P.S. A Column On Things

Farewell Dr. Lawrence E. Anderson

I was privileged recently to attend the life celebration for Dr. Lawrence Anderson, known to me as the founder (with his wife Jan) and long time conduction of the Danville Community Band (DCB), the largest brass band in the SF Bay Area.

He also served a turn as a music educator at U.C. Davis, leading its brass band and teaching. Many Aggies (some in their band uniforms from a half-century ago) attended (as did the large contingent of Aggies who play in the DCB). He also taught at Miramonte High, the alma mater of both of my daughters. My younger daughter was sorry to hear of his passing. She thought he must have been young because of his energy. He was 89.

 “I know three things for sure about Larry Anderson: he had a big heart, an excellent sense of humor and good judgment. He demonstrated his good heart when a group of us were thrown out of another nearby band. Larry said, ‘You don’t have to compete for your seat, just sit in it.’” We are all still with the band today, at our varying levels of talent.

“He had a sense of humor. He and I played in that other band. He had listened to me, for years, ribbing the conductor, the band and the music. He called and asked me to announce for the DCB starting with the first concert. ‘Bring it on,’ he said, making it clear he wanted the same irreverent shtick. Two decades at the lectern were ended last spring.

He had good judgment. He picked his wife Jan to cofound the band with him and to design the band’s logo. When he stepped down from the podium a few years ago, he had the excellent judgment to pick Dr. Robert Calonico as his successor.

A light has gone out in the world.

Writing too long? (2)

In my second professional job, at United Press International, writing long was a sin. In those days, newspapers received our news at the rate of 60 wpm on teletype machines. There was no room on the wire for an extra word. Bureau manager Don Davis said to me, “The Bible tells the story of the creation of the world in 800 words. Surely you can do a two-car fatal in 750.”

A Songwriting Lesson To Be Learned

Apparently I need to write tighter songs. There is a reason that for nearly a century popular songs have been about 3 minutes long (besides the fact that that was the length of a 78 RPM record). That, apparently, is about a much of one song as people can enjoy.

So I was struck by the recent pocket review,  by a professional musician,  of my forthcoming Long-Distance Love: “Good song, well done! My only suggestion would be to tighten it up a bit.”

You would think after 30 years as a journalist that I would know that less is more. I’ve written about overwriting before. As Pascal wrote, “this letter is longer because I had not the leisure to make it shorter.”

I thanked the pro for his suggestion: “you have launched another ship on the ocean of music. It is smaller, but more seaworthy.” In particular, this song has gone from 4 minutes to 3 and is vastly improved.

I concluded, “Thank you, prospectively, for making me a better songwriter. At least one who writes more carefully and slowly.”

Writing too long? (1)

Who, me? Writing too long? Well yes, for most of my professional career. (see item above, with regard to writing songs too long)

There were a couple of exceptions. I cannot for the life of me remember whether, at The Tech, I called myself a “rotary shit-spewing machine” or whether that sobriquet was planted on me by someone else. One thing I know for sure, it came in handy when a new advertisement came in on production night. The number of news pages was always determined by the number of ad pages. We need to fill a page in the next hour or two. A tabloid newspaper page contains 80 inches of copy, 20 pages double-spaced with one inch margins. I filled the page in 90 minutes. I wrote as fast as I could type.

Me on the Goodyear Blimp

In the summer of 1973, I was a 20-year-old intern at Portland’s afternoon daily newspaper, the Oregon Journal. The 48-year-old Goodyear Blimp came to town.

The paper ran big pictures of the blimp (free publicity), but wanted a reporter to ride on it and describe the experience (a good story). I had less to do than the real reporters, so they sent me.

That was the day I learned that Goodyear doesn’t spend hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to take downshots of football games. The blimp exists to reward dealers and their best customers with a unique experience, one whose rarity makes it precious and motivational. Before boarding, I also learned (to my relief) it is filled with helium, not the explosive hydrogen that destroyed the Hindenburg.

That summer I flew in two other hovering aircraft: an extremely noisy helicopter and the quieter but not silent (gas jet) hot-air balloon from which I threw out promotional  packets of the relatively new Lipton Cup Of Soup. I was also taken up in a glider, which creaks and groans and is full of wind noise.

