Cam King | Amplified

September 18, 2009 | Comments Off

Dr. Kent: Welcome back to Sound Authors. And we’re talking today to a great musician and a co-author of a book called Amplified, and it’s fiction from leading alt, country, indie rock, blues and folk musicians. Welcome to the show, Cam King.

Cam King: Thanks, Dr. Kent, it’s great to be here.

Dr. Kent: Tell me about this book. Did you know this many of your co-musicians had written fiction?

Cam King: No, I mean, the idea of being a fiction writer, it’s not that far fetched from song writing, and I had written in one form or another, either as a whim or a form of expression for a good portion of my life. I think a lot of people who are songwriters probably have that urge to express themselves in some form other than the three minute song or ballad or whatever. But it was, it was a great honor to be included in this collection.

Dr. Kent: Well, and I mean, your writing style is fantastic, you could write a whole novel, I love it. I mean, from the very beginning, you know, the first word of your essay is “Clump.”

Cam King: “Clump,” yes, well, that’s pretty much the sound an armadillo makes when it hits your oil pan.

Dr. Kent: Now, having lived in the south, I’ve seen many dead armadillos, but I’ve never heard that sound. Have you heard that sound?

Cam King: I’m afraid I have. I have never, I never hit an armadillo in my life until after the book was written, and I was traveling on a section of road, which I describe in the book, in the story. And I was just, it was late at night and I was just thinking to myself, this is where I wrote the part where, “clump,” and all of a sudden something went bam on my left tire, and I knew exactly what it was. First it broke my heart, because I don’t like hurting critters. And the second thing, it scared the hell out of me because I wrote that, and I know how the story ends, and, you know. Kind of gives you a pause there for a moment.

Dr. Kent: Well, yeah, and the story’s called Road Kill. You know, what is the difference between, you know, writing prose and writing a song?

Cam King: Well, for me, speaking for myself, they both come from a very similar place. And a lot of it takes place either behind the wheel on the motorcycle, or engaged in some activity that allows the mind to focus on a function and yet the higher functions allow you to escape the confines of the earth and draw from the ether, I would say. A lot of my songs have come to me behind the wheel when I’ve got other things on my mind, or when my mind is empty. But the connection between the music and the short story, I would say for me they both come from a similar place, and it usually takes some catalyst to push it in one direction or the other. This story, Road Kill, which I’ll be very brief, is just a story of a red neck who loves to run over armadillos, and in my world the critters always win. I tell people it’s sort of a Stephen Cam King hill country horror story, so that kind of throws it all together there. The idea actually came to me because I drive the very roads that I describe in the short story. I’m from Albuquerque, New Mexico. I live in the hill country of Central Texas in the little German town of Fredericksburg. It’s ten hours from Albuquerque, and I travel there every couple of months to take care of the boys with home and my mother. And during those long hours on the road, ideas come to me, either in the form of this story, or in the form of a song.

Dr. Kent: And how does this, you know, and you can speak for the others with this as well. How does writing this, actually it’s a gorgeous book called Amplified, and how does this affect your singing career and playing career?

Cam King: I haven’t really, I haven’t seen a direct correlation. Other than the fact that the, when the book came out we had a wonderful gathering in Nashville with myself, John Weinford, Mary Gothie, Roddy Folks, and Dave Olne. We were all roughly Nashville based players. I actually came in from Texas for the event. But we were able to have a book reading at a local book store just down the street from the world famous Bluebird Café where everybody showcases their music in Nashville, and the editors, and the people who’s idea was the book, which was Steven Horowitz and his wife Julie Shafer. They came in from St. Paul, and we had a wonderful gathering, and I was extremely impressed with the readings done by my fellow writers. And we retired to the Bluebird afterwards and had a wonderful night of music playing songs that in my case were connected to the story, and others. It was, so to answer your question, I don’t know career wise how this has affected any of my other writers. I know for me it’s been a wonderful adjunct to my writing, and as an experience in itself it’s been a wonderful thing, and it’s given me the impetus to continue my writing and also seek new avenues for the stories that I do write.

Dr. Kent: Absolutely. Well, and you do have the unique honor of, the cover of Amplified is beautifully designed, and right about the title, of course, is a cute little armadillo, a live one.

Cam King: Yeah, yeah. I was, I had nothing to do with that, that was an independent decision made over at Melville House Publishing, a wonderful publishing house. Boy, they have got an incredible catalog, but it was somebody in their graphics department that decided to put the armadillo on the front, and you know, all glory to the armadillo, I was just a catalyst to the story.

