Archives for March 2020

Friday, 6:55 p.m.

Whether it's sooner or later, I do hope they say the same about me. Thanks to my pal Pat McGuire, who still sends postcards.

Friday, 4:23 p.m.

We had Steinbeck wisdom here last week.

This week, my pal Tony shared the Facebook post of a writer I don't know, who quoted Steinbeck again.

It is really incredible how little attention I have paid to what's being said at the White House over the last couple of weeks, so focused have I been on what CEOs and other leaders are saying—and so resistant to spending precious energy on Trumpfoolery.

But in the background, something is happening inside me about that.

Just a terrible feeling is building—or should I say, growing heavy.

Friday, 4:09 p.m.

(I finally have a minute between conference calls.) Which are all awkward and horrible. Except, one good thing happened this week. For some completely insane reason, I called the host of one of these calls "Jennifer," when her name is actually Heather. I was immediately mortified and hotfaced—until I looked down and saw my "mute" light was blinking. I unmuted it and resumed with booming confidence, "Heather, I think that's a fine idea …"

Friday, 4:05 p.m.

My dad fought in World War II.

When he got back, his most frequent complaint about the period wasn't the fear of dying (which he almost did a few times lying under his jeep hiding from the screaming Stuka dive bombers on the Remagen Bridge).

It was having his life stolen from him—his best, young years—without even knowing when they'd let him out.

You were in that war "for the duration," he would repeat, 50 years later, still in astonished rage. "For the duration!"

I think I know that feeling a little better now.

And I'm sure my teenage daughter will never struggle to understand it.

Friday, 7:27 a.m.

On Medium today, I laud CEOs for having been remarkably rhetorically responsible during coronavirus:

For people familiar with the way CEOs normally communicate, most remarkable (and even unsettling) over the last month has been the humility shown by these chiefs. “None of us know how long this virus is going to last,” said Target CEO Brian Cornell on CNBC last month, after scratching the retailer’s financial guidance for the quarter. “It’s a very unique environment that none of us have seen before, and there is no playbook for how to react in this environment. We’re writing the script each and every day.”

CEOs don’t say, “I don’t know.”

But how long can these masters and commanders keep it up before they revert to form, and begin to to see a light at the end of the tunnel whether it’s there or not, and begin to send out news releases before they know whether it’s a train or not?

I ask, and I answer the best I can.

Thursday, 7:05 p.m.

Just received from my dear writer pal Paul Engleman, one of the deejays of my life.

So, David, as you know, because I forwarded you a text at 2:35 AM on Tuesday that Adam of FOW was gravely ill with COVID-19, you at first were gripped with worry that I was speaking of a friend of ours in New York, but came to realize that I meant Adam Schlesinger, whom we've seen in concert several times. You knew him mostly from Fountains of Wayne, but he was involved with all sorts of projects. 

Adam, sadly, didn't make it.  So I'm in mourning, that funky kind of mourning you have for someone you didn't know but who deeply touched you for some reason, and you thought you might someday bump into 'em and get to tell 'em yourself, in what you hoped would be a not-too-awkward exchange. And now you know for sure—that ain't gonna happen.

The band took their name from a goofy lawn ornament store in my hometown, next to a charbroil burger place where I used to go while cutting class my senior year of high school, 1971. Adam Schlesinger grew up not far from there, about 15 years behind me. He was from your generation, not mine. In 1997, when we were moving into a new house, I was on a marathon solo painting binge, and I binged on a cassette of their debut album, which a friend had given me. They clearly knew their North Jersey.  For me, listening to that cassette, in an empty house in time-stands -still mode, was like a spiritual link between my past and future.            

You invited me to pick a song to play (instead of Stacey's Mom), and explain why. I chose "Radio Bar"; here's why.  It's from the last FOW album, and it's the power pop sound they're known for. Most of their songs are short stories with characters, but this one is set in a bar on Hudson Street where Adam and the other songwriter in the band, Chris Collingwood, used to hang out, 25 years ago, and where they wrote songs for that first album.

And you and I have both been to that bar! It's a place where you or I might've bumped into him the next time we're in New York. (By the way, when the fuck is that going to ever happen again?)  

Hope you and your readers enjoy the song. Line to listen for: "They put our song in the jukebox/ it was a hit with the drunk jocks/even the guys with the dreadlocks/sang along at the Radio Bar."

Thursday, 5:50 p.m.

Woah, I totally just had a great thought. Wouldn't it be insanely great if there was a Seinfeld episode about coronavirus?

Get this—there is, and it's really, really good. This script, by my buddy and the PSA's resident writing coach, Mike Long. Cuz writers gonna write.

Check this out.

Thursday, 5:20 p.m.