Blimps are noisy when the motors are running. When the motors are cut, there is silence in the drifting blimp that is literally incomparable. It is as close as a human can come to safely flying with their own wings, looking down at the Earth far below. Anyone would be willing to sell a lot of Goodyear tires to gain that experience.

Among the memorable moments of my 30 years in journalism were shaking hands with President Reagan, shaking hands with Jimmy Carter during his campaign, and driving a Boston Green Line train on the Riverside Line at 1 a.m. Still, flying in the Goodyear blimp is right up there on the list.

Which one is the blimp?

Then What Happened?

It was a standing joke in my family. Dad only went with us to drive-in movies. At the end of every one he would say “then what happened?” It never got old. Mom, my brother Steve and I would offer numerous hypothetical futures for the characters, usually silly. He would’ve loved if he had lived long enough to see movies that actually tell “then what happened” at the end.

And then there was radio commentator Paul Harvey. (there’s a job you’ll need never see again: radio Commentator). Every day he had an item which ended “and that’s the rest… of the story.” Back in the day before the Internet, newspapers and magazines, back when there were newspapers and magazines frequently ran articles in the genre “whatever happened to.”

If you enjoy that genre you will enjoy Computer Chronicles Revisited by SM Oliva. He has done an amazing job finding the people and the technology that appeared on every episode of the show, in “Where are they now” style. I find it fascinating and I think you will too. (after all, I made 133 appearances according to IMDB).

To Move or Not To Move, That is the Question (Part 2)

(Last week I wrote about one piece of Edwin Diamond’s advice)

The other piece of excellent advice was, “now is the time in your life to do something crazy. When I was 24 I had a wife and two daughters. You are single, and should be footloose and fancy free.” “Just do it,” he said at a time when that that wasn’t yet an advertising meme.

If ever a single person in their 20s asks me for advice about a crazy move, I’m going to tell them exactly what Edwin told me. It was one of the best pieces of advice I ever got; after I lost that girlfriend, I met my wife, meaning the move to San Francisco was one of the best decisions I ever made.

That, and the career advice version of “don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched.” Your employer may offer you the world to stay, but in the end, you may end up with a handful of dust.

Poetry Anniversary Feb. 3, 2020

Prior to Feb. 3, 2020, I had not written a single word of poetry. I started writing poetry because of the intersection of Covid, which made me more appreciative of my life and family and the opening of my heart chakra on Jan. 18, 2020.

I have enjoyed every moment I have spent composing the poetry, which led to me writing lyrics. The joy my work brings to others produces joy in me.

Science proves that when we perform an act of kindness, it kicks off the same dopamine we get when someone else is kind to us. I know this to be true. I thank God for gifting me with the talent to express my emotions through poetry.

To Move or Not To Move, That is the Question (Part 1)

In 1976 I was caught between a rock and a hard place. I was at the start of a promising career at UPI in Hartford. I might even have made it to the White House bureau, the pinnacle of any UPI career. My girlfriend had moved to California; we had only been together for six months. The San Francisco Bureau of UPI had a 20 year waiting list for transfers because “you can move people in, but they never move out.”

My parents said I would be an idiot to move to California. So did my friends, so I asked my college mentor, Edwin Diamond for his opinion.

“Your heart and your head can’t be in different places,” he said. An excellent piece of advice.

He noted that the UPI promise of opening a bureau in Springfield, Mass. might not happen. On several occasions in his own career, he had been promised positions that never came through.

Raw Water and Me

Raw water craze is crazy, experts say
This Chronicle story reminds me of summers in Wallace, Idaho, when I spent the day with my step-grandfather working on the worthless mine of the Bunker Chance Mining Co. (not to be mistaken for the successful Bunker Hill mine on the other side of the hill).

We took water bottles (then really bottles: mason jars) for use in the shadeless heat. Mine was always empty by mid-day. There was a bright, clear stream on the property. One day, Ted noticed me refilling the bottle from that stream, and said he wouldn’t do it because “beavers shit in that stream.” The experts in the article basically use euphemisms to say the same thing.