Dr. Kent: It must’ve tickled you to see it.

Cam King: It did, of course, but I love the little guys. Like I say, I live I the hill country of Texas, and we do have the armadillos, and they are just a gorgeous sight to watch snuffling around in the yard whenever they turn up, and it’s always a heartbreaker whenever they get hit on the road. But as I described in the first sentence of my book, of my story Road Kill, when they’re startled, and anybody who knows armadillos, they’ll do this, they jump straight up in the air. Very few armadillos are hit with the tire. They usually jump straight up in the air when they’re startled and that’s what gets them.

Dr. Kent: Wow. And you know, your whole career started with a horror movie. Did that have any influence on your story that’s just a little bit of a horror story?

Cam King: Oh, that’s an interesting, I haven’t really considered that, Dr. Kent. I moved to Austin, Texas from Albuquerque in 1975, and brought with me a body of songs that I had written while I was in Albuquerque. And I recorded several of those in a local recording studio to sort of jump start my musical career in Austin and get some people listening to my stuff. And it just so happened that the music director for Toby Hooper who had just finished the Texas Chainsaw Massacre was coming through Austin and visiting studios looking for music for the next movie. And the next Toby Hooper movie was a thing which ended up with several titles: Starlight Slaughter, Eaten Alive, it was a horror movie that really had an interesting cast of characters: Neville Brandt, Stewart Whitman, Carolyn Jones, and a young Robert England who played Freddy Krueger in Nightmare on Elm Street. It was a really weird movie, and they featured four of my songs in there. And that was my first, that was my first foray into the music business per se, with having my songs listened to by a wide audience, but as for its influence on my writing, I really can’t think of a direct correlation. Although being an American male I think I’ve had a love affair with horror movies for a good portion of my life.

Dr. Kent: And there’s a good portion of comedy in the book, and of course in your essay it’s, when it’s violent there’s a little bit of tongue in cheek and you know, what role does humor play in these kind of tall tales, fiction writing?

Cam King: Oh, I mean, you take stories like Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill, and other American classics, I would say my direct, my most direct influence is probably Mark Twain. Because Mark Twain was able to take Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn say very scathing and indicting things about America at the time. About our patriarchal racism, the injustice, the brutishness of the frontier mentality, and he was able to write that in such a funny way that everybody laughed and then they thought about it, you know.

Dr. Kent: Yep.

Cam King: And for me, it’s only one way of doing it, and for this story it served its purpose, to tell a story that without humor would have been somewhat of a study in macabre sadism, and of course that’s not where my heart is, I just wanted to tell a funny little story, and if you’re going to tell a story like a Grimm’s fairytale where horrible things happen to children and witches and stuff, what better leavening agent than humor. Otherwise it’s truly a grim tale.

Dr. Kent: Exactly. Well, and so the book is called Amplified, it’s fiction from all sorts of folks. What was the process like of editing? You know, there’s all these musicians with these great stories, and how did they choose you? Did they just call you up?

Cam King: Well, I can’t speak directly for the editors, but I can tell you my relation, which enabled this to happen. First of all, I think the author, the editors, Steven and Julie, make it very apparent in the book that they explain that the people that were included in the book were included at their invitation because of their fascination with their music. And Steven is, I think my relation to this election process was a little different. I happened to be an old friend of Steven’s, but it wasn’t strictly old buddy nepotism, the old buddy system that got me in the book. Steven called me and he asked me, he told me what he was doing for the project and asked me if I knew of any Texas writers. He wanted to get some Texas voices in on this thing. And I sat there for a second scratching my chin and I said, “Well, I know one,” and he said, “Who?” And I said, “Moi, tis I, old boy.” And he said, Well, if you’ve got something, send it to me. And he happened to call at a time when I had this story on the burner in my head, and it was partly written. And with the impetus of him suggesting that I submit something, I sat down one afternoon at my nephew’s computer and wrote one of maybe three drafts that I sent off, and Steven responded very favorably. He liked the tone of it, it contrasted very well with some of the other material that was with the book, and so for me it was the same thing as when I got my Garth Brooks cut. It was sort of like, I wrote this thing, can you believe I knocked this one reasonably out of the park. It was Steven’s idea, it was his idea to include it in the selection, and so I have nothing but gratitude for the whole process. I was selected, and I did the best I could with the story, and I’ve got other stories in the works. But this really is a valid, sort of a vindication and a validation of my efforts as a writer. And I’m very grateful to Steven and Julie for the opportunity to be included in the work.

Dr. Kent: So you’ve kind of done the trilogy of important things, you’ve been in a horror film, you’ve been in the Grand Ol’ Opry, and you had a song covered by Garth Brooks.

