Interview with Amiri Baraka | Sound Authors Radio

December 23, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Dr. Kent:  Welcome to Sound Authors.  It’s Friday November 21st.  This week is the week of thanksgiving and much more.  It’s the leaves have started to fall off the trees, its beautiful weather; crisp air, you can see the stars at night and feel the chill – even inside.  It’s a wonderful time of year.  We’ve got three guests on the show today.  At the very end of the show a fellow named Michael Cleveland, who won five international bluegrass music association fiddle player of the year awards.  Then I’ve got a new author on the show named Carson Gilmore.  He’s got a book called Boy on Fire.  My special guest is at the beginning of the show today.  His name is Amiri Baraka and he’s a world famous poet, writer, activist and its such an honor to have him on the show.  He’s won many awards and we’ll talk to him right now.  Welcome to the show Amiri Baraka.

Amiri Baraka:  Yeah, how ya doin?

Dr. Kent:  I’m doing great.  How are you?

Amiri Baraka:  I’m okay, I’m alright.  I’m looking out the window at this beautiful fall day just before it turns cold.

Dr. Kent:  Exactly.  Let me ask you just to start out as a book that just is coming out in January 2009 in a couple of months of your essays from the 60s called Home, Social Essays and there’s a piece in here during one of the essays where you talk about hope and you said the old folks kept singing there will be a better day or the suns going to shine in my back door someday, and I’ve had my fun if I don’t get well no more, then what would that fun turn out to be and you said hope is a delicate suffering.  And I wanted to ask you about that because Barack Obama just became the President elect and he ran on hope.  What are your thoughts about that?

Amiri Baraka:  Well I think we all experienced that delicate suffering you know fighting for him.  I made several appearances speaking.  Not officially of course but in forums and groups urging them to support Barack Obama because to me its just part of the civil rights movement.  I see it as the fruition of the struggles of people like Dr. King, Carmichael and Malcolm X.

I feel it’s the fruition of their struggles at a much higher level and because of the inherent democratic content of that struggle, it raises the whole society to another level and we are approaching yet another cross roads.  I mean capitalism obviously but capitalism, Barack’s in a position where he has to take on the battle of FDR, Franklin Roosevelt and I hope that in those first 100 days he can throw 100 left hooks and jabs and right crosses and get some kind of legislation passed that can transform this society as much as it can be transformed under this kind of debt.

Dr. Kent:  You share sort of a namesake.  Your last name is Baraka and Barack of course.

Amiri Baraka:  It’s the same root.

Dr. Kent:  Exactly and he as been widely of course the media is saying oh, he’s a Muslim and saying that’s a negative thing.  I believe your still Muslim yourself and.

Amiri Baraka:  No I was never Muslim.  I was given my name by the guy who ### Malcolm X ### but in fact I changed the name that was given to me Baracka, which is Arabic.  Swahili is about a couple hundred miles south and changed it to Baraka, which is Swahili.  You know because I wanted to emphasize that Barack aspect of it.  But the name was given to me by a man who I thought was an important Muslim imam so I’ve never been far from that learning anyway but I’ve never been in the religion.  I’m not a religious person, I’m a communist.

Dr. Kent:  What do you think about the people that are so anti-Muslim?  Because you obviously it’s a proud name for you and what are your thoughts about this country towards Muslims?

Amiri Baraka:  Like I said, I’m not religious.  You don’t have to be religious like Malcolm X said keep your religion at home, keep your religion in the church or the temple, you know what I mean?  But in terms of the fairs for democracy and equal rights and I think that what’s happening.  You have some people bothering their pyramids and they go and bother them back.  Now you can blame it on Islam if you want, but it’s not about Islam it’s about the fact of oppression and people resisting oppression.

Now a lot of stuff that some of these right wing so called Muslim groups, I don’t go for that either.  You know, I never thought suicide was especially neuveau riche you know?  But at the same time, you can’t blame the religion; that would be like blaming Judaism on Israel.  Or Blaming Christianity on the United States.  You can’t do that.  I mean that’s a nonsecutor.

Dr. Kent:  So let me ask you about one of your more controversial moments recently.  Of course after September 11 as the poet laureate of new jersey you wrote a poem Somebody Blew Up America; an extraordinary piece of writing and had some controversial statements in it, but its poetry.  Then New Jersey passed some legislation to oust you because of that poem.  Is that correct?

Amiri Baraka:  Yeah and that’s because of the piece that I did.  They couldn’t look at me as the poet laureate in New Jersey; they would have to go back in time as far as ipso facto so what they did was they eliminated the post of poet laureate so that New Jersey now is officially ignorant.  There is no poet laureate unlike other states; we are just content to be poet laureateless.  The thing was that the ADL which should file papers about the needs of a foreign power, whether it be the Jews or anyone else, they threw that sand up in the air to blind people because they thought we were saying something negative about Israel.

