The crap going on in the world is hard to ignore or forget. I write lyrics (mostly love songs) and pay to have them set to music and sung (by human beings) and have done so since 2020. See if a quarter-hour of love—which has the added charm of being true— will lighten your day. Available in two convenient forms on Spotify or  YouTube. My grandchildren (the current audience) enjoy them, maybe you will too.

A longtime friend of mine listened to Last Lie on YouTube at my request. Then he sent along a link to a Cayce documentary.

YouTube generally offers you videos using an algorithm based on what you just watched. It can’t understand the lyrics, so it goes with the title, category, notes and author. Normally, when someone listens to one of my songs, automated offerings include another song of mine, someone else’s love song, or sometimes the theme to Schindler’s List. Offering the Cayce documentary is unprecedented. Perhaps coincidence doesn’t exist. Serendipity? Vicki prefers synchronicity.

Cayce talks about how reincarnated souls will meet and work together. I met Vicki by looking for the tallest woman in the room; what happened next seems to have no other explanation than reincarnation. Our first rodeo clearly took place a long time ago.

In one of my many (unfortunately frequent) stints in the hospital recently, a doctor (following the script to feign bedside manner) said, “Can I answer any more questions?”

My smart alec response, “Yes, what is the meaning of life?” did not draw the usual shrug. I should have noted her name, so I could thank her. In my mind I can see her over to the right, next to the wall, turn to look at me and say, “What do you think it is,” making a joke into a serious question. “Spreading joy and loving kindness.” I had never said it so clearly and succinctly. Cayce said we would be confused until we understood out spiritual journey. He was right. I’m not confused anymore.

Continued Here

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This is my repeating Labor Day item. One-third of the public (according to surveys) doesn’t know what day it is.

This year, I am celebrating by posting a column almost entirely filled with fascinating items that I don’t have to write… except this one, which I first wrote years ago.

I am a life-long supporter of, believer in, student of and beneficiary of the American Labor Movement. I know writing is not really labor.

I am a beneficiary because my father, who became a Teamster after selling the family dairy and remained one for the rest of his life, was able, with just a high school degree, to provide an upper-middle class life to our family of four which included regular vacations, a terrific pension and great medical and dental coverage. Take that, gig economy. For that matter, take that, non-union American journalism.

Alas, with the exception of three years in the Wire Service Guild at AP and UPI, and 11 years in the American Federation of Teachers as a teacher, I spent most of my working life without the protection and support of a union. The Oregon Journal, a Newhouse newspaper, was the stepchild of a bitter strike, so I worked with a staff full of scabs. Wonderful people, great journalists, but most with start dates during the strike that destroyed the paper’s independent existence.

CMP, where I spent 21 years, used to say it didn’t need a union because the company treated its employees fairly, and for the most part that was true as long as the founders were in charge—less so later.

I have been attributing this “never done any” quote to AFL-CIO leader George Meany for decades. I still contend he said it, even though the Internet disagrees. Turns out it is from G.B. Shaw’s Man and Superman.

Poet Octavius Robinson: “I believe in the dignity of labor.”

Chauffeur Enery Straker: “That’s because you’ve never done any, Mr. Robinson.”

Some of my thoughts on labor and class.

I have previously confessed to being a gynophile and a sapiosexual.[1]

Oddly, I have never written about the fact that I have been a happy optimist since, literally, the moment of my birth. Also easily satisfied (says everyone from my wife to the manager of the neighborhood Safeway), repetitious and, according to my 2021 triplet, Cheerful, optimistic and upbeat. An enthusiastic public speaker (as noted here and here). A punster, a jokester (a term coined by my grandchildren) and a wiesenhiemer. Sweet, kind, loving and empathetic.

I was once a Tenderfoot Boy Scout (I could never manage the five-mile hike for First-Class), and I believe I meet all the Scout requirements, especially “helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, cheerful…” (Stand back to avoid injury as I hasten to pat myself on the back). And the rest too, but not so much (brave, clean and reverent. One out of three isn’t bad). Also: a great writer.[2]

Those of you have met me know this is all true, and those of you who haven’t will have to take my word for it; perhaps it will put my ramblings in context. Plus, I think taking writing out loud is a good idea, in case there’s something missing from the list that needs work.

By the way, I have a new triplet for myself: Garrulous, Genial and Genius (only because smart doesn’t start with a G). The observant will note that my weight no longer defines me.

[1] Yes, I know it is a cliché

[2] 10 million words in my life, many of them quite readable. Of course quantity ≠ quality, except in my case.

