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?

I have written before about the differential nature of memory, but I’d like to add a few thoughts. Frank Bruni and I share experiences in this regard, so I am sure it is not unique to me.

Because of my excellent long-term memory (and sometimes from ancient journals), I frequently tell people about epochal effects their words or actions from decades ago remain with me still. The typical response: “I don’t remember, but that sounds like me.” (the IDR response)

Another example:  in 1964 I was selling The Beech Street Bugle, a four-page mimeographed newspaper bearing the same name as my father’s paper 18 years earlier.¹ One of my readers was Cathy. I know it was 1964, because The Bugle ran an editorial endorsing Lyndon Johnson over Barry Goldwater. ²

She was a good writer.³ She pointed out that I had started a sentence with the word “and” and told me not to do that. Fifteen years later, after a variety of amateur jobs (a few hundred thousand words), I felt a little thrill when my first professional sentence starting with the word “and” made it into the trade journal I was working for.⁴

Cathy and I had lunch a few times several years ago, when I had looked her up out of curiosity. I told her I had never forgotten that rule, and she game me the IDR response, and also said that a half-century later she wasn’t even sure it was good advice.

CONTINUED HERE

(or to put it another way

1. 1. Sold to many of the same people, that’s how stable our neighborhood was. ↩︎
2. 2. No doubt my editorial was responsible for Johnson’s landslide. Ironic, since his nickname in Texas was Landslide Lyndon (meant sarcastically, since his first election was a squeaker) ↩︎
3. 3. As evidenced by her years at the Associated Press. ↩︎
4. 4. Probably because its copy editing wasn’t up to AP, UPI and the Oregon Journal ↩︎

In college (as part of the Eugene Oregon  show), “My friend the attorney, Justin Case.” And “you must consider that aspect, and if you’ve ever had your ass pecked, you know what I mean.” I have been using them inappropriately ever since.

Ditto with everything ever said by Firesign Theater, including “you can sit here in the waiting room or wait here in the sitting room,” and “like the hot kiss at the end of a wet fist,” which many people remember, but can’t place. Unless I say it, in which case they say, “Oh. Firesign.”

Now, to the point of driving my wife and daughters insane:

• “I’ll be there with rings on my fingers and bells on my toes.”
• “That (concept, object, noun of any sort) would fill a gnat’s navel and leave room left over for a Hollywood Agent’s heart.”
• Someone says “I’m going to change [implying clothes].” “No, No, don’ t change, I like you just the way you are.”

Happy Groundhog Day.  Be sure to take your annual look at the greatest movie ever made after you have looked at the best fan site: Groundhog Day The Movie, Buddhism and Me .

A combination of a hip replacement and pneumonia meant that I was not much of an announcer or musician in the 2024-25 season. I did not cover myself with glory that final season; rather whatever is the opposite of glory. There is no longer room for me in the Tenor Sax section and the conductor has taken over announcing.

I enjoyed my time with the Danville Community Band: 25 years announcing, 19 years playing, after eight years playing and announcing for the Lamorinda Town Band. I will miss DCB.

If only I could drive at night, I might try for a seat in the San Ramon band. But I think the live music part of my life is over. I’ll just keep writing lyrics and recording. The Beatles gave up live performance for the studio; I will do the same.

There is some chance one of my grandchildren will want to play tenor someday, so I’m parking my sax at my daughter’s house. A 34-year-old Selmer Paris is still a pretty good horn. And if unplayed for a few years, will be as good as new with little oil and new pads.

• **The reason people from the British Commonwealth mispronounce the name of the light shiny metal is that they also misspell it. Aluminium, with a gratuitous I near the end (rather like all the u’s in “or” words, like labour). Here in the USA it is aluminum, as God intended, and pronounced that way. Don’t get me started on February and often.

• **A narcissist, completely devoid of empathy, dedicated to cruelty, and powered by ignorance, can become a political leader.