Not 100% positive Mayor Lightfoot would have approved of our motorcycular jaunt up Sheridan Road, but I kept thinking of the line in Chariots of Fire, when the boy says, "I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel his pleasure."

Thursday, 9:15 a.m.

Huge "crisis" cocktails in the morning. Watching this was almost as good as doing this.

Thursday, 7:56 a.m.

Researching what leaders are saying and how they're sounding for our daily newsletter, Executive Communication Report: Coronavirus, I discover that Stewart Butterfield, the CEO of Slack, needs more sleep and less cocaine. He spent most of his New York Magazine interview yesterday trying but failing to cover up his exhilaration about the online messaging program's business boom during coronavirus—"it’s funny, as a CEO, it’s like all this stuff that I’ve always wanted just magically started happening, and in circumstances that are supercharged” … "a lot of our graphs just have straight lines that go right up" … “I definitely don’t want to appear ghoulish but I also don’t want to be ghoulish. Hey, great. Global pandemic. Super for business. At the same time, I’m really conscious of our employees.”

Then he furrows his brow and begins to ramble:

… I’m really worried about our employees, about the community. I ordered some food from one of my favorite Mediterranean restaurants last night and the guy thanked me because they don’t normally do delivery, but they’re doing delivery now. The guy thanked me for the support, and it’s like every time I’ve ever driven past a mom-and-pop store or a restaurant that’s gone out of business, it’s always upsetting, because it’s someone’s life work and they’re probably bankrupt, it ruins them. And when you think about the cascade of that. Also people dying of a respiratory infection, that’s obviously a big deal. But the knock-on effect of this is going to be incredibly consequential and that’s definitely what’s top of the mind right now.

Wednesday, 6:22 p.m.

I had a phone conversation last night that's sticking with me. It was with a friend who's a corporate attorney for a huge organization with operations in various sectors all across this land. My pal finds himself in meetings at the highest levels, with people running all the divisions of this organization.

"It's restoring my faith in humanity," my friend said.

Yes, the business heads and the bean counters are biased toward keeping the operations humming—partly, because some of these operations keep crucial national supply chains moving.

And yes, the HR people and the safety people are erring on the side of early shutdowns (the lawyer too, as lawsuits stemming from COVID-19 exposure will undoubtedly be "the new asbestos" for corporations for years to come).

But by and large, my attorney friend said, he's never seen more high-level executives earnestly "really listening to each other," thoughtfully deliberating and mutually determined to come to the conclusion that allows them to "do the right thing."

Meanwhile, another conversation today—this one with an exec comms chief at a Fortune 100 corporation—shows me the emotional and intellectual limitations of the Masters of the Universe who run these companies. At the outset of the coronavirus crisis, it was amazing to see CEOs say the most un-CEO-like thing: Essentially, We don't know what is going to happen, we can't predict the future, we are reacting to events the best way we can.

It was hard enough for these can-do strategic-planners to take that vulnerable and uncertain stance for a week or two or three. It may be harder for them to maintain it for the next month. This exec comms chief I was corresponding with told me his CEO got way over his skis, describing to employees some dreamed-up several-part recovery process that had no known association with reality.

I get it.

You get it.

Anybody who has a 16-year-old who sometimes struggles to look you in the eye gets it. Anybody who sometimes struggles to look the mirror in the eye gets it.

You want to say it's going to be all right. You want to say when it's going to be all right. And you want to say how it's going to be all right. And—after almost a whole month of this panic, you still don't fuckin' have any idea.

The best you can do is discipline yourself, over and over, day after day—to listen to the people around you. To thoughtfully deliberate. And to try to do the right thing the best you can determine it, in the faith that clarity will one day come.

(This might be the hardest thing I've ever done.)

Wednesday, 10:10 a.m.

Finally, a little goddamned leadership around here.

Wednesday, 7:09 a.m.

Some sick April Fool's joke, in this morning's The New York Times: "Under the best-case scenario presented on Tuesday, more Americans will die from the coronavirus in the weeks and months to come than died in the Korean and Vietnam Wars combined."

Tuesday, 9:26 p.m.

Unfortunately we just got a note from some a fellow who won't be subscribing to our popular newsletter, Executive Communication Report: 1918 Spanish Flu:

Hello Mr. Murray,

As I've concluded that Your Daily Report does not serve my interest, I do not intend to subscribe to it.

Nor do I mean, with my indisposition, to disparage Your and Your colleagues' work in this regard.

I trust You'll pardon me in my untimely reply as I'm struggling to keep up with my correspondence.

Self-employed as a semi-retired actor AND copywriter, my imperative is the implementation of my short-term plan for managing my affairs commensurately with the impositions of this viral development.

Your Daily Report, noteworthy AND praiseworthy as it is, doesn't fit my set of requirements for doing so.

Thank You for Your inquiry; I appreciate Your alacrity AND diligence.

