Frankie Manning, Ambassador of Lindy Hop

Dear readers and listeners:

After a bit of a hiatus, I am back to podcasting! That is the good news. The sad news is that an interview I conducted earlier this year with the legendary Frankie Manning turned out to be his last. Frankie Manning, known and loved all over the world as the “Ambassador of Lindy Hop” passed away just before his 95th birthday this year. I feel extremely fortunate to have had this conversation with him before he fell ill. As a longtime lindy hopper and dancer myself, his words and feelings resonated with me quite deeply, as I’m sure they will with you.

Swing dancer extraordinaire Frankie Manning was a leading dancer at Harlem’s legendary Savoy Ballroom where, in the mid-1930s, he revolutionized the course of the lindy hop with his innovations, including the lindy air step and synchronized ensemble lindy routine.

As a featured dancer and chief choreographer for the spectacular Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers, he performed in numerous films including Hellzapoppin’, and entertained on stages around the world with jazz greats Ethel Waters, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, and Cab Calloway.

Upon the demise of the Swing Era, Frankie took a job in the Post Office, where he worked for thirty years until his rediscovery by a new generation of swing dance enthusiasts in the mid-1980s. Since then, he’s been in constant demand and motion, teaching, choreographing, and performing globally. He won a 1989 Tony Award for his choreography in Black and Blue, and served as a consultant for and performed in Spike Lee’s Malcolm X. Frankie’s activities have been chronicled in hundreds of articles (including features in GQ and People) and dozens of news programs (including a profile on ABC’s 20/20).

Considered the world’s leading authority on the lindy, he is highlighted in Ken Burns’s acclaimed documentary, Jazz. His autobiography, Frankie Manning: Ambassador of Lindy Hop, co-written by Cynthia R. Millman, was published by Temple University Press in spring 2007.

I hope you all will enjoy Frankie’s last interview. Below is part one of my conversation with him. To read more about this amazing man and his lifetime of achievement, visit his web site at http://www.frankiemanning.com.

My heart goes out to his family and I know I speak for many many people when I say, he will be missed.

Listen here:

Frankie Manning, Ambassador of Lindy Hop – Part 1

At last, I present to you the second half of my conversation with Ted Louis Levy. You are in for quite a treat! In this segment, we discuss the latter part of Ted’s career, Barack Obama, and someone does a Bill Cosby impersonation!  I’m not telling who… you’ll have to listen for yourself.

I left in a little bit that was at the end of Part 1 to put it into context and maintain continuity.

Enjoy!

A Conversation with Ted Louis Levy – Part 2

Ted Louis Levy

Ted Louis Levy has not only been my teacher in tap dance and in life, but my friend.  I recently spent over two hours on the phone with Ted to do this interview.  I have broken it out into two parts to make it a bit easier to digest.  I have been blessed to have Ted in my life and am excited to share our conversation with you!

Ted’s professional training began in Chicago with Mr. Finis Henderson II,  Master Tap Dancer and former manager of Sammy Davis Jr.  Mr. Henderson encouraged Ted to pursue a professional career in the performing arts, which began at The Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago.  Mr. Levy made his Broadway debut in the smash hit Black & Blue.  He collaborated with George C. Wolfe and Gregory Hines on the Choreography of Jelly’s Last Jam, for which he received a TONY NOMINATION, DRAMA DESK NOMINATION  and the 1993 OUTER CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD.  Ted was awarded an EMMY AWARD for his television debut performance in the PBS Special Precious Memories, and appeared in Spike Lee’s Malcolm X for his film debut.  His production of Ted Levy and Friends, directed by Gregory Hines, celebrated Ted as one of America’s premier Tap Dance Artists.  Influenced by Mr. Hines, Ted acquired his directorial debut as Director of Savion Glover’s, Dancing Under The Stars at the New York Shakespeare Festival’s Delacorte Theater.  He also assisted in the choreography of Broadway’s Tony Award winning hit Bring In ‘Da Noise! Bring In ‘Da Funk!  Ted appeared in the movie Bojangles with Gregory Hines, returning to Broadway as Papa Jack in Susan Stroman & Harry Conick Jr.’s Thou Shalt Not. Ted portrayed the roll of The Mikado in The Ford Theater’s production of The Hot Mikado.  For which he won a HELEN HAYES AWARD.  Performed in  Sammy; a production based on the musical life of Sammy Davis Jr. Ted’s most recent venture is his own rendering of a production entitled The Rhythm Of Life.

