Thursday, March 19, 2020

No business like COVID-ness


Read Part 2

Yet another polarizing social issue, Americans don't know whether to shit their pants or roll their eyes. 


And now we're rolling out an economic stimulus. So, China just effectively sold us $1 trillion pandemic. I mean, who do you think we're borrowing the trillion from? But we should have buyers regret, because we agreed to pay for it. Nothing sells like liability insurance. And that's what all this political correctness is really about, it's certainly not about values, justice or genuine compassion. The counterpoint to liability is opportunity. That's the yin to our yang.

I suppose I should come up with a bumper sticker or a T-shirt idea. 

All viruses matter. The coronavirus ate my homework. I would pray about the coronavirus but according to CDC guidelines two or more cannot gather. At least for two weeks. 

For the generally healthy, catching the virus means eight hours of high fever and then you can get on with your life. But all the emphasis in the media is on it being so contagious and how fast it’s spreading, how it’s going to get you. 

How long are they going to keep this going? As long as people are unable to go anywhere, the media can enjoy eyeballs on televisions, monitors, tablets and phones.


If it's really about conscientiousness, when will it ever really be okay? It's just not sustainable. 

There are some who will talk about trying to protect old people and flattening the curve, and that’s fine, but it’s not worth shutting down the entire economy, killing businesses and ruining lives. And come on, that’s really what this is about. They’ve never handled any other virus this way.

And all in time for the election.

You know who likes to wear masks? Millennials and communists. People who like having rules shoved way up their ass so they feel safe. Next up, who's gonna start shaming and peddling another F'd up government health care plan in the name of rescuing us from COVID?

COVID hysteria harkens back to all the saber-rattling following 911, everyone glued to the TV, watching the invasion of Afghanistan to a soundtrack of symphonic music. Orange alerts and government guidelines recommending duct tape, and all the fashionably non-intrusive black, square W stickers on all the giant gas-guzzling SUVs as we tear into the Middle East. The Toyota Sequoia (2000-2020), the mightiest tree in the forest!

During the immediate aftermath period, anyone who dared question history or whether the terrorists attacked because they 'hate our freedom' was marked as traitorous. After a few months, it was a clear social split and then anyone confused for being on the 'other side' of a 'discussion' became othered as an enemy. I recall an argument around Thanksgiving with one cocky jackass...ummm...my brother-in-law...who bragged how we'd be in and out in three weeks. Fast forward 19 years later, and our administration is just now teasing the idea of bringing our troops home. A lasting military and social quagmire.

Let's not forget, around this same time is when digital killed both the music industry and print. Enter the rise of social media and the death of newspapers, so marks a serious turn in our cultural demise. News and music begin to blur into anything for ratings. Anything other than news or music. And lots of ass. So, retro goes way vogue, mainstream movies and music subsist on regurgitated remakes and that sets the tone and trajectory for the new indie hipsters. And by 2009, we are in a recession. Not long thereafter, all the indie hipsters are playing in retro cover and tribute bands. And that's hip. So much for originality. Long live ass!

Fast forward 20 years or so later, noone remembers how we got here, and Amazon owns the Washington Post as it silently spreads its tendrils across the country like the new Roman Empire.

Regardless of alignment, people suck the tit of media like a cranky baby. So, politics are a fairly predictable puppet show, and the pendulum swings harder and further each way. Pick a team and buckle in for the next episode of Divide and Conquer.

Each President since JFK is more grotesque than the next. It's like watching Elvis, Liberace and Michael Jackson walk into a bar at the start of their careers, all wearing plain suits, and they all end up staggering out as some twisted caricature of themselves wearing capes, giant jewel encrusted glasses, and...looking like Diana Ross. That's entertainment.
But, back to our current crisis and parallel media circus. 

I asked a Chinese friend of mine why the Asians all wear masks. Is it because they feel suspect amongst the xenophobic Americans, or because they actually believe they need to? He said it’s because the Chinese government makes them do it so they are willing to do whatever they need to help. I guess that includes drowning their baby girls in a lake, whatever it takes for the common good.


But as for Americans, no matter how far removed or irrelevant, everyone has something to say. And something to sell. I haven't seen such a frothing swarm of zombie necrophiliacs pile on since Neil Peart died and everybody made their shitty YouTube tribute video. And an email from every corner of existence, anyone who thinks you are their audience, they can find an excuse to draw some attention to themselves surfing the corona wave.