The point is this, if you can’t even question a foreign country without being termed anti-politic well what have we got to?  I can’t question what’s going on in Dafur or the Congo without being called anti-black.  It’s very silly but it serves as good sense as long as it lasts.  Any time you raise questions about illegal activities if it’s a sovereign and fearless state then somebody wants to say your anti-Jewish, which might be a good defense if you think about it, but people have discovered that a disguise and they’re trying to masquerade the actual evil ###.  So what are we supposed to do with the Palestinians?  It’s crazy.

Dr. Kent:  I have a question for you about the introduction that you’ve written in this new edition of home social essays.  You talked about some of the imagery that you used in the 60s was from the streets and included some anti-homosexual slurs and things like that.  Tell me how you’ve changed over the years, in the last 40 years.

Amiri Baraka:  When we were in the states of miller growing up you’re not talking about them being homosexual, you’re talking about them being lets say courageless, but even that doesn’t wash in terms of talking about gay people because a lot of gay people would knock you out so it doesn’t actually wash in those terms but that’s what I said.  You know, my use of that whole kind of steep language and I did several of these in the late 50s and my use of that steep language seemed to be okay.  So that’s why I wrote that.  In fact, I don’t even know why I considered that for my book cover when I have some that still have to be published; you know my contemporary political contribution.

Dr. Kent:  Let me ask you out of pure curiosity.  You’ve done a lot of work with jazz musicians and in that field and you have a poem in one of your latest books Tales of the Out and Gone about Monk and having sort of cited monk.  Who did you know?  Who did you meet?  I know that Coletrain was one of your favorites and you did some work with his son Ron.  Talk about jazz back in the day.

Amiri Baraka:  Well, I was always into music since I was a kid and I think I got into bebop when I was in junior high school.  When I was going to junior high school my cousin gave me all of his records and introduced me to Charley Parker, Stan Getz and all of those people and that’s when I became passionately interested in music because that music opened me up intellectually.  It made me think of things I had never thought of before, that had occurred to me.  From the language, you know the way he used to talk about these cats and things.

I picked that up as a teenager and it never stopped.  Then I went into college and the Air Force and I listened to the music all the time and then when I came home and I had a chance to go to New York and meet Malcolm and meet Tussad and be in the village and meet with Tussad, some of that was serendipitous move.  I moved into an apartment right over ###.  So definitely it’s a strange mix.  So I happened to live nearly over the spot where monk and Chaney lived.  We lived together and you can hear the results of that on ### at Carnegie Hall.

Dr. Kent:  That’s amazing.

Amiri Baraka:  That’s what I said!  But its more amazing to look back at that chain, my God its an incredible idea but then I got to know them because I used to hang at all the joints, the Village Stage, the Village Vanguard and the ###.  It was two blocks up the street from my house.  All those places, I spent my whole growing up period hovering around inside those places.  That was the whole basis under penning my writing because I would write about music, which is also a way of developing the skill of writing.  I loved them, I loved their music, but remember, in the sixties and the early 70s it was possibly ### Miles Davis, Coletrain on the same night.  All of them have passed away.

That whole era has passed and we are confronted now with the age generation and the ability to kick it up and eventually they will.  Like the Golden Age in the 20s and the 30s.  Charlie Parker was there, Miles Davis and so that will happen again and the music will reconstitute itself and get past the confusion ###.  Even like poetry; poetry will have to get past this negative pall that they put over it.  So it’s a question of how do the arts reflect the state of society?  Society is in its backward period, which hopefully we have left with the leaving of Bush.  I hope he goes to jail but I think the society now has a chance to recover and to make progress again.  In the 60s when there was all that turbulence there was also a lot of progress and a lot of determination with equality and equal rights so that was reflected in the arts.

Dr. Kent:  You talked about Bush leaving office and at the end of the latest book of new writing called Tales of the Out and Gone you talk about Bush as a cowboy and its fascinating the level of anger you’re able to put in that chapter in that short story.  Talk about what he’s done to the country.

Amiri Baraka:  Well I mean the fact that first he’s stolen and squandered the US surplus gotten under Clinton; he’s spending now at this late date ten billion dollars a month on a war who’s only practical aim is to enrich the success of his friends that control the economy here.  He just gave a trillion dollars to the banks.  I mean give me a break.  A trillion dollars to the banks?  To do what, make sure the rich people stay rich?  Not to bail out the 6,000 people a day who are losing their homes.  Bush, at the end of this completely disastrous tour in which we have seen from 9/11 which I do not ### to the Arabs.  I still think it’s not actively part of it, though actively not trying to stop it.

Why?  Because it has enabled them to go into Afghanistan, to go into Iraq, to support ethnic cleansing in Khuzestan to support the invasion of Iraq; to get into Iran.  And now, stupidly, by getting entangled in some scuffle with the Russians to get into it with the North Koreans and have their secret hatred of course, the Chinese we are up to their necks in debt to so they cant do too much mischief; so this is what Bush has done.  The republican matrix that has all but destroyed this country and it only gives reign which has instituted homeland security, a kind of neo-fascist over the citizens of the United States.  He opened a gulag in Guantanamo, which is ironic because this gulag on the Cuban soil to frustrate and challenge them being guilty of torture ### the most bloodthirsty and guilt ridden steps in the regime that we’ve had.

