No Show
Intro “There is no Diligence like thatThat knows not an Until –”Emily Dickinson, #880 No podcast for you! Late last week, after a really busy month-plus of...
Talking drugs
Intro A team from 6 of the ~45 companies I represent at my trade association, + me (2nd from right). The last guy on the right is Newton to my Liebniz, or...
The Brush without the Hand
Intro This is my first installment in a few weeks not written on the road or immediately after getting home from biz travel, for which I’m thankful but . . ....
Ticketed Passengers Only Beyond This Point
Intro I got back from a business trip this morning. I landed around 4:30 a.m. in Newark after 36 hours in San Diego. It was almost just airport-hotel-...
No Geography
Intro [This began as an Instagram post, but transformed] On November 12, 2019 I stayed in the Historic Hotel Bethlehem in Bethlehem, PA for a client event...
Witness
Intro I’d like to write about something else this week, but I can’t. The guest I was going to record with on Saturday, Michael Denneny, was dead in his...
Trainwriting
Intro I’m on a train to Washington for some afternoon lobbying visits. The wifi’s awful today (it’s been better recently), so no idea when I’ll be able to...
There Is A Light
Intro I’m going to St. Louis to see my family this weekend. I haven’t seen my brother since 2018, nor my mom since 2017. Which, when I say, “I’m a horrible...
Cave, Man
Intro “[L]ife is mostly spent putting ourselves back together. But hopefully in new & interesting ways. For me that is what the creative process is . . . the...
Spelunking
Intro Last Saturday I watched 20,000 Days On Earth, the 2014 doc about Nick Cave. I don’t know Cave’s work, except for a song he did for the soundtrack of...
Et In Acedia Ego
Intro As a Jew, I treat the Seven Deadly Sins as a clinical curiosity, and maybe as a set of self-help/self-assessment guardrails, but as a member of...
Kerouac and Zeno and maybe next time
Intro My dad bought me a Hyundai Excel when I was in college. I ate a guardrail with it a few months into my ownership — missed a car in my blindspot on 91...
Library of Babble
Intro Thanks for the well-wishes, prayers, etc. for my pal I wrote about last week. I can’t tell you any more about that just now, but as a sign of how my...
Worry and Hope
Intro My pal John is having brain surgery today or tomorrow. He was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor last week after a seizure episode, with no real symptoms...
Tribe of Zero
Intro I attended a support group meeting a few nights ago. First time I ever did that. It was for people with stage zero chronic lymphocytic leukemia (that...
Lobby Boy
Intro I’d hardly call anything I do triumphant, but I did make my return to Capitol Hill yesterday, for a series of meetings with Congressional staff (a few...
Accept the Mystery
Intro “Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing...
Capitol Idea
Intro No time for a real update this week; sorry. Yesterday I took the train to Washington, DC. This is my first trip since Feb. 28, 2020. I’m here for a...
Death & Seltzer-Bottles
Intro On Saturday, I visited the funniest cemetery ever. I had just finished recording this week’s podcast with Ross Benjamin about his new translation of...
52 Pickup
Intro My future wife & I had our second date at the Hi Life Bar & Grill on the Upper West Side. It was a Sunday, and we watched an NFL playoff game while we...