Cam King: Yeah, Garth Brooks and then Lone Star, can’t forget Lone Star. Those are some important friends of mind in Nashville. The guy who sang that song, my…go ahead. Go ahead, Dr. Kent.

Dr. Kent: Yeah, go ahead. The guy who sang your song?

Cam King: Oh, well, one of the guys who sang my song was Johnny Rich, who was the bass player with Lone Star, and he went ahead to form the duo Big & Rich.

Dr. Kent: Ah.

Cam King: Which is one of the more successful acts coming out of Nashville right now. So I decided to go ahead and include them as coming out of the CD player of my character’s story.

Dr. Kent: Great. Yeah, and so what does it feel like coming out of that very interesting and successful career as a musician, now you’re an official author?

Cam King: Oh, it’s a hoot. It’s wonderful. It’s part of living what I think is a very full and productive life. I am still a songwriter. I am still a musician. I have a podcast in the works called Second Set, which is sort of a highly subjective view of Texas music, which will be thrown out there at some point. I am an active member of my community here in Fredericksburg, Texas. I am an avid woodworker and vegetable grower. It’s so hot right now I’m growing stewed tomatoes and peppers, but being an author in addition to all of this is absolutely wonderful. It rounds the whole thing out and just, just really, a great reason to get up in the morning and think creative thoughts.

Dr. Kent: Well, where can we find out more about you.

Cam King: I have been, I tell people I have been blissfully absent from the Internet. I’m in the songwriter protection program, and I don’t know if you can find me on anonymous.com or what. But I have been somewhat lax in hanging up my web shingle. And I do play with a band called The Freddy Steady Five, and people who want to find out more about me can Google my name, Cam King. They can also find me through Steady Boy records, which is the label belonging to my good friend Freddy Steady Kirch, who’s been my partner in music for 30 some-odd years. We played in a band called The Explosives in 1978. We played with Rocky Erickson and recently did a world tour with him. You can find out through Steady Boy records, Freddy Steady Five, Cam King. It’s one of those spiral things, Dr. Kent, you just kind of fish out there and find little pieces. But maybe in a year or so there’ll be something with my name on it that actually has the whole www attached to it.

Dr. Kent: You never know, by then it might be a different, maybe it won’t be, maybe it’ll be zzz. Www will be gone.

Cam King: (laughter) It probably could be.

Dr. Kent: Well the book is called….

Cam King: You know, it’s interesting, it’s interesting getting to be the author on your show, because normally I’d be the musician, so this is really a…

Dr. Kent: And you are. You are a sound author.

Cam King: …an honor and a change for me.

Dr. Kent: A fine sound author.

Cam King: That’s pretty much it. And I understand you’re a bit of a bluegrass nut yourself. You wrote a book about Doc Watson?

Dr. Kent: I am, I’m actually in the process of that coming out, yeah. I’m a huge bluegrass nut and I love all kinds of music. I love all the musicians that are in this book with you. And I’m not a big fan of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but I’m a fan of the music.

Cam King: You don’t have to be a fan of that.

Dr. Kent: Yeah.

Cam King: Like I said, they came to me, I didn’t come to them. But you know, I’ll take the honors where they land on me. I’ll drop one name at you, I was very lucky in my youth to have met and got to hang with a man who has been a great influence in my life, and that was the late, great Clarence White.

Dr. Kent: Oh my goodness, wow.

Cam King: Yeah. So, I’ll just throw that one bluegrass name at you there.

Dr. Kent: How was that? You hung out with him?

Cam King: One day, when I was in high school.

Dr. Kent: Wow.

Cam King: He was playing with The Birds, they came to Albuquerque. I finagled a day long interview, hung out with Roger McWilliams, Gene Parsons, Clarence White, John York. Also Dwight Axton and the guys in Three Dog Night, and it was pretty much a kid’s dream come true. And Clarence has long been an influence in my life. I got to know his brother Roland in Nashville, and so that’s my…

Dr. Kent: I talked with Roland White about a week ago. Really nice fellow.

Cam King: What a small world, my friend. A small world, indeed.

Dr. Kent: Yeah, and Clarence White, man, that man can play the guitar.

Cam King: He made that Martin speak didn’t he? Of course, I inherited a lot of his telecaster playing, I’m an avid B string bender myself, and it has marked a lot of the work that I’ve done.

Dr. Kent: He just changed the world of music, there’s no question about it. And a fun thing is that Clarence White, of course, hung out with Doc in the early 60’s, it’s fun to think about that.