Otherwise, how do you think a black man got to be president of the United States?  The Americans themselves have come to the end of their rope.  They go, it can’t be worse than this!  It can’t be worse than this.  So this is the fourth revolution that’s been had in America.  The first one of course eliminated the British; the second one was the civil war with the whole black desegregation and civil rights movement in the sixties and this fourth one, the election of Barack Obama.  So we’re actually at the threshold of taking the steps.

What he’s going to have to do to correct this evil that Bush has created is he’s going to have to take certain social democratic steps.  Like the question of universal healthcare.  The question of making education available the way it can be in community service.  This parallels actually ### because at the end of Hoover’s destructive reign, the republicans destructive reign and ###.  You know the whole question of unemployment insurance and social security.  Those are socialist programs that Roosevelt adapted and used.  Actually they say capitalism and that’s what Barack Obama is going to have to do, stop capitalism.

To me, many aspects of social democratic policy, that has been the policy in Europe for years and years.  But of course he will meet a lot of loud mouth rich people and loud mouth ignorant people and that’s why I say he’s got to strike quickly in his first 100 days.

Dr. Kent:  Well here’s something that I’ve been thinking about a lot in this election is that its amazing that black people came out and voted and its amazing to see how emotional everyone got.  The day that Obama got elected the pundits on TV were talking and talking and talking, and the second that he was declared the winner it was almost like there was shock to all the people on TV, even though they knew it was going to happen.  There’s like this shock on their faces; they were crying, even the republicans were amazed.  I think even to the last second people said this couldn’t possibly happen.

Amiri Baraka:  Yeah well this is a new era.  I was in Italy that night and it could’ve been the United States.  I mean, people were transfixed.  I had been in Italy ten days and I was telling people over there if you’ve got relatives in the United States call them up and tell them to vote.  I know a lot of them were going to school and I said call them up to vote.  But the whole mood in Europe was very hopeful; they hoped that Obama would win.

I mean especially young people, but all people are fed up with George Bush and fed up with the craziness of us foreign policy and the kind of weight it had put on the world and they were actually relieved.  Some people made a joke about now we’ve got a president that doesn’t even need a tan, but it’s true.  And if you think its insulting about the tan, I don’t, it’s true.  You’ve got to live with that.  So it’s the possibility of a new era.  The point is that those of us on the ground, its up to us to insist on change.  Its time for that fragility to give way to actuality.

Dr. Kent:  I have sort of a unique hope that, my fiancé and I were talking about the rich somehow have been able to put one over on basically the poor whites.  You know, working class white people to vote for the republicans because of guns, God, gays and all that but the blacks always knew who to vote for.  The poor blacks knew but the poor whites are the ones that turned the election and I have hope that maybe they’ve caught on.  They need to vote their own interests.

Amiri Baraka:  I think first of all that’s overstated.  It’s true that racism is like a drug and it’s really about white supremacy.  White supremacy is like a drug, there’s no doubt about it and a lot of the ignorant, and the poor unfortunately have succumbed to that a long time ago and can’t take it.  I wrote a piece called American Junkies a couple of months ago talking about the thing that’s plagues the united states is this addiction called white supremacy, even though it doesn’t serve its interest.  The last thing we should be doing is voting for McCain and empowering the right wing that’s going to just bleed them dry.  You understand?

But that’s the legacy of this addiction of white supremacy and they’ve been addicted since the 17th Century and its been reinforced in every way possible.  By the educational system, the media, by politicians; there was a crazy politician, where was he from? Down there in the south, Alabama I think who talked about Obama is a communist, a Muslim and there’s another guy in Michigan who put on his clown suit the day after the election and stood out in the street to protest the fact.  Then another one in the Young Americans for freedom who was saying that Obama is a communist Muslim and that the right people oppress and I say this.

That’s a white supremacy virtue, not only are they oppressed but they can be oppressed in a day.  And I’m thinking wow, it takes longer than a day, a week, but that’s the kind of madness.  You’re listening to the junkies; you’re listening to people who are addicted.  The possibility they can’t shoot up on white supremacy again leaves them in a state of complete disorganization.  They don’t know their butts from a hole in the ground.

Dr. Kent:  Well there were a couple of things on the campaign trail; I mean I started to get really nervous.  I’m happy because Obama has won, things have cooled down quite a bit but when McCain started pulling out all the stops and people started screaming and going crazy it felt like everything was just being unleashed publicly.

