Monthly Archives: April 2014

A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH

First, a big welcome to Sacramento as we begin airing this week on KVIE-TV. As always, please share with your friends and family who live in the California state capitol.
This week on most of our stations (click on the listings tab at top to see where and when in your market) you’ll meet journalist Erika Hayasaki and her subject Dr. Norma Bowe. Together we discuss the book The Death Class written by Erika and based on Dr. Bowe’s popular course at Kean University in New Jersey which has a three year waiting list.
At the start of each class an inevitable question always arose: Is there life after death, or is there no death just a continuum?
This unescapable quest has crossed the mind of every human being since the beginning of time. I have delved into this subject on the show with theologians, philosophers, physicists, and even the most well-known atheist of our time Richard Dawkins. 
In fact, Professor Dawkins, when on our show, let me in on something when he said that the original title for his ground breaking book, The Selfish Gene was supposed to be: The Immortal Gene. A far different concept with deeper implications. I thought he would have a more nihilistic point of view being an atheist. He emphatically stated that this was a common misconception and was grateful for the opportunity to dispel it. He found awe and wonder in life and continues to question the continuum of existence. In fact the only reason the title changed from Immortal to Selfish was due to the publisher wanting to sell more books. 

Painting by Kamran Khavarani  
So, people from the most religious end of the spectrum to those on the opposite side have all pondered the question asked in Dr. Bowe’s class. The more I do I firmly believe there is a continuum. What that continuum is I have no clue but what is most important can be summed up by this quote from the book, The Death Class – A True Story About Life.
As long as a man has the strength to dream he can redeem his soul.
Enjoy the show and dream on.
EPISODE LISTINGS & TIMES ARE IN THE TAB AT THE TOP OF THE BLOG.
TO CONTACT BARRY E-MAIL HIM AT: barrykibrick@aol.com

STRUGGLING TO FIND BEAUTY IN THE MYSTERIOUS

I want to welcome KAMU-TV, and all their viewers in Waco, Texas to the Between the Lines family. KAMU is on the campus of Texas A&M and hope all you Aggies enjoy the show.
This week get up close to the mind of Albert Einstein when Walter Isaacson and I discuss his book Einstein-His Life and Universe. The episode airs on most of my stations so just click on the link above to see where and when in your market. If it’s not airing this week it will over the next few.
Walter Isaacson

The impact of Einstein’s theories have a profound effect on virtually every form of technology we use today. He also had a deep reverence for the harmony and beauty expressed in the creation of the universe and its laws, but with all his depth and wisdom, he too faced difficult issues we all can relate to.

For all those struggling, especially in today’s economy, find solace that it took Einstein FOUR years, after he published his great theories, to land his first job as a low-level clerk at the Swiss Patent Office. In fact, as hard as it is to believe, it took him NINE more years after he graduated college to get his first job as a teacher.
It is well documented that this caused him tremendous frustration, as it would all of us, but he knew something that provided a bedrock for him to continue on.
The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious.  It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science.
We often rebel against the mysterious things that happen to us. Why did I lose my job? Why are my efforts to succeed taking so long? Why can’t I find my soul mate? Why can’t I finish my assignment? Why can’t I lose just 10 measly pounds?

What if like Einstein we relished in these mysteries of the universe? Okay, so it may not be E=MC2 but on a personal level it can be the fundamental emotion that drives us forward rather than holds us back.
EPISODE LISTINGS & TIMES ARE IN THE TAB AT THE TOP OF THE BLOG.
TO CONTACT BARRY E-MAIL HIM AT: barrykibrick@aol.com

WHEN NOTHING GOES RIGHT, KEEP ON GOING

This week my emotions ran parallel to many of the experiences discussed in the episode that debuts on most PBS stations and will continue to air on all stations the next few weeks.
The experiences were not the same, but analogous to the many felt by my guest and his key subject.