Cam King: Doc’s influence on Clarence is very evident, but boy, you couldn’t have influenced a better player, could you.

Dr. Kent: Exactly. Well, thank you so much for chatting, it’s been a blast. And the book is called Amplified, and it’s fiction from a whole bunch of folks, and it’s out there everywhere. And you should go to anonymous.org and find Cam King, or Google him at Cam King, that’s C-a-m King. And he’s got some great stuff out there. You can also find him on all sorts of records here and there, or rent Texas Chainsaw Massacre and try and find a circuit queen.

Cam King: Well, Texas Chainsaw Massacre was before me, I came after that, but you can usually find a connection there somewhere.

Dr. Kent: All right, well it’s been great chatting with you, and I hope, I wish you all the success with this book. And I can’t wait to see when your book comes out, it’s the full…

Cam King: Yeah, it’ll be happening. But thanks a lot for your time, Dr. Kent. I don’t know where, between all your music and your writing that you find the time to talk to people like me, but I appreciate you taking the time.

Dr. Kent: All right, we’ll talk to you later.

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

Paul McManus | The Seven Great Prayers

September 16, 2009 | Comments Off

Dr. Kent: Welcome back to Sound Authors. Today is a day where many folks all around the world are thinking about Iran and about Michael Jackson, about Farrah Fawcett, Ed MacMahon. People are thinking about their mortality and all sorts of serious things in their lives. Of course, Iran’s been in the news and people are thinking about all the folks over there, including that woman Netta, who was needlessly killed, and it’s been an interesting show so far. We’re talking about gospel music and inspirational books. Well, here’s another inspirational book. I have my second guest on the show, his name is Paul McManus. He and his wife wrote the book The 7 Great Prayers: For an Abundant Life and For a Lifetime of Hope and Blessings. Welcome to the show, Paul.

Paul McManus: Hi Dr. Kent, hi guests.

Dr. Kent: And tell me about this book. What are these 7 great prayers?

Paul McManus: Well, the book of The 7 Great Prayers came out of a lifetime experience. I’m a big reader, and same with my wife, and back around the dot com bust, around 2000, life was good, everything was well, and I happened to have been working for an internet company. A lot of people going through tough economic times now, and I think our family just happened to get through it a little bit first. So you know, the company I worked for went under, I lost my job, my wife was out of work at the time, I started a business, and then 911 happened, it was a bad time to start a business, and real quick we went through all our life savings and got to the point where we just couldn’t pay our mortgage any more, and the bill collectors were knocking at the door, and things were just in a really, really negative state. And Tracey and I one night, you know, we just couldn’t sleep, and we looked at each other and said you know what, we’ve got to change our thinking, we’ve got to change out life, and it starts with our thinking and our prayers. And we started to give thanks and started taking the focus off of negative to positive. And that’s where the 7 great prayers was born. The first great prayer was “Thank you, God.” And it was just really simple, but it put us in a state of gratitude. And though we were losing our house and we were having tag sales to get rid of our furniture, you know, we counted our blessings. We were high school sweethearts, through all this adversity we maintained a positive attitude. We had three beautiful kids, we had our health. And at that point things started to turn around just with a simple prayer of thanks. The 7 Great Prayers are non-denominational, they work for all faiths. I tend to have read all the great books out there, or as many as I could get my hands on, and I kind of boiled down the different religions and philosophies, and self development to what I call 7 Great Prayers. And I developed these with my wife Tracey. So it all has to do with affirmative prayer and saying positive thoughts and positive prayers.

Dr. Kent: Well, and things are really rough for a lot of people right now, just like they were post 911, and in a sense the country isn’t quite as, let’s say it’s not quite as nationally depressed as we were after 911, that was a shocking event, but it’s a very similar time. What did you feel before, you know, when all of this bad stuff was happening. You know, you’re not quite Job, but you were going through some really hard times.