Amiri Baraka:  Yeah well it’s like Hitler.  If you go back and look at the last republic in Germany where Hitler rose, that’s what they were doing.  They had their storm troops on the street they were smashing and breaking windows out of Jewish stores and whatnot, and then the thing that gave them real power like 911 was the burning of the reischeguard.  And the minute the reisheguard was burned they then passed something called the Reichstag enablement act and the first thing they did was lock up trade unionists, communists, Jews and other minorities like gypsies and a couple of black people over there and then they ran them out.

And McCain struck me as the kind of weak kneed politician who might be like the chancellor of Germany who just gave power to the Nazis.  Actually Bush it was less legal the way he got into power, he stole the election.  He got into power less legal than Hitler who was appointed by the head of state.  So we’re on very shaky ground.  We’re on extremely shaky ground; a bankrupt country fighting a war that it cannot win and McCain’s policies; those last speeches about he wants to distribute the wealth, I want to create wealth.

Its kind of like head up your ass popularism, you know what I mean?  Don’t you understand what he just said?  Don’t you understand what he just said?  But it’s demographically flying beneath the radar when he says crazy things and people say wait, they’re going to kill me tomorrow.

Dr. Kent:  Well it’s been a real honor speaking with Amiri Baraka.  He’s got a website online; amiribaraka.com and there’s some great stuff on there including an mp3 of some great work as well as some poetry on there and everything of people should show up and check that out.  Somebody Blew Up America; I listened to that whole mp3.  It’s an amazing reading, with some jazz musicians’ passionate reading of that.  What’s your next project?

Amiri Baraka:  I’ve got two books coming out in a month or so.  One is called Digging, the Afro-American Soul of American Classical Music.  That’s about jazz of course, the focus of my writings over the last 20 years, and there’s another book called Razor, Revolutionary Art for Culture Revolution.  This is about and there are a lot of essays about it, the last 20 years of revolutionary art.  It’s about writing, painting and the whole need for revolutionary art in the United States. It’s about winning the minds of the American people away from atheists, away from people at NBC, Mickey Mouse, and Fox.  So those two books are coming out and then in February I’ll be in Paris for the tenure of jazz opera that I wrote with David Murray the saxophone player called ###.  We’re going to do an ###.  So those are the two things that I’m working on.

Dr. Kent:  Sounds like an exciting new year coming up.

Amiri Baraka:  Hopefully, I just hope that excitement is compounded by some real political advance from our president elect.

Dr. Kent:  Amen to that.  Well it’s been an honor speaking with Amiri Baraka and we wish him all the best, I hope to speak with him again.

Amiri Baraka:  Thank you very much.

Dr. Kent:  We can check him out on the web at amiribaraka.com.  We talked a little about Tales from the Out and Gone and Home: Social Essays and he’s got two more coming out.  Digging, which I’ll be excited to see about some music and much more.  Thank you so much.  My next guest on the show will be Carson Gilmore and he will speak about his new novel called Boy on Fire.  Come on back for that.

Posted by admin | Filed Under TRANSCRIPTS, Politics, Poetry, AUTHOR INTERVIEW, PODCAST 

Interview with Jesse Harper: Old School Freight Train | Sound Authors Radio

December 22, 2008 | Leave a Comment

[Music]

Dr. Kent:  That was a beautiful song called seems like its over from Old School Freight Train’s newest album Not Like The Others and indeed, it’s not like the others.  I’ve liked their music for some time now and this is an incredible new album of songs.  So welcome to the show.  I have Jesse Harper, the lead singer and guitar player from Old School Freight Train with me.

Jesse Harper:  How’s it going?

Dr. Kent:  Pretty good.  So tell me a little about this album it’s Not Like The Others.

Jesse Harper:  Yeah this album is the first album that features mostly vocal tunes that the band wrote all together and it’s our first album without a banjo player because he went to graduate school and moved away.  We couldn’t find another banjo player quite that soon so we got a drummer instead and it kind of changed the direction of the band quite a bit from being mostly an instrumental band to a lot of these songs.  We still do a fair amount of instrumental music but this record is our first one with drums.

Dr. Kent:  Tell me a little about the whole path that’s happened to you.  I’m sure folks often talk with you about David Grismond and all of that.  Tell me the bands history a little bit here.

Jesse Harper:  We started out as kind of more of a blue grass new grass kind of a band and definitely were heavily influenced by David Grismond and still are to a large degree.  I’m big fans of his, our last release that we put out was our studio album produced by David Grismond and after that we did some touring with him as his band, as his backing band and played a bunch of his songs.  Then it was really a good experience but we’ve kind of gone in different directions from that acoustic music scene.  We still play all the acoustic instruments and stuff but we do them with a little different material.  We still play and hang out when he’s in town and that kind of stuff but we haven’t been around for awhile on the bluegrass scene.

Dr. Kent:  Tell me about that last song, Seems Like Its Over.  That’s one of my favorites on the record.  I’ve had it in my car since your publicist sent it along and I’ve enjoyed it immensely.  It is a different sound for you and I really enjoy it.  Tell me about Seems Like Its Over.

