Just something that caught my eye on my ‘morning constitutional’ the very cold morning of this past January 23.
Everything on LinkTree
I have so much scattered around the web now, so many different and bizarre interests, that should have done this years ago. Better late than never: paulschatzkin.com
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Posted to Substack June 11, 2025
Whatever Happened to Channel 1?
I had a conversation recently with one of my co-conpsirators for the Centennial of Television in 2027. At one point I found myself making the case that “David Sarnoff was the Darth...
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McLuhan’s Prism:
Posted to Substack Feb 13, 2025
Posted to Substack: McLuhan’s Prism: DIYO and the Dystopian Imperative to Do It all Yourself Online
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January, 2025: I’m Taking It To Substack
What say we take this to Substack? The weekend before the Trump 2.0 Inaugural, I logged out of all my Meta accounts – Facebook, Instagram, Threads. I have started using Substack, and finding...
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OK, That’s Enough
I’m getting ready to go on a two-week road trip – business, family, etc. – back to my old NJ/NY/CT stomping grounds. Before I depart, I’ve been thinking about: what do I really need...
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My Week on ‘The Socials’
As I suspect many readers have gathered by now, I dipped a toe back into “the socials” last week. Most notably, I reactivated the Facebook account that I deactivated for a variety of...
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This One Is Kind of A Big Deal
Everybody fire up yer radios! Wednesday night – well, actually, Thursday morning – I will be a guest on the Coast to Coast AM radio show with host George Noory. Coast to Coast “…airs on...
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I went to a show last night and saw a whole bunch of people I haven’t seen in forever on accounta Covid.
I almost didn’t know about the show because apparently all the invitations were sent out via Facebook. I’m not on Facebook any more. Didn’t think I missed it until last night. I still don’t think I miss it, but I had a FOMO moment.
One friend I literally hadn’t seen in two years (!) asked about Buster. I explained that, well, I’ve already taken pictures of her in just about every imaginable setting and pose. Also, she’s a full grown cat now, and while still adorable not the cute little kitten she started out as.
But above is one I did grab this one a couple of days ago.
The last Buster squeezed herself into that horizontal file on my desk, she was still small enough to fit. This one is almost a year ago – Feb 28, 2021.
I am reading Scott Galloway’s weekly blogpost this morning.
He quoted Frida here, and this seems to address the theme that I’m working on these days, too.
Final act… last chapter… going out with a bang…
…but not anytime soon.
And there’s a shit-ton to learn and do before the last bus ride.
This has been my mantra over the past week or so, re: my dismissal from Apple (email me if you need the password) on Jan 20 after five years of seemingly meritorious service :
- If they hadn’t pushed me, I don’t know if I ever would have jumped.
- I don’t know what’s next, but I am intrigued that there is a ‘next’.
I’m in good shape, at least for the time being, even without the bit of income I received from Apple that helped make my ends meet (or, as I half-joked on occasion, because I am old and have other means, “I could actually afford to work for Apple…”).
As the photo above illustrates, I’m floating free, and looking for a soft place to land.
(Incidentally, when I went a-Googling for a picture of a wing suit and first saw these images, my first response was “oooh… that looks like fun! I quickly came to my senses 😱)
Over the past decade, I dissipated a lot of creative instinct,s impulses and energies into social media… but I’ve been off of Facebook (and Instagram) since June of last year… and now I will attempt to focus that energy here.
Right now I’m just fondling the focus ring, thinking about which way to twist it.
Stay tuned, more to come.
This is a test.
I am experimenting with a slide-show plugin for WordPress.
These are photos from the 1970s…
Maybe the oldest color photograph in my catalog - Columbia Maryland - summer 1973
I watched the first episode of HBO’s new show “The Gilded Age” last night. I’m not sure yet what I think of it. It’s created by the same guy who created Downton Abbey, and I liked that, but one episode in this seems over the top and a bit fatuous. I took a shine to Carrie Coon after The Leftovers and Fargo, but she seems wasted here in a role that is all about living in a ridiculously large house and wearing ridiculous dresses. Granted this was the pilot episode, so maybe it gets more worthwhile from here, but the viewing was at least hearing this line. I take a note these days whenever I see or hear the word “incorrigible.” Every time somebody uses that word, this little demon gets his smile on 😈
… Why aren’t you at work??
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Marianne Williamson is the only presidential candidate that has made it to a national TeeVee debate stage that I ever had lunch with.
That was back about 1990, when she was just getting started on the lecture circuit, talking about A Course in Miracles. Long before “A Return to Love,” Oprah, or the 2020 Democratic Party primaries.
At the time I met her, I was in Los Angeles training for my brief career (1990-1991) as a Series 7 securities peddler. I heard Marianne at one of her lectures at a church in West Los Angeles, talking about how she was 
financially insecure, so I approached her after the lecture and we arranged a lunch meeting. Nothing came of it beyond that, other than the recollection that that was one of the most intense lunch meetings I ever had.
If nothing else, she and I are both Truman Babies (she 1952, me 1950).
This quote above is lifted from a profile in a recent edition of the New York Times.
Above: a portrait of the Silicon Slinger in Happier Times – ca. February, 2017
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Long story short: on January 20, 2022, I was “terminated” from my job as a part-time product specialist for Apple, Inc. – after working for more than five years at their retail outlet in the Green Hills Mall in Nashville, TN.
As the story that follows details, I was fired for the grievous, cardinal sin of… asking a customer for her phone number.
… I’m finally owning it.
This is who/what I have been since the first time I got sent to the principal’s office.
For drawing a ‘naked stick figure’ of my third grade teacher, Miss Gaul.
Who, in hindsight, probably had no business being protrayed as naked in any context.
But what did I know, I was only 8 years old.
And already incorrigible.