Your Servant,

Tuesday, 10:11 a.m.

I'm sensing that we're starting to get to a dangerous stage of this siege where we're all starting to get on one another's nerves—not the people we're locked in with—everyone.

I'm getting tired of people who've been doing this during coronavirus, had it up to here with people who do that, and as far as people doing the other—I can't even.

And some of you motherfuckers have been on my nerves since long before the coronavirus, and you're finally showing your stripes.

It's a symptom of National Cabin Fever, and we can't give in to it.

For instance, I had to apologize to one of the people who inspired the item below, and rewrite the item in arrears, to make it fairer to its targets.

We're all we've got, people.

Wanting, and beloved.

Monday, 4:05 p.m.

Am I the only one who's starting to get irritated with people who aren't on social media, and who need to have every update personally delivered to their front porch? Some of got tired of Bernie bros a few years ago, others hate the Trump humpers. Some are too smart for Facebook, others think Mark Zuckerberg is a shit. And some are simply too cool to be on Facebook. Fonzie, for instance, is not on Facebook.

I honor all those reasons to avoid Facebook and all other social media.

But many things are changing at this moment.

And one of them is, we're all trying to keep in touch with each other and let each other know we're being vigilant and root for John Prine together and entertain each other every once in awhile and make sure nobody slips under the waves.

For the next month or several, turn off the H.A.M. radio and get with the program.

Would it kill you?

Monday, 1:52 p.m.

Click to enlarge for readability this email about "a handheld CO2 launcher" that people might find handy soon, for some reason.

Monday, 1:11 p.m.

On March 3, I wrote here:

If Orbitz is going to leave the nation on hold for a month, it owes us to at least refresh its list of songs about flying and travel.

David Gray, "Sail Away with Me Honey"

Steve Miller Band, "Fly Like an Eagle"

Nora Jones, "Come Away With Me"

Tom Petty, "Learning to Fly"

Marc Cohn, "Walking in Memphis"

Orbitz still hasn't give us our money back, and still hasn't updated the fucking songs.

I have a suggestion. Dump 'em all, and just run this one over and over.

Monday, 12:42 p.m.

Just sent to the typesetter the latest issue of Vital Speeches. Ten speeches, all on coronavirus—heads of state of Ghana, China, United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, South Africa, New Zealand, Singapore, the United States and South Korea. In our 86-year history—and I've read many issues from the years of World War II—I don't believe there's ever been a single issue of Vital Speeches all on one subject. 

A lot of people have talked for a long time about something that could unite the world in a common battle against a common enemy. If coronavirus isn't that thing, it'll do until that thing gets here. We'll see how it goes.

Monday, 11:17 a.m.

Sundays are so bad during this thing that in some ways, Mondays feel like Fridays.

Monday, 8:28 a.m.

Posted over the weekend as a public service.

Friday, 6:40 p.m.

Like most Americans this night, I've poured myself a generous cocktail and settled in to refresh myself on the circumstances surrounding President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's famous Four Freedoms speech on the eve of another war of indeterminate length, January 6, 1941.

Of course, we're all going straight to the FDR Library for context (the server is must be heaving under the strain):

The famous Four Freedoms paragraphs did not appear in the speech until the fourth draft. One night as Hopkins, [speechwriter Samuel] Rosenman, and Sherwood met with the President in his White House study, FDR announced that he had an idea for a peroration (the closing section of a speech). As recounted by Rosenman: “We waited as he leaned far back in his swivel chair with his gaze on the ceiling. It was a long pause—so long that it began to become uncomfortable. Then he leaned forward again in his chair” and dictated the Four Freedoms. “He dictated the words so slowly that on the yellow pad I had in my lap I was able to take them down myself in longhand as he spoke.”

And that, my speechwriter friends (and civilians too) is how civilization is built: With words, and people who believe in them.

A toast, tonight: To FDR and to his speechwriter. May their Four Freedoms, which they claimed were "a vision of no distant millennium," not be forgotten by us, on the cusp of some other kind of war, as a vision of some distant past.

Friday, 4:41 p.m.

I wrote to one of my colleagues just now on Slack, "No one will ever know what this was like. (Because we won't even remember.)"

"That would be nice," she replied.

Friday, 11:17 a.m.

I come from writers, who had one friend each. Whenever our phone rang, my dad shouted, "Who could that be?!"

And so I never imagined—and was not parentally prepared for—a life as rich with friends and warm acquaintances as mine has become, due to my more outgoing nature, and my role as a professional convener of people.

It has caused me stress over the years, a feeling of dread: What if all these people needed to communicate with me at once?

But that fear was always misplaced—my life was always full but never quite overflowing.

