Writing Boots

Coronavirus and us: Let's hold it together, together (week four)

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.

Coronavirus, and us: Let's hold it together, together (week three)

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.

The coronavirus, and us—let's hold it together, together (week two)

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?

The Quotable Murr, on ... St. Patrick's Day maybe?

Friday night after two straight weeks of coronavirus madness, I got drunk as the CDC recommends: by myself.

That night, I learned that somehow the City of Chicago ruled that Irish pub crawls couldn't be outlawed and that the reckless partiers would not be discouraged. 

My writer pal Paul texted me and our pal Tony, "Chicago's inner Ditka prevails. ... Some jamokes will not be deterred from reveling."

I replied, "This town really is twice as dumb as Buffalo."

"That's libel," said Tony.

"Against Buffalo, maybe.”

The coronavirus, and us—let's hold it together, together

Let's face it, folks. It's going to be all coronavirus all the time this week. This is going to be a rolling post, about what I'm hearing, what I'm thinking and what I'm feeling. Feel free to leave your own thoughts in the comments section, and check back here regularly for updates. —DM

***

Friday (Happy Hour Video), 12:02 p.m.

Friday, 11:21 a.m.

From a Massachusetts correspondent: "The word I have been hearing at the State Police barracks is they are trying to keep arrests to a minimum. Until all the cells and holding areas are sanitized they have nowhere to house these jokers."

Friday, 10:25 a.m.

Friday, 9:58 a.m.

From my pastor friend, Suzanne Ecklund:

I'll be damned if there's not an advantage to having an anxiety disorder. See, I live at this level of anxiety all day every day. Nothing's changed for me. For me, this is any given Tuesday. But for lots of other people, this is a shock to the system. For these rookie nervous people, they don't know how to be in the world like this. But for me, it's like everybody's coming home to Mama. And now I get stand at the door with a drink in hand saying, "Welcome. We've been waiting for you. Do come in."

Friday, 8:00 a.m.

Watching first hour of a virtual event by the Economic Club of Washington—a bunch of leaders talking coronavirus. To watch for yourself, go here. 

Note the bottle of Purell on the table.

Here's the lineup.

• Sylvia Matthews Burwell, President American University
• David Skorton,President and CEO, Association of American Medical Colleges
• Jo Ann Jenkins, CEO, AARP
• Peter Scher, Chairman of the Mid-Atlantic Region & Head of Corporate Responsibility, JP Morgan Chase & Co.
• Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO, Leidos
• Matt Kelly, CEO, JBG SMITH
• John DeGioia, President, Georgetown University

Friday, 7:41 a.m.

Today we issued this free resource—starting Monday, a daily newsletter for people who are helping leaders lead through coronavirus. If you'd like to sign up, click here.

Friday, 7:40 a.m.

Lane Tech high school soccer season suspended. Might seem little to you, but when it’s your kid's whole heart, her tears are yours.

Friday, 7:38 a.m.

An well-reported story in The Washington Post about the making of President Trump's ineffective speech Wednesday night—and really, the making of most ineffective speeches: The writing was a rush job, the speech was unrehearsed and the speaker ad-libbed (in this case introducing tragic errors that weren't in the original text).

In the most scripted of presidential settings, a prime-time televised address to the nation, President Trump decided to ad-lib — and his errors triggered a market meltdown, panicked travelers overseas and crystallized for his critics just how dangerously he has fumbled his management of the coronavirus.

[Trump] ... knew he’d screwed up by declaring Wednesday night that his ban on travel from Europe would include cargo and trade, and acknowledged as much to aides in the Oval Office as soon as he’d finished speaking ....

Thursday, 4:35 p.m.

Former George W. Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson, writing in The Washington Post:

Leading in this crisis would be a difficult rhetorical task for anyone. It demands a careful balance of urgency and reassurance. It calls for sacrifices from all Americans, even though the risk falls heaviest on the ill and elderly. Fighting a pandemic requires an atmosphere of confidence and trust and involves the suspension of deep differences in pursuit of the common good. Leaders are rising to that challenge in every corner of the country.

And the work of all of those leaders might benefit from the president’s silence.

