This is the end of my third week of shelter in place/cower in place/safer at home/ whatever the fuck my incompetent governor calls it. It rained all week which is apropos of my mood and made working out that much more of a challenge.

I submitted an application for a loan through the Paycheck Protection Program.  What a clusterfuck.  I’m fortunate in that I have an existing relationship with a commercial bank and historically they have been very responsive.  When this was first announced I contacted my banker asking about the program.  His first reply was they would participate since they are an SBA lender but the program rules keep changing.  The bank needed to know the rules before he could send me an application but I was on their list. Based on what I had read in the newspaper that had the ring of truth.

A week ago Friday, the Treasury Department announced the program had gone live and loan applications were being received. I contacted my banker to follow up. I was told he was sending me the application later that day. Silence.

Monday, I followed up again. He replied he was working on the application. More silence. Tuesday, I followed up again. At 1:25, he responded saying they had a freeze on new applications but I was on his list. At 3:30, I received an email with the loan application.

Unlike the news reports, I would need to submit documentation to substantiate the calculation I used for the loan amount. Fortunately, I was going to my office on Wednesday to shoot video. Wednesday was a full day video shoot followed by documenting this loan and submitting the application. Thursday, my banker told me the loan was submitted.

This morning I was reading the Wall Street Journal. A front-page article described the tremendous back up in processing the loans and disbursing funds. Treasury continues to bullshit that things are going smoothly and money is getting shoveled out the door. Bankers and borrowers are saying even when loans are approved, disbursements are being delayed. One lawyer assisting borrowers estimates it will take 30 days to receive funds.

Every day I receive email alerts announcing large firms laying off staff, furloughing staff, cutting pay, and slashing or eliminating partnership distributions. If this keeps up it will get even worse. Shakespeare famously wrote in Henry VI, “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” Modern day politicians are demonstrating there is more than one way to achieve that goal.

All of the courts I practice in are closed through the end of this month and, theoretically, will reopen in May. I’m growing increasingly skeptical. Los Angeles just announced they won’t reopen until June 22nd. That will be a phased reopening so it’s anyone’s guess when something approaching normal operations will resume. I don’t think other courts will be that bad but based on what I’m hearing, it is really uncertain when these risk averse, government paid, motherfuckers are going to realize enough is enough. The projections keep getting revised downward but let’s see how far we can push The Precautionary Principle.

I have long thought our court system is what separates us from tribal cultures with do it yourself justice. Leaving aside the obvious implications for unpunished criminal conduct, we are going to find out just how long people will forgo collecting unpaid debts of all kinds before resorting to self-help. There is a reason we don’t go out with a baseball bat to find the deadbeat who didn’t pay a bill. There is a reason unpaid rent doesn’t result in a tenant coming home to find their stuff in the street and the locks changed. Now that reason is gone. Let the social experiment begin.

With my bile vented, let’s move on. The rain this week made it impossible to exercise outside. I resorted to doing set after set of bodyweight squats, pullups, sit ups, and push ups.  My pull ups are terrible but Tejicano addressed that last week so there’s no reason to beat a dead horse.

Something was off with my pushups.  I was feeling them much more in my shoulders than my chest.  So, I checked in with AthleanX on my mechanics.  Sure enough off, I was screwing up.  My hands were too far forward.  When I moved them back and concentrated on my elbows going out at roughly a 45-degree angle it made a huge difference.  I felt much more work being done by chest.

Here is another helpful guide. For anyone starting with push ups or who can’t complete a single push up, remember that you can start by being on your knees.

This week’s music choice is dedicated to every one of the bastards who won’t let me get back to work.