Now, that fear has come to fruition, and I lie awake thinking of all the people I want to reach out to, to see how they're doing. But often haven't the time, can't summon the energy, can't bear to hear another set of painful circumstances.

I offer Writing Boots, and this expression of regret.

And: If you need me, I am here.

Friday, 10:35 a.m.

I keep telling speechwriters in my flock that they help CEOs communicate for a living, and this is one moment when CEO communication is crucial to our society's survival. As Richard Edelman and Jeffrey Sonnenfeld put it in Fortune, "With shattered confidence in the government, Americans often look to CEOs for faith in our system and often found it. It is the public actions of CEOs rather than the private-session White House gatherings of select financiers and biotech leaders that can rebuild public trust."

Some speechwriters appreciate my repeating this over our Zoom calls.

Other speechwriters look to me like I've never heard the joke about the two Irish guys and the Indian scalps.

(Two Irish guys come ashore in New York in 1880 with little to their name. They go to the first bar they see and ask the barkeeper how to make a living in America. Barkeeper tells them they can get $1 for every Indian scalp. But the catch is, you've got to go a long way west to find Indians. The Irishmen spend their last pennies on a mule and ride tandem out to Wyoming, where they find themselves in a box canyon. Hearing some shouts above, and they look up to see the entire rim of the canyon lined with a few hundred Cheyenne warriors. And one Irishman turns around and yells over the war whoops echoing through the canyon, "We're gonna be rich!")

Thursday, Bourbon-O'Clock

It's hard to do a Trump impression. Every one of us tries, and we all end up sounding like Alec Baldwin or Stephen Colbert. This obscure New Jersey comic is the first guy I've seen actually do it. I hope he gets filthy rich at the same speed Vaughn Meader got forgotten.

Thursday, 4:05 p.m.

Yesterday a friend said he and his wife had had a terrible day at home with the kids. I felt sorry for him. Today I have emerged from my office only to holler at my daughter. This person, grown up; this person, still inside. I'm sorry, Honey.

Thursday, 3:47 pm.

On my cell phone, an emergency alert: Effective immediately Chicago lakefront, adjacent parks & beaches and the 606 trail that I run on every day are closed, per Mayor Lightfoot, and I don't mean Gordon.

Thursday, 9:51 a.m.

Just put to bed the eighth issue of our every-weekday Executive Communication Report: Coronavirus. 

Got a note yesterday from a subscriber:

Just wanted to thank you for these daily emails. They are so helpful. Even when I don't specifically take action from them, they inform my recommendations to leadership throughout the day. And for someone who is often at least two decades younger than everyone else "in the room," the tactics and wisdom you share is especially invaluable. Thank you (and please keep them coming).

That is not the first time during this slo-mo nightmare that I've been made to feel grateful for having been around for a minute. Of course I feel as helpless as anyone in the face of this—but I also feel occasionally helpful, too.

And I'm grateful for that, because it's helping me get through.

Thursday, 12:22 a.m.

As my publisher said the other day, writers touch their faces! Or they smoke cigarettes. Those are the choices.

Wednesday, 4:41 pm.

"Mom, can Nora come over if she stays on the sidewalk and I stay on the porch?"

Wednesday, 3:56 p.m. 

You know I'm writing this book, called An Effort to Understand, right? Well it's a real drag, cuz it sort of compels me to try to figure out what other people are thinking, especially if their ideas seem jarring or unpleasant. 

Meanwhile: Over the last week or so I've felt rumblings from my conservative friends online that there are deep and whispered ideas that the current approach to coronavirus is wrong—even viciously wrong.

On a conservative friend's Facebook page, I noted that one of his friends seemed a little less inhibited than most on this view, and I asked that guy for his argument. In his reply, he referenced "think pieces" that are now being published; I asked the guy to send me the best think piece he could find, and he told me to send him the best one I could find "defending murdering the economy."

So I started keeping an eye out for myself.

Presently I ran across "Say 'No' to Death's Dominion," written by the editor of First Things, from the Institute on Religion and Public Life (located on 40th Street, in New York, incidentally).

I thought I'd share a few excerpts from R.R. Reno's piece, which argues that the current approach to controlling coronavirus is an "ill-conceived crusade against human finitude and the dolorous reality of death":

At the press conference on Friday announcing the New York shutdown, Governor Andrew Cuomo said, “I want to be able to say to the people of New York—I did everything we could do. And if everything we do saves just one life, I’ll be happy.” 

This statement reflects a disastrous sentimentalism. Everything for the sake of physical life? What about justice, beauty, and honor? There are many things more precious than life. And yet we have been whipped into such a frenzy in New York that most family members will forgo visiting sick parents. Clergy won’t visit the sick or console those who mourn. …

Truth is another casualty of this sentimentalism. The media bombard the public with warnings about the danger posed by the coronavirus, when the truth is that only a small percent of the population of New York is at risk. By an unspoken agreement, leaders, public health officials, and media personalities conspire to heighten the atmosphere of crisis in order to get us to comply with their radical measures.