My guest is the brilliant and charming actor Matthew Modine and our discussion revolved around his excellent App titled: Full Metal Jacket Diary App.CLICK HERE  to purchase on iTunes.
The key subject is the great director, Stanley Kubrick and the grueling and exhausting process of making art.

Matthew and my conversation ran the gamut but one key element stuck with me all this week. Even though I was moving things forward on a project but felt frustration over the process.

When you watch the episode you will see and hear how Matthew, the cast, the crew and Stanley himself were besieged with frustrating obstacles during the making of Full Metal Jacket. As Matthew writes:
The shoot really gets painful on a number of fronts… time waiting, retake upon retake, the weather-shot in England cold, damp fog but dressed for the jungles of Vietnam… The making of the film actually feels like war even though you realize that’s an over statement. There’s a sense of loss, hopelessness.

My experience while not the same made me feel stuck in a quagmire. However just 15 minutes before the end of the work week I made a breakthrough.

Now, in my case, the result did not climax in a great work of art, but it certainly proved what Stanley Kubrick said to Matthew on the set of Full Metal Jacket:
You know, there are no bad ideas. Only better ones. The rule is we don’t judge, we just keep moving forward until we find the right answer.
Follow the great director’s advice and just when you feel you are at your wits end, keep moving forward until you find the right answer, it may be hard to see but it is always there.
BY THE WAY…
The App was based on Matthew’s original Full Metal Jacket Diary and developed by Adam Rackoff. 
Adam and Matthew are now turning the App into an audio book and have a kickstarter campaign to get it off the ground. You can take part in the creation by clicking the link below.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fmjd/matthew-modines-full-metal-jacket-diary-audiobook
EPISODE LISTINGS & TIMES ARE IN THE TAB AT THE TOP OF THE BLOG.
TO CONTACT BARRY E-MAIL HIM AT: barrykibrick@aol.com

ENDURANCE – FUELED BY LOVE


Before I begin my post I want to welcome our new closed captioning underwriter MAVENLINK to the Between the Lines family. If you or anyone you know runs a small-medium business and want to achieve maximum results, please click on their link above or on the left side of our blog.


I also want to welcome INDIANAPOLIS, IN, and WIPB-TV to our viewership. Let all your friends and family know we are in COLT and PACER territory.


It’s springtime and for many that means the start of baseball season. In many of my markets this week, and over the next few weeks, you will have the rare opportunity to meet a true baseball legend. He is Hall-of-Famer Cal Ripkin, Jr. and holds the one record in baseball they say will never be broken when he passed Lou Gehrig’s record and played in 2,632 consecutive games. With his book, Get in the Game, he shares with us his eight elements of perseverance that we can all apply to our own lives.
There are many things that stand out in my mind from my conversation with Cal, but one in particular I want to share with you today.
It’s obvious that when you hold a record like Cal’s, perseverance and endurance are a trait you must possess. Yet, on some level, we all must have endurance just to get through daily life. But what I learned over the years is that endurance is much easier to handle when it is attached to love.
Love is the true driving force behind endurance. It could be a love for life itself as depicted in the film 127 Hours starring James Franco who played the real-life Aron Ralston. Aron had to endure cutting off his arm after being wedged between two boulders for over 5 days. I once heard Aron speak and it was due to a true love of life that enabled him to endure.


Another powerful example is this year’s Academy Award Winning Best Picture 12 Years a Slave where it is the love for family that allows Solomon Northrup to endure the unimaginable.

For Cal Ripkin, Jr. it was the love of baseball itself that not only allowed him to endure for so many years without missing a game, but to do so with pure joy.
With the love of what you do, the love of family, or the love of life itself, endurance is filled not just with the will to persevere, but the enthusiasm to do so. And to endure not because you have just the will, but the joy, is the secret to leading a life of success.
EPISODE LISTINGS & TIMES ARE IN THE TAB AT THE TOP OF THE BLOG.
TO CONTACT BARRY E-MAIL HIM AT: barrykibrick@aol.com