Paul McManus: Yeah, we were definitely going through hard times. And you know, life was good, I had a nice house, we live in Connecticut, we did, we lost absolutely everything. And we lost it while, at a time when other people still had it. You know, life was good for many, they were taking their home equity loans, the economy was doing well, but here we weren’t. And my kids, we barely, we literally scrounged around through the seats for lunch money sometimes. But you know, we really got down to basics and found out what’s important. And what’s really important is love for one another, love for family. We’re very spiritual, we, and I say spiritual. We’re involved in the community, we help people, and from that I literally just, I created these 7 Great Prayers, and I can tell them to you really quick. They’re all short. We literally wrote them on an index card. And carrying this card around, things started, our life literally got better. Good things started happening. And when you start, with all the things you just talked about, some great people passed recently this week, everything that’s going on in Iran, you know, it’s really easy to get in a negative state, and there’s one thing Tracey and I found. Thinking negatively really gets you nowhere, and if you’re going to think and if you’re going to pray, pray positively. And that’s really changed our lives. A lot of great opportunities have presented themselves, and we’ve had the good fortune in our book we share a story of how we were having problems even keeping my daughter in college. And a lady that we’ve reached out to for years, she was lonely on the holidays, we used to have her over, just out of the kindness of our heart, cause she had no family. For a good decade we used to have her over for the holidays, and she became a member of our family. When she heard things were going bad she just called up one day and my wife, she said, “You know what, Tracey, I want to pay for your daughter’s, a year of your daughter’s education.” So you know, you gotta keep your antennas up and you gotta keep helping people. And you know, what do you know, there’s a life and humanity comes back and helps you.

Dr. Kent: So I read in your bio that the first copy of this book was printed at Kinko’s. Tell me the story of writing this book.

Paul McManus: Ok, so here we wrote this, you know, these simple prayers for ourselves, I did come from the internet world, I built up a simple web page, placed a little ad on Google, and through the power of the internet and the power of Google, people started typing the words prayers, they came to my web page, I gave them a prayer a day for seven days, each of the 7 Great Prayers, free of charge to people. People loved the prayers so much they asked Tracy and I to put our story in a book. We put it in a book, we printed it at Kinko’s, we did a hundred copies. They quickly sold out, then we did another hundred. And we kept doing them in lots of a hundred. And when we added it all up, we had shipped out 60,000 books out of Kinko’s to 163 countries, over 20 million people came and downloaded these prayers and visited our website, and it was quite an experience, you know. And I don’t have any training in ministry, and I consider my wife and I just regular people with a simple message, and it really resonated with people. It’s just amazing how we just, Kinko’s is, we’d go there every morning and they’d just, they’d laugh cause it was a 24 hours Kinko’s, and I’d just put in my order for the night before. And the power of the US Mail, we’d ship these books everywhere.

Dr. Kent: You were certainly good friends with the folks at Kinko’s and USPS then.

Paul McManus: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And then what we did is we created, had an idea to put the prayers, these affirmation prayers, you know, the first great prayer is “I love you, God.” The second great prayer is “Thank you, God.” And we put this prayers over baroque classical music. My wife and I recorded them ourselves, and put them on CDs. We kind of made our own bootleg CDs and shipped those out with the books as well, and people loved the CDs. And they’re all affirmations. The third great prayer is “God, you’re within me.” And then for each prayer we made other little affirmations, and they’re not all relating to God. Some are simple affirmations that say day by day in every way I’m getting better and better, you know. I maintain a positive mental attitude, you know. I feel happy, I feel blessed. And sometimes when people we’ve found that are going through either financial challenges, health issues, relationship problems, they even find it difficult to play, I mean to pray, and so with these CDs it’s as simple as pressing a button and hitting play. And people really, really resonated with these, what we call Prayer Power CDs.

Dr. Kent: And what’s the most surprising, I guess contact you’ve had? What’s the most surprising thing you’ve seen since writing this book and touching so many people?

Paul McManus: Ok, so you know, way back I was in the software business and all I dealt with was corporate people. Through the power of these emails and internet, we’ve had people, you know, again, you forget sometimes, you know, the breadth of the internet, but there are people that would go in Africa or in India and they couldn’t even afford a computer, but they could have a hotmail account or yahoo account. And I’d get emails from people that say, “Hey, just to let you know, I just hiked five miles to this Internet café to download my sixth great prayer. It’s given me great inspiration. I’ve printed it out, I’ve walked it back to my village, and shared it with my community.” So it’s really amazing how, you know, here we are in America, but touching lives with people back to Iran, Iran, or Iraq. You know, these Muslim countries that were downloading the prayers, Pakistan. So people from all around the world, I think that the thing that’s really struck Tracey and I, you know, we’re touching any priests downloading the prayers, pastors are, janitors are, executives are, people from all different faiths around the world. It’s been quite an exciting thing. It’s given Tracey and I a lot of purpose to ship these prayers to as many people as possible.

Dr. Kent: And how has your life changed since that time?

