, and you've got to be aware of the surrounding effect in an arena. How many times do you see — go back and look at programs. That's why some day I would like to see a great media museum of skating. Because if you go back and you look at these performances and you consider them, then you will never forget that. And it will apply itself, it will be another basis for another understanding of what it is that you're doing. Every position you take on the ice should be thought out. You cannot just do these positions where you see the skater come out and they take their position and the free leg toe is pointed behind and to the side of the skating leg — you know, the kind of position you take where one foot is flat on the ice and the other is on a point behind you. Look at the number of times you see, what is the position of that foot? Is it turned under, or is it not in an elegant position? If you want to see proper position, look at Oleg and Ludmila Protopopov, and John Curry, and Janet Lynn, and Peggy Fleming. And Dorothy Hamill, who became an infinitely better skater after she had won the Olympics. I was a better skater after I had finally learned, long after I had retired, and learned from — there's a whole chapter in this, it's called "Open Your Eyes, Dummy." And it was my opening my eyes which led me finally to understand what the heck skating was all about. AM: Well, I would love it if we finally had a media museum with all those performances. DB: There is the museum in Colorado Springs, but it doesn't have any money. US Figure Skating is not really going to support it because they want to support skating today. But sometimes the education, the media education is imperative. AM: Yes. Well, I am hopeful that one day will come to fruition, that there will be a central place where all that is housed, and it's not just Youtube [laughs]. So, all right, your book, I sort of felt like as I was reading it, and this is sort of getting heavy here, I really felt that it was a metaphor for living a balanced and fulfilling life. It talks about centering yourself, breaking the rules, having a solid foundation, fighting the good fight, not wilting under pressure, and having a whole lot of fun. Do you view skating that way? DB: Yep. You know, skating is no different than gardening, than painting, than anything else. You know, I hope you'll come some day and see my garden lecture [laughs]. Then you can do a conversation on that for a different sport. But all of these things intertwine. Why do you dress the way you do? Why do you speak the way you do? Why do you live in a house, if you have the opportunity to live in a house, why do you choose the style of house you do? All of these are inherent in skating, and they are inherent in everything else. It is called not only what the eye beholds, it's what the eye registers. One of my pet peeves is watching skaters take position in the center of the ice, when they skate down and they're on one foot, and the other knee is bent. Time after time, you look at that particular entrance move on one foot, and it's not a beautiful move, but yet there is every skater doing it. What is that move, what is that position supposed to be? If you ask the skater, what are you trying to express by that, are you expressing a welcoming moment to the crowd? You don't have to be on one foot to do that. Take a look at it yourself, and I urge all your listeners to take a look at that, and take a look at the number of times an arm flings above the shoulder. And question each and every one. Peggy Fleming, always, I would see her in front of a mirror at a rink, constantly checking out the way she finished a turn or a pirouette, or made a turn, and how the dress worked with it. She was constantly looking at that. And you will find that she does not make a move even today without knowing exactly what that position is, whether she's on skates or not. Ludmila and Oleg Protopopov, and I talk about this in the book, I went up to Lake Placid where they were getting a lifetime achievement award, and of course the Lake Placid club or whoever it was didn't have any money for publicizing it, and it was an almost empty arena. However, the Protopopovs skated in it as if they were skating for the King and Queen of England. And Oleg took an opening position with Ludmila, and you take one look — without them moving one inch, they took a position, and I said, that's it, that's their whole performance right there in that position.  They were stunningly beautiful in that position. And they're well into their 70s, and there was the story, right there. My problem is, I can't look at skating — that's one of the sickening things with having watched it for so long, is that I've seen extraordinary performances, Belita Jepson-Turner, Noffke and Schubach, pairs skaters who were champions of the US in the 40s, the movement, their parallelism of their moves was extraordinary. They couldn't do throw axels and they couldn't know what triple side-by-side jumps were and so forth, but their pair skating quality was without compare. I mean, it was just extraordinary. All I'm asking the skaters to do, and everybody else to do, is to look at it, and say, why are we doing this? Each step, what is it supposed to do, and is it? Does it interpret the music and does it interpret — John Curry, we did a thing with Ice Theatre of New York, Dance on Camera, at Lincoln Centre over the weekend, and it was all about, it was a great deal of comment and production in the John Curry film of what he was teaching skaters and the way he was making them look at film. Slavka Kohout used to do that. She would take all her dancers in to see the ballet, or any other production that had dance movement in it. It wasn't about seeing it, it was about registering it. And that's the important thing. If there's only one thing I hope for in this book, with a little bit of tomfoolery that you don't get stuck into something serious, and, number two, that it opens your eyes. AM: I love that. All right, I just have one more question for you, then, since we are just days away from the Olympics. I am curious what you think about the new team event. DB: Oh, I don't really think much about it at all one way or the other. I think if they want to do it, that's fine. It gives a secondary skater a secondary choice, and it gives somebody who may not win a medal another chance to win a medal, and I'm fine with that. I don't have any great problem with it. You know, God bless them, what they're doing is trying to get another set of television exposure, and that produces money and blah blah blah. The one thing, though, that I did understand was that when the rules were not quite set in Budapest, at the European championships, the newspaper people were asking Ottavio Cinquanta what was the rule about such and such, and he said he didn't know. He said, you have to ask the Russians about that. Well, hello! Are the Russians the ones that are controlling the sport? I mean, the Russians are a hell of a good skaters, and very efficient, and they've got a wonderful team going, but are they the arbiters of our sport? That's my complaint. “I am a speed skater, I know nothing about figure skating.” AM: I know, it's incredible. Well, I agree with you that it's wonderful that there's another opportunity for skaters to get medals, because there's just been the one chance all these decades. But I also don't think that it was done for any reason other than ratings and money. I'm cynical enough for that. But I'm glad to see the skaters get another opportunity. DB: Right. But you've also got to remember that that's why figures are no longer with us. They didn't bring in any money, nobody watched them, they took a lot of time, they were expensive, and they didn't add anything to the income. So this is another one that adds to the income, and it really doesn't change anything. I'm sure they'll all do their same programs that they will do again. They're not going to create a new program now. They might for another year. AM: Maybe for the next round. But we'll see. To be determined [laughs]. Well, I am going to take you up on your offer and invite myself to one of your garden lectures someday. DB: [laughs]. All right. I just finished one at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and one at the Botanic Garden in Arizona, and I've done several in the New York area, in the New York and Connecticut area, and maybe there'll be one in the early spring or so in a nearby city to New York. So I'll let you know. AM: Please! And as we've discussed I'm hoping to come out and see you in a couple of weeks, and do another interview more about you. DB: Good. AM: And I hope that you'll let me come up and take a look at your fantastic art collection of skating art. DB: Oh, you're more than welcome. AM: I would love it. DB: You're more than welcome. You have a good one, my dear, and keep the faith. AM: You too. Enjoy the next couple of weeks of good television. DB: Thank you, ma'am.   AM: And there it is. I have finally had my dream of interviewing Dick Button. I can now die happy. I think. Although, as you heard, he did want to have another conversation later. So we will plan to do that. And until next time —May you be a pioneer with whatever you choose to do. May you be as opinionated and passionate about your life's work as Dick Button is about his life's work. And as he says in his new book Push Dick's Button, on page 46, and yes, I'm paraphrasing just a little bit: don't skate to Carmen. Bye-bye!