I keep thinking of a little incident that happened a long ago but that remains vivid in my memory. Some friends and I were at a bar, noontime; we hadn't seen each other in a long time and we were catching up. At intervals, a rheumy-eyed barfly, perhaps still tipsy from the night before, was interjecting comments into our banter, trying to engage us in conversation. We humored her for awhile, but there was a moment when it became disruptive. And one of my pals turned to her suddenly and looked her straight in the eye and said: "Okay—no more talking."

It seemed so brutal. 

And yet so necessary.

I never thought I'd want to say it as desperately as I do to the President of the United States of America.

Thursday, 2:44 p.m.

Charles Pierce, writing last year, in Esquire:

In my life, I have watched John Kennedy talk on television about missiles in Cuba. I saw Lyndon Johnson look Richard Russell squarely in the eye and and say, "And we shall overcome."

I saw Richard Nixon resign and Gerald Ford tell the Congress that our long national nightmare was over. I saw Jimmy Carter talk about malaise and Ronald Reagan talk about a shining city on a hill. I saw George H.W. Bush deliver the eulogy for the Soviet bloc, and Bill Clinton comfort the survivors of Timothy McVeigh's madness in Oklahoma City. I saw George W. Bush struggle to make sense of it all on September 11, 2001, and I saw Barack Obama sing "Amazing Grace" in the wounded sanctuary of Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

These were the presidents of my lifetime. These were not perfect men. They were not perfect presidents, god knows. Not one of them was that. But they approached the job, and they took to the podium, with all the gravitas they could muster as appropriate to the job. They tried, at least, to reach for something in the presidency that was beyond their grasp as ordinary human beings. 

Thursday, 10:59 a.m.

My Facebook feed indicates that people are reacting to coronavirus in these ways:

Gallows humor.

Trying to be helpful. (Occasionally by mansplaining, which women do too.)

Trying to lend perspective. (Also occasionally by mansplaining.)

Implying that this is happening because everyone is dumb and cowardly except themselves.

Ripping on the president for being the feckless son of a bitch they always knew he was.

Flat-out shrieking.

Pretending it's not happening.

(My own blog indicates that I'm reacting in all these same ways.)

Thursday, 10:35 a.m.

This is now becoming a place where I just keep stuff, publicly. A head of exec comms for a big nonprofit writes:

One tactic I'm taking that may be worth sharing: I'm changing a lot of internal comms originally written as "COVID's impact on our operations" to "Our operational responses to COVID."

 

In addition to being less dire and more hopeful, this approach frames the organization as taking active steps to protect staff from the pandemic, versus being helpless in the pandemic's wake. We are indeed helpless to a large degree, but I believe the "driver" vs "victim" approach is both more comforting and more leadership-focused, which are things anxious staff wants and needs to hear.

Thursday, 10:13 a.m.

Posted by my friend Randall White.

"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph." —Thomas Paine, Dec. 23, 1776

Thursday, 9:50 a.m.

Teenage daughter home from with cold, teacher wife sent home with cold. Here's a picture I just took on my phone, before everyone, including the Springer Spaniel, went to sleep.

Now I'm trying to work over the snoring. It's not going well.

And honestly, the to-do list is dwindling, as items are being skipped due to: Impossible to plan for now, hard to think about at the moment, don't give a fuck about.

Must replace those items with something (safe, and potentially constructive) to do with hands.

Otherwise, just worry. And as I once noted on a Lutheran church sign while riding my motorcycle through Altona, Ill. (pop. 531): "Worrying is like praying for what you don't want!"

Thursday, 8:20 a.m.

Without making a direct comparison between the two events, this (not this) is what it's supposed to sound like. (Unvarnished truth and full-throated determination bolded, for emphasis.)

Mr. Vice President, Mr. Speaker, Members of the Senate, and of the House of Representatives:

Yesterday, December 7th, 1941—a date which will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific.

Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American island of Oahu, the Japanese ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to our Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. And while this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or of armed attack.

It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time, the Japanese government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.

The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost. In addition, American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu.

Yesterday, the Japanese government also launched an attack against Malaya.

Last night, Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong.

Last night, Japanese forces attacked Guam.

Last night, Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands.

Last night, the Japanese attacked Wake Island.