Paul McManus: Well, it’s changed a lot. Tracey and I, we really have our values in check, or at least we try really hard. We did lose our home, we now rent. We happen to be in the middle of Main Street in a beautiful Maine wood town, and we couldn’t be happier. So we have a major focus on the day. You know, we let go of any regrets of the past. We’ve let go of fear of the future, and we focus on the moment. And that’s really helped us out, to just start thinking. And it’s given us great purpose. Now I’ve been blessed with an opportunity to work for an employer who allows me to, during the course of the day, to do an interview like this. My wife is incredibly blessed. Tracy now has a job, our kids are doing well in college and life, and just a sense of purpose now. Just helping people, you know, be it helping at a spaghetti dinner, or helping someone cross the street, it’s just, it’s a blessing. What could be better that this, to have focus.

Dr. Kent: So tell me, tell me about, I mean, the website is the7greatprayers.com, or people can Google it, of course, but it’s a great website, and tell me about these 21, The 21 Prayer Challenge, or 21 Day Prayer Challenge.

Paul McManus: Sure, ok. So, as you said, we have a website called the7greatprayers, and people can go down there and give us their personal email and download the prayers. Our book’s available in book stores all across the country and Amazon, etc. Now, the 21 Day Challenge is a big part of, you know, we want to make, or encourage all the readers to pray the prayers for 21 days straight, because researchers show that it takes 21 days of a particular habit, be it a good habit or a bad habit, of consecutive activity to make it a lifelong habit. So we encourage people to, you know, no matter how tough things are and how much you may not believe in your personal relationship with a higher power, or in positive thinking, you know, just try it for 21 days. You know, there’s 365 days in the course of a year, try this for 21 days and then see what kind of an impact it has on your thinking, and your attitude and your life. And we’ve offered again this challenge through the Internet. People sign up and get the prayers. I think right now we’re over 750,000 people have taken this 21 day challenge worldwide. And we have testimonies where people have changed their lives financially, through relationships, health, just by just keeping it simple and keeping it positive. So the challenge is try the 7 Great Prayers for 21 days and see what it does for your life.

Dr. Kent: And in clicking through to the final contact form there, of course on this beautiful website, the7greatprayers.com, there’s pictures of three dogs, and I assume your daughter. And I’m a huge dog lover. Do you still have dogs?

Paul McManus: Absolutely. I have a blonde golden retriever, her name’s Billie, and then the other dog is a, oh there’s a, one of them’s our friend’s dog. And the other one is half golden retriever basset hound, his name is Jasper. I love taking walks with the dogs, and I encourage anyone, when you’re going through tough times, you know, pet a dog, hang out with a dog, talk about, you know, I don’t blame you for loving dogs. I mean, they have the healthiest attitude on life.

Dr. Kent: Well, and the amazing thing about dogs, too, is especially, in my opinion, especially golden retrievers is they need nothing but love, and then they’ll love you back.

Paul McManus: Exactly, yeah. They are the most, of all the dogs, my dogs are just such a love freak. We’ve always had golden retrievers, and you know, dogs are quick to forgive, you know. All they want is love, and they’ll just give it to you and it’s reciprocal. Love to take walks, and I encourage, it’s a big part of our book, we encourage people to get outside, take walks, communicate, be open and listen, listen to your spouse, your family, your friends, co-workers, or listen to nature and God. God is with us all, right down to the animals and the plants.

Dr. Kent: Well, it’s been a real honor chatting with you. I think I’m inspired to do the 21 day challenge here, I think I might try it out, and I hope some other folks are, too. It’s a beautiful book and a beautiful concept, and keep doing this great stuff. What’s next on your plate?

Paul McManus: We’re going to continue to get this message out, I guess to have a Chicken Soup for the Soul kind of. We’re working on The 7 Great Prayers for Women, The 7 Great Prayers for Finances, and The 7 Great Prayers for Peace and Happiness to help people with depression and stress. And women love these 7 Great Prayers, so Tracey’s creating a CD set. Oh, we’re coming up with one other project for cancer recovery where we have people that have recovered from cancer and they’re recording the prayers, affirmations, and we’re going to share that.

Dr. Kent: Oh, wow.

Paul McManus: So I think that’s really inspiring and helpful to people.

Dr. Kent: Well, this is great. Everybody can check it out online again at the7greatprayers.com. It’s been my great honor to chat with Paul McManus, author of The 7 Great Prayers. Thank you so much.

Paul McManus: Thank you, God bless you and all your listeners. Bye now.

