Time to pass the hat!
Time to pass the hat! lekcej / iStock / Getty Images Plus

Hello sweet peas!

First things first, how are you hanging in there? Rest assured I'm thinking about you all the time. If you're anything like me, just when you're feeling like you're finally adjusting to this madness, that's when you find yourself breaking down and crying while taking a pee. NOT SURE WHY I DO THIS! I often wonder if other people also cry while stand-up peeing. That seems weird to me... but then, right now EVERYTHING seems weird. Just know that I adore you, and I totally support any stand-up or sit-down cry-peeing you may be experiencing right now.

This is just a quick update on how the Mercury is doing, for those who are wondering: We are now 7 weeks into this stay-home crisis (JESUS CHRIST), and thanks to generous readers like YOU, we are seeing glimmers of hope. Make no mistake, your continued donations to the Mercury are currently keeping us alive. In the early days of the crisis, your donations rescued us when we were seriously swirling down the drain, and while we still need them on a weekly basis, I CANNOT THANK YOU ENOUGH. Your dollars gave us the breathing room we needed at that moment to develop new revenue streams that will hopefully help keep us going. "What kind of new revenue streams?" you may be asking. OH, LOTS OF EXCITING STUFF!

First, thanks to our ballooning readership online, our fantastic, hard-working sales staff have been selling more web ads than ever! Second, we've been developing even more super fun online events, such as the SPLIFF film fest (stream it for yourself here), the absolutely hilarious I, Anonymous Show (get your tickets for the May 8 show here), the Silent Reading Party (get your tickets for this weekly event here), the Confinement Online Film Festival (submit your mini-movie here), and the much-needed, porn-tastic return of HUMP! (coming at you online starting May 9, get your tickets now)!

And we're just getting started—so please keep up your support with recurring donations and buying tickets to our events, so we can keep giving you the great stuff we're famous for... including our May 19 Election Endorsements, which I gotta say are freaking AMAZING. [Side note: Gang, election endorsements are super hard to produce. They require hours upon hours of interviews, research, and soul searching—yet, even with a diminished staff and in the middle of a crisis, our incredible news team (Alex Zielinski and Blair Stenvick, with an assist from our Bobby Roberts and myself) somehow put this incredibly researched and impressive endorsement list together for you—while still performing their daily duties of reporting breaking news! WHAAT THAAA FAAAAACK???]

Want Alex and Blair (and all of our loyal, beloved employees) to continue their good work of looking out for you as well as the under-represented in Portland? PLEASE MAKE A RECURRING DONATION if you can. Or buy a ticket to one of our great online shows—that helps too!

WE WANT TO KEEP BEING THERE FOR YOU. As always, we know we are not entitled to this job—but we do it because we love you and love Portland. So I hope you feel the same, and will support us if you're able.

Soooo... hang in there, my babies! Whether you cry-pee or not, I adore you and I'm rooting for you as well. Talk to you soon!

yer always pal,
Wm. Steven Humphrey
Editor-in-Chief
Portland Mercury