I bathe my 18 months at UPI in 1975-76 in the rosy glow of nostalgia. Most of my best journalism stories come from that tiny part of my 25-year career. I remember the joy of my personal life at the time. The excitement of the news. This week I recalled that I did not rise every morning (usually at 5:30) in a fit of joy and gratitude. Lots of double shifts. Lots of “Lobster Tricks” (12am-8am). It was just a job. At the time, I did not know how lucky I was. “You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.”

I was advised to never look ahead as my daughters were growing up; just be sure to savor each stage. I did. I wish I’d been advised to savor my youthful journalism opportunities more thoroughly.

It was 50 years ago this summer that the woman who was then central to my life introduced me to meditation, at the Integral Yoga Institute in Pomfret, Conn. The guru was/is Swami Satchidananda. We went there weekly; I even borrowed her car and went when she was out of town![1]

I practiced sporadically over the years. In 1985, job stress led me to keep a pillow in my office, meditating every day for a half hour. Then, I found peace in other ways. Until Covid, when another woman central to my life (one of my daughters) introduced me to the guided meditation app Daily Calm.

I try to spend 10 minutes meditating every day with guidance from the app. My longest stretch came during 2020 and lasted a year. I am still “on the pillow” (at my age it is a chair) regularly.

Plus I now meditate daily with my wife, for 20 minutes. She is a person of more regular habits than me, so we have only missed three days in two months. We are using a guided meditation based on the principles in Spiritual Intelligence by Dawson Church (details in an essay by my wife). Church’s research shows you can rewire your brain (in a good way) with tapping and meditation. If you’re interested in the science of peaceful time on the pillow, it’s worth a look.

[1] You may have heard that musician Karuna Carole King (an integral yoga teacher) donated the land for it; she sorta did.

Meeting Stan Freberg
In 1980 or 1981, AdWeek  magazine contributing editor Edwin Diamond assigned Gary S. Paul (me) to profile Stan Freberg. We spent a lovely afternoon chatting. He gave me a signed copy of the sheet music of Take An Indian To  Lunch as a souvenir. I mentioned what an amazing coincidence it was, on his album Pay Radio, that Capitol Records had an attorney whose name rhymed with the word attorney: Mr. Irving P. Laverny. “Paul, to tell you the truth, I made that name up,” Freberg told me. Perhaps it should not have been a surprise.

He gave me his personal phone number. Eighteen years later, I was an editor at CMP’s TechWeb. I was payng Ian Shoales/Merle Kessler $100 a week for commentaries. I asked Freberg if he would record some commentaries. “I don’t leave the house for less than a thousand dollars,” he said, which is why he never appeared on TechWeb. A thousand dollars was my month’s editorial budget.

That same year, I interviewed the substantially less well-known Dick Orkin and Bert Berdis, beloved radio commercial voice talent.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The story of the Two Wolves is a memetic legend of unknown origin, commonly attributed to Cherokee or other indigenous American peoples in popular retelling. The legend is usually framed as a grandfather or elder passing wisdom to a young listener; the elder describes a battle between two wolves within one’s self, using the battle as a metaphor for inner conflict. When the listener asks which wolf wins, the grandfather answers “whichever one you feed”.

I first heard it six years ago, and it had this effect on me:

I stopped feeding the wrong wolf after 43 years and it was a blessing. I think it explains my sudden, unexplained weight loss. I am now feeding only the right wolf.

Recently, I experienced the frisson of seeing myself three times in fiction in one week: putting kissing first, desiring to escape my natal state, and rolling in the first big money I ever made. Since everything is about me, I wrote an essay about that. I think the essay, should you read it, will bring you the same frisson, except from non-fiction.

Continued Here

For some reason, I was thinking this week about a slide in the Back-To-School PowerPoint I used at the turn of the century, when I was teaching 8^th grade U.S. History. I felt it likely the parents and students would Google me, and I wanted to be sure they knew which Paul Schindlers I was not. It’s easier now, since I am the only Paul Schindler on Wikipedia. And, at least I don’t have it as bad as my friend who shares her name with a porn star. Here’s a list of people I am not:

• • Madonna’s attorney
• • Fighting Catholic priest in Wisconsin who spent time in Central America.
• • Editor of GLBT News on Long Island (even though he is also an MIT grad)
• • Related to Schindler Elevator Co. (I wish!)
• • Related to Oskar Schindler of Schindler’s List (he was a Bavarian Catholic; my people were Swiss Calvinists)
• • Related to Schindler Brothers (philanthropic doctors) in SF
• • The musical director of the Broadway show The Isle of Spice (Aug 23, 1904 – Oct 29, 1904)

Time for some reader participation. Tell  Me, when people Google you, what surprising and irrelevant results do they get?