Tag: The Real Academy of Life

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676- Renaissance man — first experience in dramatics and speech

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In this episode, Sgt. Fred describes his first experience as a Renaissance Man — that is, from being a young academic scholar and student worker to a highly successful public speaker and actor in dramatics. And for this, Sgt. Fred will discuss his challenges, tasks, motivation and drive to be the very best in those areas to his graduation date.

And here are the key milestones for this experience to make of himself a renewed challenger as a Renaissance Man:

  • The environment: top high school in the area known for academics and preparation;
  • The scene: volunteered to go into public speaking — including the awards (called “gold medals”) in the areas of oratorical interpretation, dramatic interpretation, humorous interpretation and competitive speech conferences;
  • The drive: to become the representative of the local chapter of the Optimist Club in winning the contests among other speakers with first place and then going to the finals in San Diego, California, and receiving the third place trophy;
  • The acting experience: from a minor part in a theatre-in-the-round to the leading roles that would define my flair for acting, dancing and even musical numbers in the following dramas and plays:
    • THE ANDERSONVILLE TRIAL — playing the lead of Nathan Chipman, prosecuting attorney (as was played on Broadway by William Shatner with George C. Scott directing);
    • THE ROMANCERS — a local television production at UCLA, where Sgt. Fred was one of the suitors of the heroine;
    • STARDUST — a comedy by Mr. Kerr, where Sgt. Fred played the mad-Russian professor, Craig Kendal Bach;
    • RICHELIEU — a play based on the challenges of Louis XIII of France with Cardinal Richelieu, where Sgt. Fred played the villain, the Count de Baradas (even including a two-minute sword fight with the hero);
    • OKLAHOMA — the musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein, where Sgt. Fred played the part Jud Fry, the villain, in the dream sequence dance, as well as being the backup for the performer as Jud Fry in the death sequence;
    • OUR HEARTS WERE YOUNG AND GAY — a comedy where Sgt. Fred played 2 roles: (1) the purser on the cruise liner, and (2) Monsieur De La Croix, the comic relief with the lead actress;
    • I REMEMBER MAMA — the play by John Van Druten about the Nordic family, where Sgt. Fred played the light villain, UNCLE CHRIS, opposite Lucie Arnaz as Aunt Jenny (with a surprise thankful praise for the death scene of Uncle Chris) from an audience member, Lucille Ball;
    • CINDERELLA — the musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein, directed by Burch Mann Dance Studios, where Sgt. Fred played THE KING (i.e., also known as King Maximilian Godfrey Ladislaus Leopold Sydney), where praise came from a review for his “flair for singing and dancing” — especially for the number Keep it Gay);
    • MISTER ROBERTS — the comedy directed by Mr. Kaufman at the University, where Sgt. Fred played Mannion;
    • ADVISE AND CONSENT — the drama directed by Mr. Kaufman at the University, where Sgt. Fred played the villain, Senator Fred Van Ackerman.

By the way, for your information, Sgt. Fred also won at his graduation the CROSBY AWARD FOR DRAMATICS. This was the one award given at graduation to the student who excelled for most of his years at the school for excelling in dramatics, both plays and musicals. This was named as an award in honor of BING CROSBY, the actor and singer who had his son attend the school before, and who also donated the library in his name.

Before my second year in University in which I did drama and acting, I had my very quick introduction to fraternity life in college. And so, the rebirth as an actor and public speaker had quietly been put on hold indefinitely.

For the next experience as a Renaissance Man, Sgt Fred can then discuss the next phase in The Real Academy of Life. In the meantime, we would like to thank you for listening, and we shall see you next time when we deliver the upcoming experience of Renaissance.

Copyright (c) 2024, Matrix Solutions Corporation and michaelandmike.com. All rights reserved.

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631- Microcasts and long-play episodes in podcasting of memoirs

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In this episode of The Podcast Reporter show, we discuss the concept of creating your memoirs as episodes in a podcast show, instead of written content in the form of a book or collection of stories in some written format.

The memoirs in which I am creating (since I am in my twilight years at this time) are going to be put into a podcast show (which is yet to be published — for I am hoping it will be in the next few years) which is called The Real Academy of Life (or RAL). And since it is not yet launched, I do have the domain for the URL and will have the host media site which will be the tools needed for this. And also, I have the first 4 episodes already recorded and ready to include in this podcast show.

Now, in the latest episode in which I greatly test the comparison and contrast of a short episode in length (i.e., a micro-cast) and a longer-length podcast show, the topic is my military experience in the military when I was in the Army as a combat veteran and served in the Vietnam War.

The format I had for this longer-length podcast episode was the following:

  • Title and name and number and podcast show (audio);
  • Intro music;
  • Intro content — usually 3 minutes or shorter;
  • The segue of music to introduce the first complete and unabridged 24-minute repurposed podcast episode from the Combat Infantrymen’s podcast show called Combat and Camaraderie
  • The segue music to bring on the final other repurposed podcast episode which had Mack Payne, podcaster of the VietnamVeteranNews.com show interview me to discuss multiple ways in which I coped with PTSD after my return to the USA from the war;
  • Exit music.