EZ TALK "Helping celebrities interact with their fans" Guest Mary Gardner Mary is an Executive Communications Consultant and coach for celebrities, executives, professional athletes, and entrepreneurs. Some of her clients have included Mark Kelly, the astronaut married to Gabby Giffords, Martina Navratilova, Billie Jean King, Peggy Fleming, Bernard King, the NBA All Star, and numerous Olympic Athletes. She has coach them in Professional and public speaking, interpersonal personal and business communication tactics. Mary's background is eclectic! She worked on Capital Hill, was a celebrity lecture agent, publicist, and founder of the first east coast based professional coach training The Coaches Certification Institute. Mary has appeared on ABC's 20/20, DATELINE, CNN, The Today Show, Good Morning America, Nightline, CBS The Early Show, Geraldo, and has been on over 100 local TV news shows around the country. www.marygardner.com! @ericzuley @MaryGardner

Four-time U.S. National Champion, Four-time World Champion and Olympic Gold Medalist Scott Hamilton is interviewed about his 13th Annual cancer Scott Hamilton & Friends fundraising ice and music spectacular at Cleveland’s Quicken Loans Arena; this year starring Five-Time Grammy Award winner Wynonna Judd and a skating cast of Olympic Gold Medal legends including Dorothy Hamill and Peggy Fleming. In studio guests include writer/director/producer/author Bruce Kimmel (The First Nudie Musical, Kritzerland Records, Out of the Box web series) who discusses his career and monthly Kritzerland concerts at Sterling’s Upstairs at The Federal in North Hollywood. Standup Comedian, TV, film and theatre actor Richard Tanner talks about the world premiere of his one-man show Small Parts at the Flight Theatre in Hollywood. Kimmel and Tanner share awkward career moments. Sponsored by Breakdown Services (http://www.breakdownexpress.com/)

Peggy Fleming, Olympic Gold Medal winner at the 1968 Olympics in Grenoble, France, is one of our generation's shining stars. She's been a featured performer, media darling, and sports commentator for years as well as a spokesperson for various health related causes.  Join us as Peggy shares her tips for staying fit after fifty and tells us all about the National Senior Games taking place this summer in Houston, TX.

We will be discussing the numbers of Gold Medal Champions Apolo Ohno – Evan Lysacek – Kim Yu-Na – Bode Miller. We will also recap the Olympic stars from last week, Shaun White, Dick Button and Peggy Fleming.The numbers of these athletes are incredible. When you see them, you will understand why these individuals are Gold Medal Champions.