Someone sent me this picture yesterday, from my book talk a couple weeks ago at City Lit Books. It came at a good moment: on a rainy Monday morning, as I juggled a gnarly and unpleasant writing assignment, distracted by waiting for a plumber coming to fix a leaky kitchen faucet and dreading a couple looming weeks of mad and uncertain logistics. Life.

PICTURED: Don Evans, founder of the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame, me, my interlocutor John Lillig, a hero of Soccer Dad, and a pal. And Jonathan Eig, Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer or Muhammad Ali and Martin Luther King. Behind them, pretty much my whole life in Chicago. Holy shit.

Friday, I asked a friend what was happening in her world lately. Knowing what my life has been like lately, she said it felt like being asked by Jim Lovell what she’d been up to while he was away.

But ecstasy doesn’t play the long game; anxiety does. After a fantasy of a fortnight that included a trip to Ohio University to run a half-marathon with Scout’s soccer teammates and hang out with their parents and celebrate the journey we’ve all been on together, that’s ending all at once with their graduation next weekend—this Monday hit me like a dump truck from behind.

But the plumber did reveal that he has a five-year-old boy who might be a pretty good baseball player. Kid likes soccer, too. And the plumber likes to listen to Audible books while driving to jobs …

And while I was trying unsuccessfully to edit the misplaced, infuriating sorrow out of this post, this came in over Instagram, from a stranger:

In hopes that Soccer Dad starts to sell itself in this way, my sales campaign turns into a long series of conversations—at another Soccer Dad event in Chicago this June and in the lead-up to Father’s Day and on a September book talk at The Learned Owl bookstore in my hometown of Hudson, Ohio. I’m in touch with Scout’s college coach, and we’re going on at least one podcast together to talk about how parents and coaches can have better relationships. And I even foresee doing Zoom and in-person talks with groups sports parents, for as long as everyone is interested. And who knows what else?

But the book is writ. The book is out. The announcement is made. The party is over.

And officially, I’m in “Sales Mode,” no more.

To everyone’s relief, mine included.

Onto the next.

Sometimes I write things here in hopes that doing so will remove those things, as repetitive thoughts.

Case in point: I would write an exhaustive, excoriating article or book about the “Kars for Kids” kommercial, if I wasn’t konvinced that during the kreation, the kocksucking song would kling to my brain so kronically that I would kommit suicide.

The Lorax spoke for the trees. I speak for the speechwriters. So I hate to side with anyone who refuses to hire one, for any reason.

But a speechwriter wrote me this week complaining that a Huge Corporation refuses to hire him because “they insist” he lives in the place where the headquarters are, “which won’t work for my wife and me.” He’s offered to spend three weeks per month working in an office the company has in his locale, and one week per month in the HQ town, “but no luck. Any advice?”

I had none, unless the CEO was going to be giving speeches quoting Alexis de Tocqueville on topics like the importance of civic organizations and the virtues of capitalism.

Sorry, but outside of politics, there is no such thing as pure speechwriter anymore. Thus, a tagline we permanently attached to the PSA logo several years ago, broadening the speechwriting assignment to “communicators who help leaders lead.”

How in the world are you supposed to help a leader lead in one city, while phoning it in from another? How exquisite a writer, how omniscient a communication counselor would you have to be to beat out, in a job competition, someone who was willing to be there for the boss, in the moment, in the rhythm of the business, whenever a thing went down, or either of you had a good idea, day in and day out, in the belly of the corporate culture?

I used to argue that communicators ought to have offices with doors and a permission to hole up occasionally to think hard and write something big. And I still would defend that—just as I recommend the use of independent speechwriters to get a fresh take on a weary topic or a thought leadership moon shot for a big platform.

But generally, in-house exec comms is no longer a place for literary dilettantes.

I replied: “Honestly, I agree they should have someone in [the HQ town). I don’t think exec comms, for a leaders of a company that really believes in it as I think Huge Corporation does, can be done remotely, very well.”

NEXT!