ATTENTION SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS: Let Randy Smith help you unravel the CARES Act.

Longtime local independent business owner Randy Smith posted the following yesterday on his social media pages. He's offering his time to help you determine how grassroots players like most of us can derive benefit from the newly enacted economic relief plan. Randy's contact information is herein. I'll be sharing this with friends via personal channels. You?

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Do you have a small business in New Albany? Has COVID-19 hurt your ability to survive? Of course it has.

I’m one of you. I can help. No strings. No fees.

Thanks to Heather at my bank, I was able to learn how the CARES Act can help and I’m ready to help you apply for government assistance. You can borrow 10 weeks of payroll now and keep your staff employed. You can pay retention bonuses. And, if you handle it properly, you’ll never have to pay it back

I have the details and am ready to help. Call or text me at 812.944.5116 or email me at randysmith@outlook.com and I’ll share what I’ve learned.

Your bank is likely to be an SBA Preferred or Certified lender and they’ll be ready to lend as early as next week. But you need to be ready. You can use the loan proceeds for rent, utilities, and even for accounts payable. And you may never need to pay it back.

I’ve been a small business owner in New Albany for 16 years – Destinations Booksellers, Dueling Grounds Café, Flood Crest Press – and for decades before that across the U.S. In this crisis, I can help you survive.

Banks will lend now without collateral, credit checks, or personal guarantees. The SBA will guarantee your loan.

Let me know if I can help you apply for these unprecedented loans. We’re all in this together and we can keep our businesses alive.

Please share this as you see fit. Best wishes to all of you.

The Kenny Rogers Theorem, or one's minimum daily requirement of folding 'em.

I didn't always appreciate the timeless wisdom espoused by Kenny Rogers in "The Gambler," which in retrospect is a surprisingly insightful mega-hit pop song from the 1980s.

You've got to know when to hold 'em
Know when to fold 'em
Know when to walk away
And know when to run

Yes, the advice sounds trite, and a gambler I'm not, but it finally has dawned during this extended period of grief ...

ON THE AVENUES: On patience, grieving, puzzles and a necessary sabbatical.

... that when you're out of aces (read: utterly powerless), whatever else of merit you might have to offer in this or that situation becomes irrelevant.

Just wait for the next hand to be dealt, and try all over again.

Admittedly I can do without the "die in your sleep" part of the song, although I'm reminded that to "die standing up" is a theatrical term meaning your performance is met with silence rather than applause.

Ouch.

It also bears noting that songwriter Don Schlitz wrote this number, not Rogers, who at least had the good sense to sing it.

Kurt Vonnegut: "There is no shortage of wonderful writers. What we lack is a dependable mass of readers."

Maybe first I should learn how to type.

Meanwhile, Kurt Vonnegut is my favorite Hoosier -- Vonnegut and maybe Hoagy Carmichael. Dark or black humor was a Vonnegut trademark, and I intend to bear this in mind as New Gahania lurches forward into the next four years of payola and arrogance.

We'll be compelled to laugh, a lot -- and hope for deliverance from the indictments.

Kurt Vonnegut on Making a Living as a Writer, by Kurt Vonnegut and Suzanne McConnell (The Nation)

You probably won’t have to endure the downsides of fame and fortune. But you can emulate the upsides.

... Joseph Shipley, an Indianapolis native, related this anecdote as I was assisting the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library table at the Brooklyn Book Festival one recent September. As a sophomore in high school, just after reading Cat’s Cradle and Slaughterhouse-Five, he passed Kurt Vonnegut himself on the street one fall day in downtown Indianapolis.

“I know you!” Joe blurted.

“No, you don’t,” Kurt replied.