Jesse Harper:  That was a tune that started out; that little riff in the beginning, ### and I were messing around in the living room one day and we came across that little riff.  We started making it into a tune but it really wasn’t going anywhere.  ### our ### player was good friends with ### a Boston based songwriter who works with Allison Krauss, String Dusters and a bunch of other different bands like that.  So he recommended we go up and try and write and finish the tune with Mark.  So I flew out there right around Thanksgiving last year and Mark and I finished the tune and it was just, he’s such a great song writer, its kind of a different sound, even on that record.

Dr. Kent:  Now that the band has kind of turned to a new direction, how do you feel about this new world?

Jesse Harper:  I think it’s great obviously; I never intend to play bad music.  Our previous stuff was definitely highly arranged acoustic mostly instrumental stuff.  We still do that in our shows a lot, we’ll jam on acoustic stuff and with this record we just wanted to use the drums and check out some of these songs and writing.  A good thing about this band is that everybody, all the band members are all dedicated to being good musicians first so whenever we approach any type of materials, if it’s a vocal song or if its instrumental we put a lot into it.  There’s a lot of layers that you’ll find even on this record the instrumental stuff still makes it to the surface but it’s just inside the context of a vocal tune.  I’m really excited, I love it.  I’m more excited about this record than the other record we’ve done because we wrote the songs together for the first time.  We all sat down and wrote the songs.

Dr. Kent:  The sound is really outstanding and certainly there’s a lot of groups that have gone from bluegrass into the mainstream and they kind of have that sound and you don’t seem to have that.  It’s something that’s really fresh; I couldn’t even put a handle on it but something that’s not too far from rock and roll, not too far from the acoustic sounds of some of the great bands.  What are your great influences as a band, as yourself?

Jesse Harper:  Well as I mentioned like David Grismond, Darryl Fleck, Nickel Creek were just great bands that were well liked.  They kind of did similar things like pop music in songs and still are an acoustic band but we’re also really into Radiohead and we’re into a lot of instrumental jazz; I’m way into Al Greene, I have the new record and it’s really great.  Randy Newman, James Taylor, Stevie Wonder all of those.

Dr. Kent:  Now you also have Old School Freight Train did an album called Picking on Coldplay.

Jesse Harper:  Oh yeah, Coldplay, man that’s a great band.  We loved that project because that was the first thing that kind of got us outside of kind of your standard format for bluegrass and we started delving into like the pop songs that they wrote and checking out some of the chord progressions and stuff.  We figured out if you’re still a bluegrass fan, everything has a very defined role.  The boom-chick, boom-chick kind of sound you hear from the bluegrass band was the first thing to go for us.  It was because that we found there were other bands knew how instruments could function a lot differently in other bands.  So with the Coldplay project it just pushed us into that direction a lot more than any other thing we had done up to that point.

Dr. Kent:  How’s the reception been?  Are you on the road for this new album?

Jesse Harper:  We have just released it.  You have an advanced copy, it has not hit the street yet and we’re working on that right now on getting together, trying to figure out if we’re going to release it ourselves or what’s the story.  We have some new management that’s really been helpful in maybe doing the grass roots thing with this one.  It’s really cool.

Dr. Kent:  I hope you get some real exposure with this album because it really is something different and it’s an amazingly well crafted record.  Before we’re out of time I want to play a song, it’s my personal favorite off the album, Heart of Glass.  Now you have to tell me, how did you get inspired to cover this song?

Jesse Harper:  Well you know it’s a tune from 1979 and I’m not exactly sure when it came out but it was a tune I listened to a lot growing up.  My mom was a big Blondie fan and I wanted the rest of the guys in the band to check it out.  But it’s a disco tune so they were kind of having doubts about playing disco so Chris Coy who is a great songwriter sat down and tried to reharmonize the tune and put some different chords to it and change the feel obviously.  We wrote a couple of the words actually so it would fit a different format and we play it as this kind of squeaky sounding, more dark you know tune.  It kind of took on a life of its own once we started messing with it.

Dr. Kent:  It’s astounding that anybody could cover that tune and it’s a gorgeous effort and that’s why I want to play it.  It’s been a real honor speaking with Jesse Harper, the guitar player and singer from Old School Freight Train.  Their new album is going to be coming out soon hopefully.  It’s an amazing record called Not Like The Others.  I’ve been listening to an advanced copy here and I can’t put it down.  Now we’re going to listen to an arrangement they have of the tune Heart of Glass by Blondie.  Thank you so much for being on the show Jesse.

Jesse Harper:  Thanks for having me.

[Music]

Dr. Kent:  Thank you for tuning in to Sound Authors.  This is Dr. Kent signing off for this week. It’s a real honor having folks on my show, today from Old School Freight Train, from Forever on the Mountain by James Tabor, from Champions Body for Life Kelly Adair.  Thank you so much for tuning in, be safe and we’ll talk to you next week.