Posted by admin | Filed Under TRANSCRIPTS, Motivation, Spirituality, Religion, AUTHOR INTERVIEW, Inspiration, PODCAST

Paul E. Doyle | Hot Shots and Heavy Hits

September 15, 2009 | Comments Off

Interview with Paul E. Doyle [17:52m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

From his website:

Paul E. Doyle served as a Special Agent in the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs and the Drug Enforcement Administration. Doyle was a member of the US Army 10th Special Forces Airborne detachment and 2nd Infantry division. A former NEAAU Diamond Belt Heavyweight boxing champion, Doyle has boxed both nationally and abroad. Doyle is a Certified Critical Incident and Crisis Intervention Peer Counselor and a member of a Critical Incident Response Team. Doyle is Chairman of the New England Chapter of the Association of Former Federal Narcotics Agents. He lives in the Boston area with his wife and family.

Posted by admin | Filed Under Health, History, Motivation, AUTHOR INTERVIEW, PODCAST

Paul Austin | Something for the Pain

September 15, 2009 | Comments Off

Interview with Paul Austin [25:04m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

From Publisher’s Weekly:

With a relentlessly honest look at modern emergency medicine, Austin, a former firefighter now living in Durham, N.C., writes in his debut book of his transformation to a highly capable ER doctor struggling to stay one jump ahead of death in the crowded critical care ward. The book begins deftly with Austin, a sleep-deprived physician, trying to avoid mistakes stemming from fatigue by relying on his instincts, frequently both skill and luck, to treat patients with gunshot wounds, brain tumors, asthma, heart ailments and general problems. In a narrative blur of flashbacks, he tells of his career as a firefighter before landing in medical school, which was followed by an internship at a local hospital and marriage to a lovely nurse and having a family. What makes this inspiring medical memoir stand out is the courageous measure of Austin’s humanity in taking on the endless weight of suffering, and what he becomes to his co-workers, his patients, his family and his community.

Posted by admin | Filed Under Health, Motivation, Inspiration, AUTHOR INTERVIEW, PODCAST

Candy Pfeifer | Getting it Right

September 15, 2009 | Comments Off

Dr. Kent: Welcome to Sound Authors. There’s four guests on the show today, three authors and one musician, as always. Among the authors on the show are going to be Candy Pfeifer, the author of Getting It Right. And that’s about an author’s struggle to be in the spotlight. The second guest on the show is Paul and Tracey McManus, the authors of The 7 Great Prayers: For a Lifetime of Hope and Blessings. The third guest on the show is one of the contributors to the new novel Amplified, Cam King will be with us. And then John and James Abrams are the Abrams Brothers, they’re an incredible act. And they’re going to be with us at the end of the show with their unique brand of music. So without further ado, I’d like to speak with my first guest. She’s the author of Getting It Right, Candy Pfeifer. Welcome to the show.

Candy Pfeifer: Thank you, Dr. Kent.

Dr. Kent: Well, and tell me about this book a little bit. Give me a nutshell.

Candy Pfeifer: In a nutshell, it’s a book about people with, that deal and struggle with insecurities rooted in fear. I’m of the belief that most insecurities that we deal with, low self esteem, feeling like failures, that all of that is rooted in fear. And I pretty strongly believe that that’s a spiritual issue that can be taken care of.

Dr. Kent: Well, and one really interesting thing, when you talk about that very specifically, is the life of Michael Jackson. What are your thoughts about, here’s this very soft spoken guy that had all of these, all of these issues. Well, he was in the limelight since he was 3.

Candy Pfeifer: Right. My belief on that is that people are not made to be worshipped, and when people are worshipped then ultimately they can’t really handle it. It’s a high that people love and enjoy, but then when that starts to go away, then it’s just like a drug that they can’t get enough of, and I just, for the most part as I listen to the biographies of people at that height of popularity, that it’s always the same story. Cause God’s made to be worshipped, not people, and we can’t handle it.

Dr. Kent: That’s fascinating. That’s a really wonderful summary of it. Well, you’ve got an amazing family and you are well known for your music, and then of course for this book. Tell me about the importance these days of gospel music in the world. You know, most of us when we listen to the radio, we don’t hear the gospel music. I’m a big fan of bluegrass and I do hear gospel when I listen to the bluegrass channel. But talk about gospel music these days

Candy Pfeifer: Well I think probably the most popular form of gospel music these days would be what is tagged praise and worship, which there are so many mega churches in our country right now, and they have incredible praise and worship bands. But yes, I feel like the music in itself is something that will literally lead us into the presence of God. There’s a story in the Old Testament that talks about when Saul had evil spirits that would mess with his mind he would call for a musician that played well. And that was David. And David had rehearsed, as he was tending sheep, and he was a very, very good and accomplished musician. And when he would come into Saul’s presence and play, the Bible says that those evil spirits would have to leave. And I feel like that’s what gospel music does.