All this nonsense about social distancing. Please, I don’t even like to wear condoms, good luck getting me to wear a mask.

One of the best Saturday nights of my life, I figured the usual crowd would be thinned at Johnny’s Hideaway - aka The Waiting Room of the Damned. Best looking crowd I’ve ever seen there, and just as suspected, plenty of space on the dance floor because all the crypt keepers and idiots stayed home. If this is what it takes to have decent looking women and space at Johnny's, we need to have a pandemic more often. In fact, a friend of mine called me up just before I left and said they were having a coronavirus party.

Right now, round trip tickets from Atlanta to California are $100, $75 to Miami, and the beaches of Spring Break are still packed. 

Look, this is not the plague, this is just a damn flu. You might even say corona has viral privilege. I mean, it's become a most undeserving rock star of a virus, overnight. It's cringeworthy, like COVID is performing a panic cover on American Idol, and The Black Death is squirming uncomfortably amongst the panel of judges, squished appropriately up against a very ghoulish Steven Tyler, and scoffing resentfully '...hell, back in my day...' This is how U2 must feel watching Cold Play.

Surely, the Corona Virus is destined to be Time's Virus of the Year. 


If we are so damn capable of putting emergency medical resources to work, why didn’t we do this with HIV or even herpes. Talk about social distancing, and here we are putting emergency resources towards what for most amounts to an 8-hour fever? We could’ve saved Michael Douglas from throat cancer, or Farrah Faucett from her anal warts. 

LA Fitness is closed for two weeks, then my apartment gym closed. So, I thought to ride over to the river park. As I made my way, I noticed the sidewalks were teaming with walkers and joggers. It’s almost April and people have spring fever, there’s no way in hell this virus is going to shut down the American lifestyle. 

Do you think people who drive SUVs give a fuck about the environment or other people? They’re sure as hell not putting on a mask and doing any social distancing. 

If you’re a big enough of an asshole to post a gym selfie or a sexy yoga pose on IG, you’re sure as hell not missing your opportunity to show off your beach body and new tattooey somewhere when all the pools are closed. Or to show your ass crack if that’s how you like to wear your pants. 


Whatever your demographic, clique or lifestyle, Americans enjoy their freedom. Even if they burn the flag or take a knee at a football game. That’s their idea of freedom of expression, whether they are letting their freak flag fly or just basking in their moment to shock and draw attention. If you want to slap on a wig and chop your dick off and then go into a woman’s restroom, an entire industry will boycott the state if everyone doesn’t happily go along with it. So, what’s so special about this situation? 

Liability is Americas kryptonite. One sniff and we way overcompensate and overcorrect, with lots of posturing and pleasantries. In exchange, everyone jumps on the virtue signaling bandwagon as a cosmetic cover-up, but it’s a marketing opportunity, even if it’s as minute as getting a like on Facebook. 

Athens, GA now has a 9 o’clock curfew to prevent social gathering. It’s a University town, so it's all about liability. That beer can wait. Sucks to be a local.

Hopefully Tom Hanks and his wife pull through and then nobody gives a shit anymore. If this is part of the next round of elaborate political hijinks designed to sink Trump's 2020 re-election by kicking over his economic sandcastle, it's yet another colossal waste. And for what, Joe Biden? The virus will probably take Joe out anyway. 

And the ebbing and flowing rumor of the next recession has been so tantalizing, maybe it would have turned that sandcastle to mush anyway, but apparently, we needed a bigger rumor, we needed it sooner. What? This is no rumor, it's a pandemic! Like police shootings. Gather the mobs and burn our cities to the ground! No, scatter the mobs and shutter your windows and doors. It's the apocalypse!


If Hanks kicks the bucket, he'll miss out on being Oprah’s Vice President in 2024. So, hurry up with that malaria medicine, click those ruby slippers three times, or whatever it is that they're furiously working, all the nebulous solutions they dangle to keep us in indefinite suspense. They can try to convince us there's no place like home, but we know better. Even with 5G.

From the latest article I found on Tom Hanks, sounds like he's already in training for VP, 
saying the symptoms were “much the same … no fever but the blahs. Folding the laundry and doing the dishes leads to a nap on the couch.”