Listen here:

A Conversation with Ted Louis Levy – Part 1

Please be sure to check out the Guest Appearances page to see who will be appearing on coming shows!

Also note that although I have more guests who have tentatively scheduled to appear, they will not be included on the announcements page until they are confirmed, so be sure to check for updates!

Mark Stelzner, founder of JobAngels.org

Dear readers:  This week I spoke with Mark Stelzner, founder of JobAngels.org and Twitterer @jobangels. JobAngels is a young but fast-growing network of job seekers and what are known as job “angels”–people just like you and me who volunteer their time, advice, moral support or connections to help others find jobs. What started as a thought over breakfast one day has literally turned into a social networking boom, and underscores the power of social media to bring about real change in many lives.

Mark is also the founder of Inflexion Advisors, which brings fifteen years of experience in the implementation of internal and external HR transformational initiatives for public and private sector clientele worldwide. Over his career, Mark has brought over $3 billion of value to his clients and employers.

Prior to Inflexion, Mark co-founded and served as Executive Vice President of Marketing and Business Development for EquaTerra Public Sector, a leading sourcing advisory and consulting firm. Previously, Mark was Senior Director of Global Alliances and Channel Management for Convergys Employee Care. Mark’s prior experience includes Business Development Director positions at Workscape and Workstream/Kadiri as well as consulting to organizations such as Fannie Mae, WebMD and Biogen Idec. Mark also successfully co-founded a workforce effectiveness firm, whose platform was applied to Department of Energy labs, Federal contractors and strategic Department of Defense assets.

Mark is an active member of the HR community, having spoken at well over 100 industry conferences, events, user groups, forums and human resources professional organizations. He has also served as an invited speaker to a number of public assemblies, been cited in dozens of publications and is the primary author of the popular Inflexion Point blog, drawing over 100,000 readers per month.

I am so glad you all are joining me in this conversation with Mark.  I hope you enjoy listening as much as I enjoyed talking to him!

One-on-One With Mark Stelzner – February 17, 2009

As a follow on to my previous announcement, I am happy to report that Mark Stelzner, President and Lead Angel at JobAngels.org and emerging Twitter phenomenon, has graciously agreed to lend me his time and insights as a guest on my site. I will talking with Mark about the movement he has incited whereby people just like you and me are helping others to find jobs. Mark started this effort just weeks ago and has already been picked up by the LA Times.  If you are a victim of the current economic layoffs then you need to check out his site and hear what he has to say. Mark and I will be talking next week. I will have the show posted by week’s end.

Hi everyone, it’s been a while. I’ve gotten several inquiries about why my blog defaults to an old post. Yikes! Well, I ashamedly admit that it is due to my not posting anything new for a while. Believe it or not, I have been doing my PMBA reading quite regularly. However, a few things have transpired that have made me rethink what I want this blog to be all about.

You may have listened to my interview with Marc Pearlman, the very helpful and informative investment adviser, radio show host and powerhouse behind Your Money Matters. I interviewed Marc for my blog because of his obvious connection to the PMBA/finance theme that I was cultivating. I found, however, that I really enjoyed interviewing him just for the sake of the interview. I mean, I really enjoyed it, so much that after a long (okay, far too long!) period of introspection, I have made a decision about the direction in which I want to take my still-fledgling site. I have decided to broaden the scope beyond just PMBA-related matters. I will still include lots of PMBA and finance-centric stories and hopefully even more interviews for you to enjoy. But I couldn’t escape the inescapable — namely that I am very interested in a lot of subjects and I really want to have a more general news/lifestyle/issues blog.

Yes, there are plenty of these types of blogs out there already. I have thought of that. But there are plenty of lawyers and doctors out there as well, and yet we keep making more. Seriously though, the level of competition should not keep me–or you–from doing what will truly make us happy. Even if no one reads it. Hehe.