During the Spanish Flu of 1918, people knew about quarantine methods but instead of bringing life as they knew it to a halt, "bowed their head before the storm of disease and endured its punishing blows, but they otherwise stood firm and continued to work, worship, and play, insisting that fear of death would not govern their societies or their lives.

We, by contrast, are collectively required to cower in fear—fear that we’ll die redoubled by the fear that we’ll cause others to die. We are stripped of whatever courage we might be capable of. Were I to host a small dinner party tonight, wanting to resist the paranoia and hysteria, I would be denounced. Yesterday, Governor Cuomo saw young people playing basketball in a New York City park. “It has to stop and it has to stop now,” he commanded. Everyone must live under death’s dominion.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn resolutely rejected the materialist principle of “survival at any price.” It strips us of our humanity. This holds true for a judgment about the fate of others as much as it does for ourselves. We must reject the specious moralism that places fear of death at the center of life.

Reno admits that he has friends who disagree with him on this. 

(Strangers, too. In particular, I would like to know why he thinks our cousins from 1918 were so much more courageous than we. Neither does Reno quite grapple with epidemiologists' projections about the rate of infection with coronavirus.) But I do appreciate reading this other view, especially if it's the best version of one shared quietly by others who are too fearful or contemptuous to express it out loud. Considering this other way of looking at it actually makes me feel less fearful myself.

But yeah, no, I can't wait to finish An Effort to Understand, and get started on the sequel, And I'll Tell You Another Thing, Motherfucker.

Wednesday, 11:25 a.m.

This next statement is going to look so dumb a month or a year from now: I am so fucking sick of this whole thing.

Wednesday, 10:17 a.m.

Two new types of Facebook posts I'm seeing more of that I'd like to see less of.

1. People with no expertise or even demonstrated interest in public health, using only their personal authority to convince people who aren't taking coronavirus seriously enough, to start. 

2. People who aren't taking the coronavirus as seriously as everyone else, finding various ways of letting it be known that is their right and also, they are not bad people.

Wednesday, 8:40 a.m.

My pastor and nursing-home chaplain friend, Suzanne Ecklund, writing on Facebook:

My scales began to fall from my eyes the day I called the fire department a year or so ago, thinking they'd be able to help get a kitten out from under the hood of someone's car. I figured they'd be firemen heroes like the ones in my Dick and Jane 1st grade reader. Well. They were morons. And I will never do that again. That has been my experience these past weeks on all levels—from the president down. Morons are in charge. It has been my deep joy and bone-deep responsibility to defy idiots in this time. If I make it through this, I bury my notion that I don't have what it takes and I will lead. People, listen to me: NEVER. TRUST. AN. EGO.

Wednesday, 8:30 a.m.

The world sounds different.

Like you, I'm awake more at night. I live a half-block from Western Avenue, a thoroughfare that's so desolate now, that a motorcycle passed last night, and I could hear it for a whole minute, through my closed windows, over the chirping birds.

Wednesday, 7:52 a.m.

The latest possible cure for coronavirus, found in Chicago: South Side Polish Dander. Meet Bonnie.

Tuesday, 12:19 p.m.

Based on the phone calls I've been having today, I would say Coronavirus Distraction Syndrome, a mental disease all its own, has cost me about 30 percent of my listening skills and verbal ability. Just had a call with my book publisher to brainstorm about the cover design, and sounded like a jackhammer operator brainstorming about a cover design.

Tuesday, 7:31 a.m.

Working as every morning on the daily Executive Communication Report: Coronavirus that we've been issuing since last Monday—it's free for the rest of this week, if you'd like to sign up—I came across a pretty disastrous interview with the CEO of Carnival cruises ..

Unavoidably, I was reminded of another interview—a famous Australian spoof in which a senator discusses a ship where "the front fell off": "That's not very typical, I'd like to make that point."

Monday Happy Hour Photo, 4:37 p.m.

Hand-sewn, partially using elastic from never-worn underpants.

Monday, 4:08 p.m.

Vital Speeches of the Day has been in continuous print publication since 1934. Just got this note from our printer rep, up in Stevens Point, Wis.

Our plan is to still get VSOTD out in the mail tomorrow or 2/25 latest.

Here in WI, our governor is expected to announce plans for a "shelter-in-place" order and close all non-essential business. Some states with this order already in place have kept print houses open, some have not.  Today we were "business-as-usual." If that status should change, I will be sure to let you all know.

Monday, 2:38 p.m.

After 9/11, I used to love to ask people about how they experienced the day. 

After coronavirus is over, maybe I'll love to ask people how they experienced this day, too.

