Archives for January 2017

Lately here we've discussed reasons people still attend speeches when they could be under the covers, Snapchatting. For handshakes and hugs, I said last month.

I'm going to one and maybe two speeches next week, for those very reasons:

1. I'm seeing David Axelrod at the Chicago City Club Monday for a handshake.

Though I have no reason to expect that Axelrod will say anything at the City Club that he hasn't said a million times on MSNBC, a private event offers that fond possibility. But either way, going to see the big guy in person makes me a big guy myself—an insider, by definition. I once saw James Carville speak at a conference, and I've dined out on the story for years, partly because it's a decent story but partly because I saw it in person. You can't dine out on a story that begins, "I was watching C-SPAN one night …" So I guess I'm hoping Axelrod gives me some stuff to dine out on. And even if he doesn't have a clear view of the future—well, Axe and me both.

2. I'm hoping to see President Obama's farewell speech on Tuesday night for a hug.

Yes, the editor and publisher of Vital Speeches of the Day is lowering himself to stand in line with a lot of jamokes at Chicago's McCormick Place on Saturday in hopes of getting a golden ticket to see the speech on Tuesday night. Why? Professionally, because I want to cover the mood in the room and the utterings of the people around me, the way I was able to do last summer during the Trump speech at the Republican National Convention. Personally, I think I'm looking forward to taking in the speech with a few friends and with some thousands of Chicago Democrat strangers who will feel like friends—maybe not just for the moment, but maybe, in my mind, for a long time. How long a time—and how substantive our bond—will rely on the words Obama says and the way in which he gets them across. Will we walk out with just a feeling—group nostalgia for 2008?—or will we share an idea, and a few unforgettable words that will hold that idea together in a group mind.

So I'm going to see Axelrod for a handshake, and Obama, if the lines aren't too long (and out the door into the frigid Chicago lakefront air), for a group hug.

I'll let you know how it goes.

CC: Speechwriters

Yes, we're all appalled at Donald Trump's foreign policy-by-Twitter. But as the only poor dumb bastard in the world who will spend his own money for paper to print  and postage to distribute Secretary of State John Kerry's 9,500-word (and more than 70-minute) speech on Israel and Palestine, I'm calling for a happy medium.

Sincerely, 

David Murray, Editor & Publisher

Vital Speeches of the Day

In the desert, Stephen Crane 

saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, “Is it good, friend?”
“It is bitter—bitter,” he answered;

“But I like it
“Because it is bitter,
“And because it is my heart.”

Along with everyone else, I've been sick since Christmas, and not sleeping well. Yesterday I woke up at four, remembering a series of related dreams, all of which I understood to be related, emotionally, to Trump.

In one, I'd created a New Yorker cartoon showing the look on the face of a delivery man who, after humping a roomful of electronic gadgets, is being told by the rich liberal family that, like, they're not feeling that materialistic this Christmas. The look said, "What am I supposed to do with this shit?"

In another, I was going somewhere on my motorcycle with a Winchester rifle. I have no idea where I was going. All that remains is the good feeling that finally, a chance to get into some action.

In the most vivid dream, I had conceived of a kind of Socioeconomic Empathy Fantasy Camp designed to help People More Out of Touch Than Me understand what it is like for People Less Fortunate Than Me. No doubt partly inspired by a long story I read in Sunday's New York Times Magazine, the fantasy camp would work like this: Participants would fly into town on Friday, and somehow during a boozy night out with their fellow campers, out they'd cleverly be lured into doing something very stupid, that could get them put in jail for many years. They'd spend all of Saturday in jail, coming to understand that their life is over and realizing they don't have one friend who can help them. Then on Sunday morning someone would miraculously spring them. They'd be home for dinner Sunday night, but they'd never be the same.

What does all that have to do with Trump? I can't say, exactly. I just have the strong sense that I wouldn't be dreaming in semi-satirical sociopolitical sequence if Hillary Clinton or Mitt Romney were preparing for office. And I know I wouldn't be willing to share my dreams, all of which reveal that my self-righteous savior complex never sleeps. 

There's so much we don't know about how Trump will unfold in the world, and should all be watching, and waiting in an athletic position.

We must also occasionally taste our hearts.