My guest lineup is already taking shape. I’ll be announcing upcoming guests as soon as I have a final schedule put together. Look for subjects ranging from running a technology business to animal rights issues to how Twitter figures into today’s business landscape. And that, I hope, is only the beginning. Story ideas are always welcome! Just hit my Contact page and, well, contact me.

Thank you all for sticking with me while I work out exactly what I want to be when I grow up. I appreciate your inquiries and look forward to what I hope will be a long and informative relationship between you and me.

**Special thanks to Kellie M. Walsh for her editing assistance.

So, I’ve been out of town for a few days and wrapping up some condo issues before that. Fun stuff! I haven’t disappeared however, and will have a post again shortly. I’m trying to decide what is the least dry thing to write about what I’ve learned from the 36 Hour Finance Course…. tough call. I’ll do my best to make it interesting!

When I was young lass, my sister, cousin and I used to take our fancy-pants plastic tape recorders – the kind you had to use a microphone and hold it up to the speaker on a radio in order to tape songs off the radio – and we would interview each other. We would pretend we were on a talk show, our most imitated “talk show” being the reenacting of several skits from The Muppet Show. We loved The Muppet Show and we loved pretending to be reporters.

Not much has changed since then, except the technology. And my height. I’ve discovered that I enjoy interviewing as much as I did when I was a little kid. I’ve also discovered that I need to improve my interviewing skills. This much is clear. After spending many hours editing the audio of my interview with Marc Pearlman, host of Your Money Matters Radio, here are my takeaways:

1. Marc Pearlman is a great guest, possesses a broad body of knowledge, is easy to talk to and I would love to have him back “on the show” so to speak
2. I think my tone of voice was too, how shall I put it… serious? A bit deadpan? Too “something,” which means I should work on improving my interviewing skills
3. More importantly, I found that I really enjoyed conducting this interview, in spite of my serious tone, and thought the whole experience was grand

Putting aside my comments above concerning my interviewing style, I do think this was a very positive first-ever interview, and I would like to do more interviewing in the future. So if you know of anyone who is an expert in their field, who has an interesting story to tell, and can tie it even loosely to the PMBA, send ‘em my way! In the meantime, here for your listening pleasure is my interview with Marc Pearlman. We cover all kinds of topics, ranging from running a business to personal finance and debt management, to the age old question: what do I want to be when I grow up?

I would like to thank Marc for his time and his insights. And listeners, please feel free to comment, give constructive criticism, send gifts, etc.

Marc Pearlman Interview – September 11, 2008

Or to listen right here, press Play:

By the way, I had intended to post the written transcript before the audio but it just worked out the other way around. I’m not sure if a written transcript is actually needed. If I get requests for it I will certainly provide one, although I will work towards posting one this week. Enjoy!

I have recently been in touch with Marc Pearlman, a stock and commodities trader who hosts the weekly radio show Your Money Matters. Marc does some shows solo and also interviews experts in all areas of money, finance, career, etc. — basically anything having to do with, well, your money. Marc’s bio can be found at: http://yourmoneymattersradio.com/mpbio.html

I am excited to announce that Marc has agreed to do an interview for my little ol’ blog. The theme here is supposed to be MBA-related topics, so I will keep at least some questions relevant to that theme. Marc covers a wide variety of issues on his show, however, so I will pose more general questions as well.

I will be interviewing Marc this week so expect to have it posted here hopefully by the end of the week. If you have any ideas for questions or anything you’re interested in hearing about, feel free to post a comment or contact me through the Contact page.

Every Thursday morning I haul my tired behind out of bed at 5:30 am. I get up this early in order to meet a friend and running partner at Piedmont Park here in Hotlanta for a weekday morning run. I’ll call him John. It’s a good thing I’m calling him John too, because that’s his name. We meet every Thursday while it’s still dark out, sip some coffee, and then head to a really nice outdoor track in the park where we and run our little hearts out for 45 minutes. John is taller than me and runs a lot faster, so I usually only see him through the cloud of dust that I eat as he passes me by.

