Mr. President
Podcastery This week, I posted Episode 562 of The Virtual Memories Show, feat. the return of cartoonist Leslie Stein. With her wonderful, hilarious &...
Hitting The Links: 11/5/23
Unitard I got to record with Phillip Lopate yesterday. That episode will air in a few weeks — in the meantime GO READ his new essay collection, A Year And A...
Analog Digital
Podcastery This week, I posted Episode 561 of The Virtual Memories Show, feat. a conversation with cartoonist Josh Bayer. With his new graphic novel/memoir,...
Hitting The Links: 10/29/23
Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down We made it back safe & sound from Barcelona on Friday, then spent Saturday in Princeton where I hosted a talk with Patrick...
The Secret Sharer
Keeping up appearances I’ll be interviewing Patrick McDonnell about his new book, The Super Hero’s Journey (Abrams ComicArts), at a live event on Oct. 28 at...
Hitting The Links: 10/22/23
He’s from Barcelona I’m in Barcelona for a trade show this week. We got in yesterday morning, waited ~45 minutes on line at passport control, and got to our...
The Analog Desk
Podcastery This week, I posted Episode 559 of The Virtual Memories Show, feat. a conversation with Lisa Morton as we celebrate spooky season & the release of...
Hitting The Links: 10/15/23
High Potency I was Dearborn, MI on Thursday & Friday for a client meeting about patient-centricity in drug development & manufacturing. It was a good event,...
OMFG JUBILEE STREET
Podcastery This week, I posted Episode 558 of The Virtual Memories Show, feat. a conversation with legendary cartoonist Daniel Clowes about his amazing,...
Hitting The Links: 10/8/23
Intro Something weird happened at my pharma conference last Thursday-Friday: nothing weird happened. I mean, I know I over-plan, micromanage and stress the...
Challenges & Opportunities
Intro I’ll be heading out in an hour or so for the annual pharma conference I organize, host, and micromanage within an inch of its/my life. The main...
Hitting The Links: 10/1/23
Intro I’m in Columbus, OH for Cartoon Crossroads Columbus (CXC), an annual comics festival co-founded by my late friend Tom Spurgeon. Last year, I came here...
Fast Reading
Intro [As mentioned on Sunday, I’ve decided to do 2 posts a week instead of one: Sunday gets the Link-O-Rama, Current Reading, and Sound Body/Fractured Mind...
Hitting The Links: 9/24/23
Intro [The weekly version of this email was getting WAY long, so I decided to split it in two parts. On Wednesdays (or thereabouts), I’ll send out the email...
BEOTI
Intro “How are you able to DO everything!?” By which they mean holding down a heavy-duty day job while making the podcast (and doing all the related...
Fierce Luigi
Intro In Greek myth, the three-headed dog Cerberus guards the gates of the underworld. When I rang the doorbell of my dying friend last Friday, I was greeted...
Eternal Sunshine of the Tweetless Mind
Intro When I decided to delete my account on Facebook 6+ years ago, I told a pal that staying on it was like saying, “I don’t agree with the politics of Der...
Dead Sirius
Intro On my way back from picking up lunch today, the 1st Wave station on Sirius XM (it came with the car in 2019 & I renew every year) seemed to be...
Cheesecake, Penguins, Bucks
Intro I’d offer up something profound, but this is already a day late & I’ve got advocacy letters & an article to write for work, so instead you get a little...
Read the Label
Intro “I do have a little bit of a habit, yes, hon. You ought to at least give me a few marks for originality.” I’m in much better shape than last week, now...
Where Shall Wisdom Be Found?
Intro Sorry this one is a day late. The week has been rough. Last night, I had some concern I might die in my sleep. On Monday morning, I got diagnosed with...
Laugh Riot
Intro What were you doing on Jan. 6, 2021? I was prepping for a national TV interview about staffing at contract manufacturing organizations that were making...
Afterlifehacks for Ibburim
Intro I’ve never seen The Exorcist. I was 2 when it came out, so it’s understandable I didn’t catch it in the theater. I also somehow never caught it on...
Thank U India, Thank U Providence
Intro For a Virtual guy, I do revel in the analog. I wrote about that a month or so back — the joy I get from my daily postcard habit, mailing out the print-...
Samsonite
Intro Sorry this one’s a day late. I was getting two episodes of the show out this week, plus real work & more medical appts. for Dad. There’s plenty of...
As Is Now
Intro Just because I do the same goddamned things every single morning doesn’t mean I HAVE to do the same goddamned things every morning. It means I LIKE to...
Happy Cancerversary
Intro “Were it to be the lastHow infinite would beWhat we did not suspect was markedOur final interview.”—Emily Dickinson, #1164 Today’s my second...
One More Mailbox
Intro Man, the longest day of the year and I still didn’t make the time to finish this week’s newsletter. I’ve got a lot going on with work, esp. with a...
With an option to renew
Intro This past Monday was my semi-annual check-in with my oncologist to see if my chronic lymphocytic leukemia has progressed beyond Stage Zero. It hasn’t,...
Haiku for Business Travelers
Sorry to send 2 of these emails out in a week, but the long-(un)awaited second issue of my Haiku for Business Travelers ’zine came in from the printer...
The Haze
Intro I was going to tell you a story this week about a guy I kindasorta left for dead many years ago, and how I found out on Sunday he’s still alive. But I...
Vita Beata
Intro “Soto! Explore thyself!Therein thyself shalt findThe ‘Undiscovered Continent’ —No Settler had the Mind.”Emily Dickinson, #814 As part of my morning...
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...