Monday, 2:24 p.m.

Went on Amazon and ordered Erik Larson's new book about the London Blitz. Says it'll come Tuesday, April 21. And now I know how England felt, in 1940.

Monday, 12:46 p.m.

I've tested myself for asshole-ism, and it's come back positive.

I get annoyed when people want me to do video chats. There's no ducking these! Instead of feeling quarantined, I feel cornered. I actually told a friend yesterday, "I feel video chatted out." (What a jerk!)

And the bigger the group chats, the more crazy-making. But smaller they are, the more of them you have to do!

I may not come out of this a better person. But I'll be a more self-aware of my badness, that's for sure.

Monday, 11:45 a.m.

Family "staff meeting" to discuss need for more structure in days ahead. Schoolwork, exercise, household projects. (Sewing masks?) Teenage daughter mostly silent—not sullen, just sad. "What are you thinking about, Baby?" A shrug. Tears.

John Steinbeck wrote the most wonderful essay about his best friend Ed Ricketts (upon whom he based the character "Doc," in Cannery Row).

One paragraph has stayed with me and I think of it a lot these days. After Steinbeck has established that Ricketts was uncommonly generous with his money and his things:

His feeling for psychic pain in normal people was also philosophic. He would say that nearly everything that can happen to people not only does happen but has happened for a million years. "Therefore," he would say, "for everything that can happen there is a channel or mechanism in the human to take care of it—a channel worn down in prehistory and transmitted to the genes."

Monday, 9:53 a.m.

This brought tears this morning—my first. I knew it would be music that would do what needed to be done. Thanks for sending, Sharon McIntosh.

Monday, 9:33 a.m.

A freelance communication consultant wrote on Facebook over the weekend:

The Corona Virus pandemic, in addition to being a public health crisis, is an economic gut punch. My own consulting practice is going to be "quiet" for a few weeks, but hey, I had a good first quarter, so I need to do something.

As usual, I have conflicting sources of inspiration, ranging from Anne Frank ("No one has ever become poor by giving.") to Hunter S. Thompson ("I am a generous man, by nature, and far more trusting than I should be. Indeed. The real world is risky territory for people with generosity of spirit.")

Therefore, here's the bottom line: I'm setting aside a little money for anyone who needs a little help. If you need a small infusion of cash for food, utilities, insurance co-pays (or your Netflix subscription) because your job has been suddenly shut down, send me a DM and I'll see what I can do via PayPal.

The rules:

1. Reasonable amounts for reasonable expenses. I'm not wealthy, just solvent (for now).

2. Payback is not expected. I don't lend money. If it comes back, great, but this will not be something that hangs over us as friends.

3. Confidentiality is assured. This is between you and me. If you're trying to help someone else, that's cool, too.

4. There's a limit to my largesse. I've got a number in mind, and when it's gone, it's gone.

That's it. Let's keep it simple. I hope this mess is under control soon and that the damage to the economy is not permanent or irreparable. As you might guess, I have my strong opinions about how we got here, but for now let's just bail the boat and paddle for shore.

Monday, 6:50 a.m.

We are all this woman who my father-in-law spotted in Korat, Thailand over the weekend.

Friday, 6:19 p.m.

My wife and I completed a borderline joyous Zoom happy hour with some friends, who live a half-mile across the neighborhood. We laughed in lieu of crying, and we laughed hard.

Friday, 3:01 p.m.

Snapshot of Chicago Tribune website just now:

Friday, 2:20 p.m.

A bracing conversation to say the least is taking place on the Facebook page of a speechwriter who wrote a letter to the editor of the London Telegraph to the effect that military generals would know what to do in a situation like coronavirus. If they were in charge, their decisions would be less sentimental (and "out of proportion") than the ones most government officials are making now.

The livelihoods that are being destroyed as a result of these social-distancing measures should be weighed against the lives that would be lost without the measures, the speechwriter wrote. For instance, "the [economic] damage will be as bad as a World War and let’s say 20,000 die from the virus. You know the military would have to lose 100,000 in the event of the invasion of a Baltic state," the speechwriter said. "You do not destroy the economy and civil society because of medical opinion."

Friday, 2:05 p.m.

On a run in Humboldt Park, daughter and I ran into someone who was wearing this one of these …

… which seemed a bit harsh.

Friday, 9:40 a.m.

A Chinese-American man who plays in my (now on hiatus) tennis league and missed a match last week was assumed by some to have the coronavirus.

Another member of the league immediately copped to having unwittingly started that rumor unwittingly with a jokey remark.

He issued an all-group email apology that concluded: "It was idiotic of me not to understand the sensitivity of this statement and that it would be interpreted as you being diagnosed with covid."

That's how it's done, friends.

Friday, 9:21 a.m.