This morning we met per our punishing routine, and we talked a bit about money and finances before the run. John said that he used to be part of a group that would discuss money matters as it relates to one’s personal life, mostly attitudes about money and how and why these attitudes are formed. When John said this, it got me thinking about a site that I joined when it first launched, and how it has grown quite a bit since then. It is a web site that focuses on just such matters as John iterated. It’s called Money and My Life (www.moneyandmylife.com) and provides a very active community forum that enables users to discuss money as it relates to many aspects of their lives.

Check out this great resource! And thanks John for reminding me of it.

I promise to have a more directly PMBA-related post for you soon. I’ve been going along with the 36 Hour Finance Course and am learning quite a bit, but I think it’s going to take me 48 hours to complete.

Just now I was perusing Entrepreneur.com’s 2008 Hot List for this year’s hot business ideas and those standbys that are still going strong even in this weakened economy. The latter category includes, in part, online gaming, home party sales, and upscale cupcakes. Upscale cupcakes? Holding on in this economy? Let this not surprise you. It was no accident that Estee Lauder launched the beginning of what would become a beauty empire even as the US was coming out of the Great Depression.

So I’m going to use my precious blog space to tell you about the upscalest of cupcake entrepreneurs, that can only be found of course, in New York City. They’re called Babycakes, and I so needed to have a fix on a recent trip to New York that I hauled my travel partner to their boutique from clear across town.

I’m not affiliated with Babycakes in any way, unless by “affiliated” you mean “addicted to”, and in that case then perhaps I’m a bit affiliated.  My point in mentioning them here is that a) I apparently have upscale taste in cupcakes, and b) there are plenty of business opportunities which can be taken advantage of even in this economic climate. Consumers tend to continue to buy more “luxury” items than one might expect in these times, because these items make us feel good, if only for the moment, and most people tend to need that comfort.

Now, back to my reading…. Mmmmm, finance….

While at university, I befriended a smart, funny girl named Karla. Karla and I became fast friends and at some point our parents got to know each other and would occasionally get together if either set of parents happened to be in the other’s area. One weekend my parents were in Buffalo, NY and met Karla’s parents for dinner. As parents with college-aged children, you can imagine that the conversation centered on the empty nest, major programs, sports, and generally what trouble we kids were getting into.

One day Karla caught up with me in the school union, and she was laughing. I of course had to know what was so funny, and she blurted out “Your parents!” laughing with every syllable. Apparently my parents were making light of my fiscal irresponsibility at the afore-mentioned dinner. Apparently, a comment was made by my father, to the effect of If Pamela saw a sweater on sale for $150, she’d say to the clerk ‘I’ll give you 250!’ much to the amusement of the dinner party!

Well, I have to admit my dad was probably not far off the mark. I was never very responsible with money. This was a well-known fact, and I am ashamed to admit that it wasn’t until my more adult years that I finally got serious about my finances.

Eventually I realized the need for a budget in my life. (Dad’s going to pass out when he hears that.) One thing I realize now that I am reading the McGraw-Hill 36 Hour Course in Finance is that the personal accounting method that I developed for myself is very much like a crude accrual method of accounting. That is to say, I was using the matching principle intuitively, without knowing that such a principle actually exists.

The matching principle, according to McGraw-Hill, requires that expenses be deducted from related revenues in the time period in which they occur. Expenses can either be tied to a revenue, as in selling clothing which you buy from the manufacturer, or they can be tied to a time period, as in paying rent on an office space. My personal budget started out as a simple cash in/cash out balance sheet but I soon realized that I was not accounting for money which was “spoken for” (phone bills, electricity, etc.) but which I hadn’t yet spent. So I amended my budget to reflect better my financial state at any given time.

And voila! A very crude yet useful (to me) accrual method of accounting.

Just a quick post to say the McGraw-Hill book on finance arrived today at last.  Now begins the experiment…

I am going to have a get a library card for all these books. In the meantime, I’ve chosen “The McGraw-Hill 36 Hour Course in Finance for Non-Financial Managers” as my first book and ordered it through abebooks.com. I doubt I’ll be reading these in the order in which they are presented in the PMBA reading list.