And this morning, the Japanese attacked Midway Island.

Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our nation.

As Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense. But always will our whole nation remember the character of the onslaught against us.

No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.

I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us.

Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory, and our interests are in grave danger.

With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph—so help us God.

I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7th, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese empire.

Wednesday, 5:56 p.m.

Time to dust off your Kipling, my friends:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too ...

Wednesday, 4:31 p.m.

Healthy eyes always scan for silver linings. Yesterday my wife and I calmly agreed that if we're locked in for any length of time, we're going to force our teenage daughter to watch the entire Sopranos series. That much, we do know. And then we started to make a grocery list.

And then we continued.

The CDC might have a problem with that list. But your inner child, does not.

Wednesday, 1:36 p.m.

Partial text exchange with a speechwriter for a big nonprofit:

Speechwriter: "I suppose this week is answering an important philosophical question: What if there are speechwriters and no places left to speak?"

Me: "The answer is: [There are] executive communicators, and new ways to help leaders reach the audiences that need them even more."

Wednesday, 12:30 p.m.

For some reason, Writing Boots correspondent Sharon McIntosh and I have been thinking of the Joseph Mitchell character who said, “I feel like I’ve been hit on the head with a cow.” 

Wednesday, 7:59 a.m.

An exec comms chief for a big and well-known organization writes:

Between us, internal comms executives are holding back on our CEO weighing in because they want reactive policy announcements to come from emergency and safety departments. They want to "save him for the right moment" when things are more stabilized. I feel that, even separate from policy announcements, staff still needs to hear acknowledgment, compassion, and care from their leader, even as—and maybe because—things are chaotic.

What would help is knowing other CEOs are making internal communications with staff. Do you have any examples of that—even a list of companies where CEOs are sending all-staff memos? That would help me make the case that a CEO has a unique responsibility here. The Internal Comms team only sees it in terms of the information and recommendations.

Of course the exec comms chief is dead right, I told him; and I promised I'd issue a call for quantitative evidence or qualitative examples of CEOs speaking to employees.

Meanwhile, my take? If this CEO understood the right and proper role of a leader at this moment, she or he would goddamn insist on talking to employees right now, the internal comms staffers be damned. If CEOs are hiding behind internal comms' skirts, it's because they don't like to speak until they can mansplain that everything's going to be all right. And right now, they have no idea if everything's going to be all right—or when, or how.

As Franklin Roosevelt might have told someone who suggested he wait to discuss Pearl Harbor until after we had Japanese fleet under control, it's possible—and it's essential to be a leader without being the Great and Powerful Oz.

Here's what that looks like on coronavirus, as New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern sits down with knowledgable people and asks them commonsense questions while exuding calm, logic and even good humor.

Why can't your CEO do something like this? How can your CEO not?

Tuesday, 6:20 p.m.

Why do I keep writing about corporate CEOs in this coronavirus series? Partly because I work with the people who help them communicate. But mostly because I think CEOs, despite the obvious limitations of their view of life, through the window of a Gulfstream G550, have by default become some of the world's most credible leaders in a time when credible leaders are exactly what we need.

At the Executive Communication Council Founders meeting in Phoenix, we talked a lot about how corporate CEOs are increasingly looked to for statements of comfort, on issues that seem far afield from their natural sphere of expertise. CEOs, who we always distrusted because they were obviously so self-interested.

These days, that self-interest is what makes CEOs credible: To be self-preserving CEO, you have to be accommodate a broad swath of publics: employees, customers, investors, regulators, community people. That's a much bigger and more diverse group of constituents than President Trump is playing to at the moment.

I wrote a few years ago at a meeting of people who serve CEOs:

A secular society increasingly distrustful of its own government and with a press discredited as “fake” by large swaths of the public, is singing, as one participant put it, “Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?”

And to whom are people turning for principled leadership and cultural compass points? Of all things, corporations and other large institutions. With an erratic president and a discredited intellectual elite, people need someone to trust, someone to know the responsible, sensible, sustainable “corporate” view on gun control, transgender restrooms, gay marriage, Confederate monuments, immigration, Black Lives Matter, Obamacare, tax reform, kneeling during the National Anthem and climate change.