Australian speechwriter Lucinda Holdforth is getting her laughs when she can—like every time she thinks of the Yogi Berra-esque quote from Minister of Health of New South Wales: "This virus has a mind of its own."

Thursday, 7:17 p.m.

In the Trump White House, speechwriting is a collaborative process.

Thursday, 6:45 p.m.

The rule in this house is that everyone's day has to include: Some exercise, some work, and some art. (We're counting the Sopranos as art, okay McJudgersons?) My daily self-care also includes a sack of pistachios and a big glass of Old Forester bourbon.

A recently laid off Writing Boots correspondent has found a different formula: "So yesterday, I worked out, got in the hot tub, turned on some Yacht Rock and smoked a bowl. It was the best house arrest day so far."

Thursday, 2:27 p.m.

My comic friend Daniella Mazzio writes:

going to pick up a laptop from the office during a pandemic:
-anxious
-dont touch anything
-dark empty office is creepy
-careful unlocking doors and storage containers
-easy with that laptop
-have to use a wipe to control elevator

thinking of it as a low-stakes heist:
-very cool
-careful not to leave fingerprints
-infiltrating
-open doors with a glove and cracking locks with a flashlight — very slick, very Sandra Bullock
-im a hacker now
-somehow exiting the elevator in slow motion

Thursday, 1:52 p.m.

Do we really need to tell rich people that it's bad form to post that the are: 

Landing soon in Grenada 🇬🇩 with my girls, the crisis couldn’t end better for me…
Getting rid of mask and gloves.

Boater again… heading to Spice Island Shipyard to see [my sailing yacht], get her ready to have us for the night, putting my flip-flops and shorts on and then rush to BBC beach for the custom sunset cocktail.
La Pura Vita ai Caraibi!

Apparently we fucking do.

Thursday, 10:07 a.m.

The New York Magazine headline is, "The Leader of the Free World Gives a Speech, and She Nails It."

Here's my take, which will appear in today's Executive Communication Report: Coronavirus:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel covered just about everything in a televised address to the nation yesterday. The textbook structure included an assessment of the severity of the situation, a list of actions the government is taking, specific calls to action for every citizen and a call for solidarity at the end:

I have absolutely no doubt that we will overcome this crisis. But how many victims will it claim? How many loved ones will we lose? The answer, to a great extent, lies in our hands. Right now, we can take decisive action all together. We can accept these current limitations and support one another.

The situation is serious, and the outcome uncertain.

Our success will also largely depend on how disciplined each and every one of us is in following the rules.

Even though this is something we have never experienced before, we must show that we can act warm-heartedly and rationally—and thereby save lives. It is up to each and every one of us to do so, without any exception.

Take good care of yourself and your loved ones.

Thursday, 10:05 a.m.

Also new meaning to the old Woody Allen line: "“I don't want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying. I don't want to live on in the hearts of my countrymen; I want to live on in my apartment.”

Thursday, 9:15 a.m.

My normally well-mannered father, when caught in a traffic jam or searching for a parking spot in a crowded grocery store lot, was known to bellow at the top of his lungs a certain general command. His granddaughter Brooke Ford remembered it yesterday, in a context the old man never foresaw. "If there was ever a moment to scream," Brooke emailed the family, "People, get to your homes!" 

Thursday, 8:34 a.m.

The people who were rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic were grateful to have something to do, anyway.

Wednesday, 5:56 p.m.

My daughter is crying downstairs; her mother is buying her a new bike; it's not helping.

Some thoughts on crying on a Facebook thread today, after a friend asked, "Anyone else working on their cursory daily cry routine?"

I replied, "I want to cry but can't summon the necessary focus."

Someone suggested that "maybe we all need a collective scream cry."

I do wish someone would organize that. And if anyone needs a jump start, this song always did it for me.

Wednesday, 4:22 p.m.

From a friend who works in a nursing home that's on coronavirus lockdown: "The residents think that there has been no bingo for 2 weeks because they are giving it up for Lent."

Wednesday, 11:24 a.m.

From my pal American Medical Association leadership comms chief Joel Hood, one of the great Facebookers in my life.

I can't conceive of a time when I'll ever wear pants again.

#COVIDjournal

Wednesday, 11:12 a.m.

I find I'm not listening to people very well. And what's maybe more troubling, I'm not really pretending to. And I don't think they are either. Conversations seem more like, you say some stuff. And then I say some other stuff. And on like that until we're both sick of it. "But it's good to hear your voice …"

Wednesday, 8:20 a.m.

Just typed this, to a correspondent across the Atlantic, knowing he would know exactly what I meant: "It's hard to know what to do first, next, last … or at all."

Wednesday, 6:52 a.m.