Posted by admin | Filed Under Bluegrass, TRANSCRIPTS, Folk, MUSICIAN INTERVIEW, PODCAST 

Joel Magnuson | Mindful Economics

December 21, 2008 | Leave a Comment

 
icon for podpress  Interview with Joel Magnuson [19:08m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I spoke with Joel Magnuson about a different kind of economics than we see in the news. Can things change for the better with a new government in Washington? More information about the book:

Mindful Economics is a valuable resource for anyone who wishes to deepen their understanding of the United States economy. The book breaks away from traditional economic theory and provides a fresh, critical perspective on capitalism in America. The book will be particularly useful for citizens, activists, students or others who seek positive social change. The first several chapters guide the readers through an exploration of real-world institutions such as corporations, government, market systems, financial and other institutions that make up the U.S. economy. These chapters provide much information about the histories of these institutions, as well as how they have evolved to serve the profit-making and growth imperatives of capitalism. Embedded in these stories is the consistent theme that the need to maximize profits for a relatively small section of the U.S. population has shaped the development of America’s most powerful institutions.

The second part of the book demonstrates how the need for higher profits and endless growth has intensified environmental destruction, resource depletion, instability, social and political inequality, and even global warming. These problems have become systemic and solutions therefore require long-term systemic change.

The path toward systemic change is laid out in the third part of Mindful Economics. Such change can be brought about by developing alternative institutions. As these alternatives evolve and grow, they will place the U.S. economy on a path to a new system. Systemic change will come about gradually by the will of people who purposefully steer the development of the economic institutions in their communities in a positive and healthy direction. To this end Mindful Economics lays a foundation for building new alternatives that are democratic, locally-based and ecologically sustainable. Such alternatives are not only viable, they can be found all across the United States. Through a network of alternative institutions, people can begin to build alternatives to capitalism and provide hope for future generations.

Posted by admin | Filed Under History, Business, AUTHOR INTERVIEW, PODCAST 

Nadia Bolz-Weber | 24 Hours of Christian Television

December 21, 2008 | Leave a Comment

 
icon for podpress  Interview with Nadia Bolz-Weber [14:36m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Nadia Bolz-Weber, a good friend, has written a fascinating book about her 24 straight hours of Christian television. Some great surprises! More from her book’s press release:

From 5am November 2 to 5 am November 3, 2007, Nadia watched the Trinity Broadcasting Network for 24 consecutive hours to gain a theological perspective on Christian cable TV - plus to chronicle its star televangelists, prosperity gospel fare, use (and occasional misuse) of the Bible, and product offerings. She invited 28 contributors, including biblical scholars, a gay Unitarian, a non-religious ex-boyfriend, several Jews, her Evangelical parents, Lutheran pastors, and her 9-year-old daughter, to drop in and comment. The result is a high-octane narrative, frequently hysterical, often insightful, and occasionally totally surprising.

-Review copies, interviews, and excerpts available on request-
“Turn off your TV and read this book. It’s enlightening and entertaining and it doesn’t emit any radiation whatsoever.” -AJ Jacobs, author of The Year of Living Biblically

“The concept is as clever as it is brave: Spend 24 hours watching ‘Christian television’ programming, and bring friends. Talk about what you see. Let hilarity and poignancy ensue!” -Mike Morrell, TheOoze.com

“Will invite, provoke, and soothe those seeking to find Christianity in the midst of televised faith.” -Doug Pagitt, author of A Christianity Worth Believing

Nadia Bolz-Weber is the mission developer at House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver, Colorado, an emerging liturgical community. She holds a bachelor’s degree in religious studies from the University of Colorado and a master of divinity degree from the Iliff School of Theology. Check out her blog at www.sarcasticlutheran.com

Posted by admin | Filed Under Spirituality, History, Religion, Politics, AUTHOR INTERVIEW, Inspiration, PODCAST 

Interview with Kelly Adair | Sound Authors Radio

December 21, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Dr. Kent:  Welcome back to Sound Authors.  Today is September 5th and my next guest on the show is on the front cover of Champions Body for Life: The official guide for the body for life challenge.  Welcome to the show Kelly Adair.

Kelly Adair:  Hey thank you I’m so glad to be here.  Actually that’s my daughter on the main cover and I’m the little picture down below.

Dr. Kent:  All right, which one is you?

Kelly Adair:  The big picture is my daughter and Mark Unger and then I’m in the little picture down below.

Dr. Kent:  So you went through the whole challenge with your daughter then?

Kelly Adair:  Yes I did.  I was actually in the form of a coach, I did my transformation way back in 1998 and so this time around I was there to support her and coach her.  So I kind of felt like I was doing it all over again.

Dr. Kent:  So what does this mean, the champion’s body for life?