What social activists long decried as amoral self-interest in corporations is now treasured as impartial interest in sustainability. “Trump can pull out of Paris,” said one participant. “But UPS can’t.”

Which is why what Apple CEO Tim Cook says at a moment like this means more to me in almost every instance than what the President, the Vice President or the Speaker of the House says.

Because if he's caught being dead wrong in his assessment of coronavirus, the consequences are much more immediate. He's not omnipotent, but he'll be careful about what he says. And so I'll listen carefully to what he says.

(Here's what he's saying.)

Tuesday, 3:21 p.m.

My old man (center, with the badass aviators) was a pilot, and his advice was always: "Keep your airspeed up."

What can we do that's productive (and not tail-chasing)? Hey, it hit me on the third run I've taken this week to clear my head (and keep my airspeed up): How about checking in with everyone you know and love who's sort of old and has an underlying condition, and calmly but frankly asking them what they're thinking about all this, what they're doing about it, and whether I can help.

That it's taken me a couple weeks of mayhem to have that thought led me to another aviation thought: Yes, keep your airspeed up, but don't go into a dive.

Tuesday, 10:46

Pro tip for businesspeople:

Email promos that you scheduled to go out a week ago will sound tone-deaf this week—like the one I just got from a company urging me to enter a public relations awards program: "You still have time to enter, so don’t panic."

And another promo, from a different company, promotes an April conference with "3 days of hands-on, interactive training."

Tuesday, 9:34

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"

Tuesday 7:18 a.m. 

You know what I always say (or have been saying since last week, anyway): If you can't take heart, take action.

"Everyone is staring at us communicators with blank looks," said a guy who handles communication for the CEO of one large company. I know lots of those people, and I asked them how they're answering those blank looks.

Laura Hunter, who handles executive and internal communications at Google Cloud, answered:

Probably the most surprising thing I've said to my team and our execs is that it's going to be OK—we've done this before (but with worse tools). 

Post 9/11—when asking people to travel was seen as insensitive and yet we were all commanded to carry on for the greater good—we had a much harder time using technology to bring speaker and audience together. I remember trying to book satellite trucks as I was rewriting scripts to try and take a long-planned seminar virtual. People are much more used to the virtual conference room—and sending out a link to invitees is easy to do and both speakers and audiences have well developed norms and expectations. 

The most important coaching is still to stay focused on the audience. How that happens is definitely different when you're facing an empty room and don't have the immediacy of facial expressions to tell you how it's going, but the principle remains. 

That said—the great thing about the speechwriters I know is that we've all adapted to a multi-channel reality. Can't deliver it live? Op-Ed! Tiny in-person audience—let's edit it into a video for YouTube. That kind of flexibility about the where/how, while staying true to the speaker/audience  is why I love working with speechwriters. 

Speaking of which, the Professional Speechwriters Association created this webinar last week—

—and when it turned out better than we expected and the crisis got worse, we decided to make the recording available for free. Lots of wisdom here, not just for Fortune 100 companies—for everyone on whom people rely. Listen here.

Monday, 3:16 p.m. Central

If you're like me, you've gone through a few emotional phases over the last few weeks and certainly over the last few days. For instance, I made a home video.

As the Dow Jones fell so fast they had to pause it this morning, I dug out from emails that had come in while I rocked and reeled with my friends over an epic funeral weekend in Cleveland.

Occasionally I checked out Facebook, where I noted anecdotally that my conservative friends are blaming the coronavirus and its blowback on the media, and worrywarts who they feel are susceptible to it. (Hysterics, with underlying conditions.)

A one comment:

Let’s stop freaking out about this damn Coronavirus that has been hyped-up by the mainstream media and social media. It is a flu strain, and yes those who are elderly or have health issue should take necessary pre-cautions. For the rest of us wash your damn hands and use common sense.

There are 10,000,000 cases of flu in the US every year.

#tiredofthecraziness

Another:

Why is this happening? Human beings crave something to worry about. Given the lack of impeachment and war and local famine, we're stampeding ourselves over a stuffy head, mild fever, and chest congestion.