  • And here is the long-play content with 2 episodes:

So this episode in this show lasted one hour and 21 minutes total — a complete change from my micro-cast episode format for the past 2 years or more. However, that does not mean that I did not include any longer in time content in my episodes. I did include both links and URLs and other reference resources. By pointing to these content sections in the links and other references, I allowed my listeners to link over to the details and longer-length episodes of some of my other podcasts, as well as other podcast shows from other podcasters (e.g., Dave Jackson and Daniel J Lewis and Adam Curry, etc.).

So when I finally get ready to publish and launch my new podcast show titled The Real Academy of Life and its URL to the domain, I will announce this and give it the needed quality of a good podcast show, with the details and shownotes it deserves.

So, we hope that you may find my life experiences interesting in this newer podcast show of my memoirs that will contain both micro-cast format episodes as well as longer episodes (of an hour or more in time), and that you will find it of value in your podcasting career.

Thank you for your attention.

Copyright (c) 2022, Matrix Solutions Corporation and michaelandmike.com and Mack Payne of vietnamveterannews.com and David Jackson and Daniel J Lewis. All rights reserved.

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RAL004- How my communications experience helped me flourish

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In this episode of The Real Academy of Life, published alongside its syndicated podcast of The Podcast Reporter, we share my background in communications that had helped me flourish and rise to a wonderful set of opportunities in public speaking, commanding organizations, teaching and using the social media to master and help some of the Veterans Service Organizations and media outlets.

A very brief outline sketch would be these highlights:

  • High school – I was on the Speech team and learned the areas of expertise of public speaking in dramatic interpretation, oratorical interpretation and humorous interpretation;
  • High school – I was also in the Drama Club for 3 years and had leading roles in 2 major performances at my own school, as well as roles in 4 other plays at other high schools as additional players (including my final year in the musical of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, in which I played the King and had a solo number);
  • My first 2 years of college, in which I had roles in 2 major plays (Mr. Roberts and Advice and Consent);
  • My University career, in which I had offices in the fraternity that I had joined;
  • My television career, in which I started during my junior year in high school with a role in a television production of The Romancers in a summer project at UCLA;
  • My first year in the US Army, in which I had the responsibility of being a corporal of my AIT infantry company during training, and in my final 2 years of service, I was a sergeant and squad leader in the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C. (in which I trained recruits the skills of parachute jumping in combat, as well as other skills while I was an instructor of the RECONDO school (i.e., reconnaissance-commandos) at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where I taught mountaineering, survival-escape-and-evasion and foreign weapons;
  • my final couple of years in the Army where I was a recruiter-canvasser for the 82nd Airborne Division, where I did public speaking to potential recruits and led a group of 6 local recruiters for the Division;
  • my last year in the Army, where I was mobilized for deployment for combat with my squad when we were to jump into the Sinai during the Yom Kippur war in 1973;
  • my second year of my University, where I was an officer in my fraternity, followed by being elected vice-president of the organization;
  • my 4 years returning to my university after service in the Army where I was communications leader for a performing dance group doing presentations and implementing publicity, where we performed at places like Disneyland, etc. ;
  • my post-graduate years when I went into corporate industry at IBM, where I became the lead technical specialist for the new IBM personal computer and later was a key speaker at conferences and also taught at the Boca Raton briefing center;
  • my final years at IBM where I was a key demonstrator at business shows, technical events, etc., demonstrating key software products for both Unix and IBM PC products;
  • my post-IBM years, where as a retiree, I started my own personal business — and as an entrepreneur, I had over 16 podcast shows with over 1000 episodes, as well as demonstrating and speaking at key podcast events;
  •  creating over 18 podcast shows from 2005 to 2022, where I delivered audio and video episodes from subjects such as podcasting, new media products, historical events, the Vietnam War and combat veterans’ stories, to instructional shows teaching podcasting production and history; and
  • Creating the published audio narration (i.e., voice-over) for 4 separate published articles and 2 books about podcasting, combat infantry history, podcasting and entrepreneurship.

So, thus, you can see that I was in the spotlight for participating and leading the opportunities for communications just about for all my life since I was 14 years old.

In these show notes, you can see a group of military veterans and officers at Fort Sam Houston in an awards ceremony with the then-commander of the installation, LtGeneral. William Caldwell IV. I was representing the 82nd Airborne Division Alamo chapter at that time.

Lt. General William Caldwell IV and other veterans service organizations celebrate a WWII veteran award

Thus, you can see that my specialty has always been communications, with skills that I learned initially in high school and have been increasing all my life (such as perpetual and on-the-job learning). And today, my podcasting career has benefited from all these opportunities in the past. And yes, I have a few shelves of trophies from my speech successes, including a trophy given to me by my high school at graduation for the CROSBY AWARD — one such honor to the student who excelled and demonstrated proficiency in drama for most of his high school career (for I did go to an all-male high school).

In another episode of The Real Academy of Life, we shall go more into the other topics of the Army career in recruiting and communications, along with my study abroad in Latin America, and the resurgence of my roots that impacted my life.

Till then, thank you for your attention.

Copyright (c) 2022, Matrix Solutions Corporation and michaelandmike.com. All rights reserved.