Kelly Adair:  Champions body for life is actually the update of the original Body for Life book that came out in 1999 as New York Times Bestseller and its basically Dr. Kent a 12-week transformation program to teach healthy eating, weight training, fundamental exercises and cardiovascular work.  I think what I had always done wrong as a woman in my younger years was I would only work one aspect of that.  I would either just diet really hard and deprive myself of a lot of calories or I would do excessive amounts of cardiovascular work and I would do one thing and I usually did it at an extreme level and so my program is a balanced approach to giving your body, your mind to be at the healthiest level and better than you’ve ever probably felt.

For me it was for a long time forever so when you work all three components by eating healthy, eating the right foods, learning how to weight train and work the right muscles and then cardiovascular because what I found was my body just and this is not just me this is thousands of people.  Basically the body just goes and does what it’s supposed to do and starts ridding the body of fat and you start feeling stronger, gaining more energy, more confidence and you just feel better about yourself than you probably have for a long time.

Dr. Kent:  So the original book, the New York Times Bestseller, how did you end up picking that up?  How did that become part of you?

Kelly Adair:  Actually I did my transformation in 1998 and then the book came out in 1999 and what Bud Phillips did was he took those of us that worked the fundamentals of this program.  He just kind of encapsulated it and shared our stories and the techniques that worked for people when you take a balanced approach and he put it in the body for life book.  Its very successful, its based on science, its not far fetched, its not outrageous, its not extreme and I think what I love about the Body for Life book is it helps to teach people how to obtain this level of fitness without turning their life upside down and living in the gym or doing this crazy diet.

It’s all very easy and geared towards people who live in the real world who have children and full time jobs think that in order to get healthy you have to spend all this time in the gym or you have to eat like a bird.  It’s just not that way at all.

Dr. Kent:  How did you do it?  How did you go through the program?

Kelly Adair:  I joined a gym, which I had never been in a gym before and I was scared to death.  I just started eating small, balanced meals six times a day; you’re eating all the time, which is another misconception people have.  They think well how can you lose weight if you’re eating six times a day?  Well when you’re on portion control and balance, so I started eating clean and eating frequently and then I went into the gym and learned how to do some fundamental weight training exercises.

All the pictures are in the book, and I do 20 minutes of cardio three days week so I had never done anything like this before.  when I did my transformation I was 36 years old and I dropped 40 pounds and I cut my body fat in half and gained muscle.  I couldn’t believe it, it’s like I can’t believe what I did and it wasn’t that hard to do.  It takes consistency, you have to be consistent but it’s not that hard to do and it’s not as hard as what people make it out to be.

Dr. Kent:  So we’ve got all these things in popular culture, one year we’ve got the low carb diet and then suddenly krispy cream does poorly because people were big into donuts and then all of a sudden they were carbs.  Every year there’s these changing times, changing weight plans.  The South Beach diets and that, Weight Watchers has always stayed around.  What makes Body for Life different?

Kelly Adair:  You make a great point Dr. Kent.  Every decade it seems like they’re saying oh you should do this and not that or you should eat this and not that and it’s so confusing.  As I said before the population are trying to do the right thing, we’re being told one thing and then changing but Body for Life, why I like it so much is you’re eating real food, you’re eating healthy food and it’s just the consistency.  Anything that’s radical and what I always ask people when they say oh I’m doing this diet or that diet, my question to them is always can you eat that way for the rest of your life?

If they honestly answer the question like well, no I cant live without this the rest of my life and what Body for Life is; it doesn’t remove any food from us.  The thing that we’re trying to remove are the obstacles that are saboteurs like the krispy cream donuts but you can get those things on one day, that’s what we call a free day so you do get those things in as a treat one day a week.  The rest of the week it’s just eating real, normal foods but the right portions, the right quantity, and the right foods.

Like quality protein like lean chicken and fish and lean red meat, baked potatoes and not just decorating our food on the plate with all the sauces and spreads.  I don’t care if you’re smearing it, pouring it or spreading it, you’re probably sabotaging a really good meal.  We’re just cleaning up the dinner plate a little bit and by doing that the body loves you and the body will begin to drop that body fat.  I had been carrying it around for so many years.

Dr. Kent:  Since 1998 you’ve been on this plan.  Have you ever found it challenging?

Kelly Adair:  You know what?  To me it’s easier because it’s such a way of life for me now.  Before I started Body for Life I used to live on pizza, snickers bars, and M&Ms.  To me, those were the three food groups that I needed to survive and be happy and you just change your attitude and your mindset on food and I see food as strictly a fuel.  A fuel for my body, and I have treats you know don’t think I eat perfect all the time because I certainly don’t.  80% of the time throughout the last ten years of my life in attaining this I eat pretty darn good most of the time.

Again I try not to do anything extreme because extreme is something that you can’t maintain.  I’ve proved that with Body for Life there is sustainability with it unless you change your mind.  You start getting the fat out of your system, the bad stuff out of your kitchen and start eating clean for the most part, you feel better.  I used to get sugar headaches all the time because I ate so many carbs and so much sugar.  When you get used to being headache free and fatigue free and you get used to having the energy and the confidence you just want to sustain that.  I’m 46 years old now and I want to continue to have energy and feel great and be able to do all the stuff that I do.