I don't deny this emotional aspect of the situation. For some people, communal fear is better than lonely desperation. My mother was near-suicidally depressed much of the time when I was a kid, and she kept a journal about it. Near the beginning of an edited version, she wrote:

Have Everything. Everything Going Along Beautifully. Am way past food, shelter and transportation; new baby girl, three year-old son thrive; cleaning woman does windows; agent says one of my books looks to be very close to publication; husband sent me rose because I have a cold—and alarm goes off mornings like firing squad: I can’t get up.

Can’t eat, can’t sleep, can’t read to little ones. Every time start to read, start to cry. ...

Catch myself hoping for bad news, tragedy, something could really sink teeth into, overcome.

I remember guiltily relating to that when 9/11 happened, and at a few other moments of national and local tragedy. I remember feeling like screaming (in the middle of the sorrow and fear): How do you like your fucking strategic marketing plans and your tidy PowerPoint decks and your fancy phones now?

But I'm not 32 anymore. I have worked very, very hard to build a sustainable business, to save for my daughter's college tuition, to own a house from whose front door I emerge every Sunday morning and say a little agnostic prayer in thanks for another week of being able to afford the New York Times. I have a strategic marketing plan of my own. And I have a conservative side.

So of course I hope my conservative friends are right that we're overreacting.

But I don't think they've cornered the market on courage.

After my posts last week about taking a knee, I got a note from a speechwriter the depth of whose personal courage has been demonstrated to me beyond a doubt over the years. Of my hundreds of professional correspondents, I respect no one's emotional strength more.

She wrote:

I read that you had a bad day, I just wanted to tell you I laughed.

I think of you as being 100% on the ball every minute of the day. I really appreciated you sharing your bad day.

It occurred to me that anecdotally I am aware that writers (& speechwriters) often suffer (alone) from anxiety and depression, and struggle with alcohol/substance abuse. I include myself in this.

She said one recent day, "I was so stressed in the morning that I started vomiting in the shower. No hangover, no pregnancy, no flu. ... It was scary as all hell."

And then, of course, she went to work. 

As we all must. For each other, for ourselves, the best way we know how.

***

And we must each summon maximum courage, without sane leadership in the White House—or at the very least, without a broadly respected leader who can comfort a whole country by telling us, for instance, that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

"I hate to say it, but I think a default posture of human beings is fear," said writer Marilynne Robinson two years ago. "What it comes down to—and I think this has become prominent in our culture recently—is that fear is an excuse. 'I would like to have done something, but of course I couldn't.' ... Fear has, in this moment, a respectability I've never seen in my life."

May we find a way to understand each other's fear, and overcome our own, and as Kurt Vonnegut advised was the meaning of life, "To help each other through this thing, whatever it is."

The Quotable Murr: Things I hear myself say

"I keep surrounding myself with saints. Which would be fine, if it didn’t fucking compel me to try to be one myself."

Friday Happy Hour Photo

I hate Panera Bread because they don't serve beer, and when I'm having lunch between two travel soccer games in Elgin or Rockford or Crown Point, I want beer.

Also, I deserve beer.

And in conclusion, I will have beer.

All the kids on Scout's travel soccer team know this, because I tell them so.

But what these young fools don't understand, because none of them have ever been in a hospital, is this:

There must be a better word than "grief"

Originally posted in a few years ago. Posted again, for the people who lost this guy.

***

What do I know about grief? I know what everyone knows about it. And I've had a chance to see it lately, at close range and with sufficient remove.

Grief should be called sadness-induced insanity.

When you're grieving, every decision you make, you'll second-guess later, muttering, "What in the world was I thinking?"

You will walk into a convenience store with a porcelain coffee cup in your hand.

You will nearly get hit by cars, because your world has been so spectacularly destroyed that you can't believe everyone in Chicago doesn't know to stay out of your way. They didn't know the Hindenburg exploded? Have they been living under a rock?

Grief might also be called wisdom.

It's in grief that some acquaintances become your friends and your friends become your family, because you have been too distracted to sort those things out as you went along.

My college roommate became my best friend one afternoon in the basement of our house shortly after my mother died, by shooting fifty games of pool with me and asking me one hundred questions about what it feels like to have your mother die.