Yesterday I worked about nine hours. Played tennis in two separate sessions, about 2.5 hours total, and ran a mile. Had three drinks and watched two episodes of the Sopranos with my family. In any other time, I'd call that a perfect day.

Wednesday, 6:17 a.m.

When she was little, my daughter used to pretend she was acting in a movie. At the grocery store, walking downtown, in a park, she'd turn to us and say, "Don't talk to me, I'm in a movie." I'm tempted to say that to people these days. And I keep waiting for someone to yell, "Cut!"

Tuesday, 3:20 p.m.

New rule in our house: The most coronavirus-conservative household member rules. If you can't convince that person that your out-of-home sortie is worth whatever the perceived risk, you don't go. (I haven't shared that rule with anybody else in the house yet, lest they lord it over me when I want to go play tennis.)

Tuesday, 9:33 a.m.

Humor writer (and University of Pennsylvania speechwriter) Josh Piven gives us a slice of his life, in Philadelphia:

"I took a long walk today because I had to get out of the house. My main concern was: Is the Parking Authority still ticketing, or is this like a parking holiday? A woman yelled across the street at me. She wanted to know if the Art Museum was closed. I told her I was pretty sure all the museums were shut down. She replied with an expletive. It’s good to know there’s still broad community support for arts and culture."

Tuesday, 9:14 a.m.

“A Nation Turns Its Lonely Eyes to You: an Open Letter to American CEOs” is my public answer to many questions about how frequently the CEO should be communicating during the coronavirus crisis. (Daily, is my view.) "The coronavirus crisis is profoundly disorienting for every American—but none of us more than the top executives of large companies and other prominent organizations. As our nation faces one of the greatest challenges in its history, people are increasingly looking for reassurance, guidance and solutions to you. Will you accept the responsibility?"

Monday, 3:55 p.m.

I'm working—urgently in the morning, dutifully in the afternoon. Home-from-school daughter and my schoolteacher wife speak in hushed and unhappy tones downstairs. Are they so unhappy I should take a break and check in and weigh in? Or are they just as unhappy as they ought to be at a time like this, and should I go on working? I've asked myself that question eight times today—and always decided to keep on working.

Monday, 2:27 p.m.

Parents: You might think you have it worse than your kids do during this coronavirus sock-in, because you have so many more responsibilities than they do, and what do they care about the stock market.

But I was on a train once, across most of China, with nine adults and nine high school kids. The adults were as happy as we have ever been in our lives: reading books, writing in our journals, playing cards and chess, drinking erguotou and napping.

The teenagers? Despite sleeping for about 22 of the 30 hours, they were going out. of. their. minds.

I tell you that because I'm trying to keep it in mind when my teenage daughter treats my admonitions about staying away from her friends as if coronavirus is just my latest elaborate plot to keep her from enjoying her life.

Monday, 12:05 p.m.

My Facebook friend Audi Martel proposed on Friday:

I have an idea. Can we just please close the stock market? I mean why do we need this to be going on when all these arguable smart minds could be focused on solutions to the pandemic and not money. Suspend that shit in time. What would really happen if we did that? Nothing. Like national holidays don’t crash the economy and we all go on spending or not spending. What’s the gd difference? #coronavirus

Does anyone have a good answer?

Monday, 10:57 a.m.

A helpful email promo this morning from Spirit Airlines, which asks us, "Are You More City or Country?"

Monday, 10:47 a.m.

A Facebook friend writes, "I wonder what Evelyn Waugh would have made of the current situation. Sometimes a discordant voice is needed."

Monday, 10:40 a.m.

A Saturday post by communication colleague Isaac Pigott:

PSA —

We are not “all in this together.” We are in this at the same time. There is a big difference.

We are all faced with this COVID thing coming from different life experiences, different liabilities, different assets, different responsibilities… you get it.

We also are internalizing this reality at different rates, and with different coping mechanisms. The person who is a few days behind you in acceptance and processing isn’t a lesser human. (And the people who were a couple of days ahead of you aren’t better than you.)

Please be mindful about what you post. But what is ten times as important is being mindful about how you react to what you read. The person using humor to blunt the impact of fear isn’t belittling you, or being insensitive. The person who is posting articles about politics or economics doesn’t have their priorities “out of whack.”

This is no time to kill friendships, shame people or block people. None of us need the extra drama. If you have to use the 30-day mute, do it quietly. No need to manufacture drama. The last thing we want is for people to start feeling even more isolated than social distance and quarantines will make us experience.

Be there for those who need you. Family, friends, coworkers.

And if you need an ear? I’m around.

Monday, 10:34 a.m.

First friend to report he believes he has COVID-19—a colleague in the speechwriting world, came down with symptoms Friday. Mild case, he says he's feeling mostly fine.

Monday, 10:32 a.m.

Do you think it might be time to just have a good cry?