So much of that is dependent on what you put in your body in the form of fuel.  So it’s not hard, I have found that it’s not difficult to maintain.  Like I said I have treats every now and then, I’m not so stressed that I don’t have some fun stuff in my life every now and then but for the most part I go back to eating clean.

Dr. Kent:  How did you get your daughter involved in this?

Kelly Adair:  Well she got involved because she was struggling.  She has started college and we’ve all heard of this.  I put on the freshman 15 when I was in college and it was weighing very heavily on her and she was as she called herself, the fat girl in her group.  She just got tired of it one day and she knew I had been involved with this but she’s watched me do this for ten years and she finally just reached a point where she surrendered I guess, and she said mom help me.  I said oh my gosh, I would love to help you.

We started her in college, she was living in the dorms and we bought her all her stuff to prepare every meal in her dorm room.  I taught her how to do the exercises and she reached a point Dr. Kent where it was too painful for her to have to go pick out another formal dress that she didn’t like or didn’t fit her right.  Then the “pain” that she knew she’d have to go through to get her body in shape and feel better about herself.  As a team we just worked together and I supported her.  She did all the work; I did nothing for her, I was just there to support her, that’s all I did.

Dr. Kent:  So how difficult was it?  You talk about she was expecting pain.  How difficult is it really?

Kelly Adair:  Well when I say pain I mean you know everybody, even whether you’re a college student, a working mom or dad, everyone has demanding schedules and responsibilities and the pain to me is how do you find time to do this?  How do you make time?  This is something that most people put down at the bottom of their list and I think its something that needs to be at the top of everyone’s list.  To take care of themselves and to get healthy, to feel good and have energy for your kids; wherever you are in your life.

When I say pain that’s what I mean.  How do work this into your lifestyle?  And I think that everybody, if you want something bad enough, if you want it bad enough you will find holes in your lifestyle, holes in your schedule where you can spend 20 minutes doing cardiovascular work.  Because that’s all we do is 20 minutes and I told her, lets look at your schedule and we actually looked at her class schedule and said okay, you’ve got an hour here.  This is a perfect time for you to delve into your stairwell in your dormitory and walk the stairs for 20 minutes.

That’s all you need to do but you have to make it a priority if you really want this.  I did impress on her that I can’t do it but if you want it bad enough we will carve out the minimal amount of time that it takes to do that in your life.  This is not hours and hours in the gym, this is minimal, this is 20 minutes of cardio three days a week and 40-45 minutes doing some weight training three times a week.  You’re looking at less than four hours a week.

Dr. Kent:  So here’s a question for you.  Most folks think well, I have to get a personal trainer and a membership to the gym.  What exactly do you recommend for folks?  What is the plan?

Kelly Adair:  I have several thoughts on this.  When I did this in 98 Dr. Kent, it changed my life.  I wanted to change my career so I am a personal trainer now and this is what I’m doing full time and I’ve been doing for ten years is helping people do this.  On that note I will say I did my transformation completely by myself.  I did not have a personal trainer but I did join a gym.  What I love about the new Champion for Life book is in the book it shows pictures on how to do each exercise in your home with very minimal equipment.

I can help someone transform their body in their basement with a ball and a few sets of weights.  Believe it or not it can be done.  So there’s no excuse, I mean yeah you’ll have to go out and spend $30 on a stability ball and hit some garage sales and get some dumbbells but I’m telling you do not overlook and a lot of people do it.  Overlook that weight training part and it’s so critical.  Working your muscles is so important in increasing your metabolism and to help accelerate that fat loss.

So it can be done at home, it can be done without a personal trainer.  I’ve seen too many people do it at home with those circumstances.  They’ve got kids, I have one gal that I know who does it at home, she’s an executive.  She gets home at 9:30 goes into her library and does her workout at 9:30 at night so again it really comes down to how bad do you want to feel good?  If you want it that bad you find the time, you carve the time out and you find the equipment that you need to get it done.

Dr. Kent:  It’s been a real honor speaking with Kelly Adair.  The book is called Champions Body for Life: The official guide for the body for life challenge and of course this is the follow-up to the Body for Life bestseller of I guess ten years ago now.  It’s been a real honor speaking with Kelly and we wish you all the best and I hope you can continue to change people’s lives with this.

Kelly Adair:  Thank you so much, I appreciate your time very much.  I wish everybody good luck.

Dr. Kent:  My next guest on the show is a musician.  Jesse Harper from Old School Freight Train.  I’m going to play one of their songs here and we’re going to get him on the line and chat with him about that song and about their album.  This song is called Seems Like Its Over from Old School Freight Train.

Posted by admin | Filed Under Food, Health, Sports, Motivation, AUTHOR INTERVIEW, TRANSCRIPTS, PODCAST 

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