That very same week, it must have been, my girlfriend's mother became a mother of mine (and my mother-in-law eventually) by filling her wine glass all the way up, leaning back and asking me, "So, tell me about your mother."

(That was a good week!)

Grief might best be called God.

Grief demands truth from those suffering from it and those hoping to help, and it exposes their egos and their lies, white and otherwise.

Grief reveals everyone's limits—including those of the dead—and in doing so gives everyone one perfect shining chance to forgive everyone for everything. (They should take it.)

Grief reduces Donald Trump to his properly plain status as Someone We Don't Love, and grief exalts Everyone We Do Love, dead and living, to where they belong—up in the sky!—for however long we remember to hold them there, together, despite their madness and limitations and clumsiness and bad timing and vulnerable points of integrity and unfair judgement that finds us wanting, too.

Wanting, and beloved.

"We can all take a knee ... but if we don't get up and move out, we're likely going to die or fall to pieces in that place"

People appreciated my rare post yesterday about taking a knee. "Thank you for writing this," was the median comment. "I've been feeling the same way."

And just like you, this week  I went back to work.

Already this week with the help of my colleagues I:

Created a webinar to help my customers deal with the coronavirus.

Got up at 6:00 and read Scout 30 pages of The Great Gatsby, because God knows I can't help her with chem.

Went for a four-mile run while playing the Star Wars theme on my headphones, which was a very good move. Try it sometime.

While I was on the run, received a text from my colleague Benjamine, who lives in Arizona. Green shoots! (Great colleague!)

A cousin sent me a poem called "Good Bones," because he said my post reminded him of it.

A speechwriter pal wrote to ask if I was OK.

I'm OK.

The funeral is Friday, in Cleveland.

I'll be on my way tomorrow—to be with people who I love, who are terribly sad. Wise people, who know well what Maggie Smith knew, when she wrote in "Good Bones," that "The world is at least fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative estimate, though I keep this from my children."

Several years ago I helped an army officer who was dying of cancer write a book, for his three children.

"When someone on the team got tired, we stopped and we took a knee to rest," said the late Lieutenant Colonel Mark Weber in Tell My Sons. "When someone on the team got tired, we stopped and we took a knee to rest. But we always got back up, and we never quit . . . never. Just like those young soldiers, we can all take a knee too, but if we don’t get back up and move out, we’re likely going to die or fall to pieces in that place."

We'll take a knee.

And we'll get back up.

And we'll move out.

When you're weary, take a knee

"Crash baby crash," wrote a socialist relative on Facebook last Friday, apparently referring to the stock market, which was apparently listening. 

I didn't appreciate that, as I was in the middle of what felt like a PTSD flashback from a memorable visit to my dad in Ohio in September, 2008.

Over a couple of weeks, Dad was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer, the stock market crashed and cost him half of the savings of his careful life and a wind storm came along on a perfectly sunny Sunday in Cincinnati and blew out power in the area for three days.

Last week was the coronavirus panic and the ensuing stock market crash. And Friday I learned the fifty-nine-year-old brother of a dear pal, and a friend of mine, too had a devastating stroke. (He didn't make it.)

Usually work distracts me from trouble, but by Friday, trouble was distracting me from my work, and I found myself writing this instead of answering fucking emails.

I don't like to say that out loud. Aside from being a pretty buoyant soul by nature, I have a number of reasons to be publicly positive.

As the head of a small company, I feel responsible to be cheerful most of the time. A leader, Napoleon said, is a dealer in hope.

As the head of a professional association, I know a lot of people who are out of work, and others stuck in terrible jobs. I think it's more proper to worry about others than about myself. 

I'm writing a book urging Americans not to give up on one another, not to speak violently to one another urging them to "make an effort to understand."

I'm a husband to a woman who teaches in one of the most troubled neighborhoods in this troubled city.

I'm a dad to a teenager who's just getting acquainted with how monstrous people can be, and now meaningless life can seem.

Gaping blankly at the computer screen last Friday afternoon, I reminded myself of my mother's shrink in the 1970s. "Dr. R. says he’s been depressed lately, too," she wrote in her journal. "'Last Thursday, I just didn’t give a shit. I closed the office and went home.'"

Sometimes that's the best thing you can do.