Dr. Kent: Yeah. And how about, so in your life story, how did you end up where you are today? Of course, you are a pastor’s kid, a PK as they call them. Talk about growing up.

Candy Pfeifer: Well when I was growing up my family, yes, my dad was a pastor, and my family, we loved music. We were the kind of family that would sit on the porch with guitars and sing at dusk, and we had, there was a lot of music in our church and studded singers in our choir loft. It was guitar players and horn players and drums and the whole deal like that. So we grew up surrounded by a lot of music, and it just kind of developed. My life developed into what it is today. It’s what I always wanted to do. We were also very involved in sports, but the thing I wanted to do all of my life was to be able to play music, and to be able to play gospel music for a living, and I’ve been really blessed to be able to do that. It’s been wonderful. I don’t have any complaints at all.

Dr. Kent: So now there’s this book, which is a devotional, and it’s called Getting It Right. And it’s about you, but it’s also a devotional. Talk about the book, how it’s been to write it, how it came about, how you came to writing it, and all of that.

Candy Pfeifer: Ok. Well, I had journaled from 1992 to 2002. And at the end of that period I felt like I was growing, you know, maturing spiritually, and I looked back on those journal entries and I thought you know, those entries are very dark. That was a dark period of my life, when I didn’t seem to think straight in many instances. And so I just started to sit down and with each journal entry I would go to the Bible and try to find verses that would apply to that. And then after that I wrote a “for you” section, “For you today.” So what I did was, I just used those journal entries as life learning experiences, and what the Word says about those, and then what God had taught me about that now. And that’s kind of the way the book’s laid out and how it all came about. Cause I felt like that people, most people go through the same things, especially women, emotionally. We all seem to pretty much think the same way, and men as well.

Dr. Kent: Now what kind of response have you gotten?

Candy Pfeifer: Well, it’s been, it’s really been good. People that have read the book, they will email me or call me and talk about how they really feel like that things have been revealed to them in their life through the book that can help them to live a better life. More of a life of freedom and joy. So it’s, yeah, it’s been a good response, and I’m thankful.

Dr. Kent: What did it teach you, cause that’s the other interesting thing. I mean most authors, especially with a book like this, it’s very personally revealing. How did you change in the writing and release of this book?

Candy Pfeifer: Well, as I would read those journal entries, I would really see the truth of the matter. I know I keep referring back to the Bible, but that’s what I base my whole life on. And Satan is a great deceiver, and he tries to tear us down. The Word says he is out to kill, steal and destroy, and what I learned from it is a lot of what I’ve dealt with emotionally was just a lie. It was just all of hell itself trying to destroy me, and I learned a lot of truth about what our position is in Jesus Christ, and how we can live free of bondages. The bondage of fear, the bondage of low self esteem. It’s a prison. It’s a terrible, terrible mindset to be in, to feel like you’re a failure and nobody loves you and you have no self worth or any purpose in life. That’s just like a prison of our own building. And we can be free of that. And so, for me in my life it was just, it was a freeing experience, and how we can mature and grow up and see things the way they really are.

Dr. Kent: And that’s kind of what all of the music that your family does, that’s what the music is about, that’s what the book is about, is overcoming that.

Candy Pfeifer: Right. That’s right. We can live a good life, I mean, God has made available to us everything that he is. The Bible says that we have the mind of Christ, and that he’s give us everything that pertains to life and godliness. And I work on it every day, as long as I’m here on this earth and in this body I will have to continue to try to get it right. So every day I try to renew my mind in the truth of things, because I have not arrived, and I never will, but I’m a lot farther along right now than I was in 1992.

Dr. Kent: Well, it’s been a real honor chatting with you, we could talk all day. The website for the Pfeifer’s music is www.pfeifers.com. What else can we find on there?

Candy Pfeifer: All the events that we’re involved in. We do a cruise to Alaska with Dr. Charles Stanley, that’s coming up. We have a homecoming every year here in our hometown with a lot of great gospel music and artists and just all kinds of things like that. There are pictures, tons of pictures showing what we do and that sort of thing.

Dr. Kent: Well and of course then there’s also the book, which is also called Getting It Right. Go out and pick up your copy. It’s a really touching memoir and a book that can help you get through it as well, it’s a devotional. So thank you so much for being on the show, Candy Pfeifer.

Candy Pfeifer: Thank you, Dr. Kent.

Posted by admin | Filed Under Spirituality, TRANSCRIPTS, Religion, Entertainment, AUTHOR INTERVIEW, Inspiration, PODCAST

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