Thursday March 19, 2020
The party’s over.
Been fun laughing at this punk ass. The tool sure deserves it.
But you can’t stop math.
More businesses close. Nobody wants to have a play date with my kid. And all of my strategies and punches and kicks and devices to beat Covid and have him suck my balls, to this point, have failed.
One week in and he is more powerful than ever and his power continues to grow.The dates for possibly reopening are continually being pushed back. Now it’s not just end of March but end of April and there’s even talk of June. The thinking is singular. All must stop.
I’m tired. I’m weak. I take a shot to the head and go down and lay on the mat. The ref is counting and I’m wondering whether or not to get up. The London report came out and I read it last night. It says without measures in place Covid, that non-nucleus son of a bitch, will kill 2 million Americans. Fucking covid the slovid? Doing that?
And here I am in the ring with the son of a bitch. I’ve made fun of him for days. I picked a fight with that viral asswipe.
Chill. Chill. Chill.
You know what, you don’t have to do this.
I can just wash my hands and not go outside so much and deal with the fact that life on my green pastoral shores might never be the same and that perhaps there are some things you shouldn’t be shouting suck my balls at. Man, I sit here in this ring any longer, I might even get it. Covid might have me suck HIS balls. Maybe…shudder…I already am?
As I lay semi-conscious on the mat, more voices of doubt raise themselves up and shout into my soul: How does a man fight a virus anyway? This is stupid. What, I’m going to put on gloves and beat it? You’re in this fight and you say you’re fighting Covid… but maybe you’re just fighting, well, something else. Your own phantoms, perhaps. Who, really, is afraid right now? Who? You say you’re not afraid of Covid, well the fuck sure is on your mind a lot. You ridicule and lambaste others for hiding away, but isn’t it your own fear that is driving you, a fear of losing your own livelihood and life? Isn’t that what makes you act out and attack this stupid disease?
Maybe Covid takes many, many forms. Maybe the disease isn’t Covid at all but the things we all believe in the dark places of our hearts when pushed to confront the end of things. Maybe you are covid buddy, maybe there are other things for you to fight, inside your own heart, and soul. Maybe it is time for you to admit the best you can do is…
Just nut up and love everyone.
That’s right. Live in a yellow fucking submarine and try to save the weak and the old and do your part and hum Kumbaya and accept that this is the way of things, that there is no way out, that maybe your fighting days are over, son. Maybe it is time to join the group, to nod in unison, accept your own failings and the limits to life on your pastoral green shores and learn the steps everyone else is doing and do them the best that you can.
After all, just what are you trying to preserve, buddy? Just what is it you think you can win?
Oh the guilt, oh the shame, oh the doubt! I can see all of their faces lined up, all staring at me now, nodding in pity…see…do you see…don’t you see your toxicity coming through? You think Covid is ever going to suck your balls? Nobody is ever going to suck your balls. Maybe it is your balls that are the problem, friend. Maybe…
No! No! No!
It’s not just about my balls! And who sucks them! It’s not just that at all!
I am a human being! I have a brain! I can use it! Covid doesn’t have a fucking brain. Covid doesn’t even know what a brain is! Fuck that asshole. Fuck that asshole and the zombies he would make of all us. Fuck him! If Covid, the brainless fucknut terrorizing old people is the problem, then becoming brainless myself, whether out of guilt or fear or love or shame, is not the solution!
I am a human! Humans have brains! I will be human! And up or down, right or left, backwards or sideways…I will use mine to the end.
I’m not being the best I can be, when life demands it of me, by shutting down what’s between the ears. Or in the deepest recesses of my heart. Or in my soul, where the dreams of my child, my wife, and myself are lodged. Nobody has access to that. Nobody turns that off. Certainly not some bitch ass non-nucleus tool who wants to fuck up my home.
Well one thing I know I am doing is getting the fuck up off this mat.
Suck my balls Covid. Suck em. I thought.
I have laughed at you and poked fun at you and made fun of all those who would fear a cold virus, and still you live on. I’ve played in your face and goofed around, and still you live on. I’ve refused to be afraid of you, and still you live on. You grow, you spread, you wipe out life as I know it in my town. I don’t know who you are, or what can be done, but one thing is for certain…
You’re gonna suck my balls before this is done.
And…
Click boom bust, a swing, a punch, I post this to facebook and the fight is on:
So we’re all in our homes now. Schools are closed. Jobs are on the line. Life has stopped. And certain orthodoxies have been established in order for us to rationalize all of this and move on. Okay.
I struggle with the notion that we must assume the worst case scenario when crafting our approach to fucking Covid. It feels a lot like Bush’s policy of pre-emptive attacks to thwart terror back in the day. We don’t know what is going to happen, but we think it might happen, so we’re going to do it first. I wrote a sort of silly opinion piece years ago that talks about where pre-emptive violence goes, and how absurd it is and ultimately is just justification for being a bully. Its nature is clear when you take it to the smaller, domestic level: I wake up and assume my girlfriend is going to drink the last of the milk. So I drink it first. Then I assume she’s going to be mad about the milk being gone, so I leave the house without talking to her to go for a run. On my run I assume she’s going to be mad that I didn’t talk to her and so she’ll think about breaking off the relationship, so I break it off first by hitting on the coffee girl. Then I think she’s going to find the phone number in my jacket, so I go to our apartment and declare, to her utter bewilderment, that the relationship is over.
Yuck. Anyone ever spend some time with catastrophic thinking? With CBT therapy? It’s all designed to thwart and change this sort of behavior. These sort of thought processes. Behavior and thought processes that, on a national level, we are now engaged in.
Wow, such interestingly analysis, Brandon. Chipper!
And everything I’m saying is all beside the point, right? If Covid is this dangerous, in the end what fuck doesn’t want to save 2 million people? I do. Of course I do. If it’s that bad, then yes, this is good. And it is necessary.
I read this article:
(Https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-03-18/coronavirus-poses-dreadful-choice-for-global-leaders-wreck-your-economy-or-lose-millions-of-lives)
And I go, okay…this isn’t pre-emptive violence, this is just and sound policy to save lives, because dude, sorry to say, your girlfriend is covid, she’s super contagious and wants to kill your grandpa, she did drink all the milk and did eat your donut you brought home for breakfast and has been boning the guy down the street and hey, she’s got a knife in her hands…might want to think just a bit about who you enter into relationships with, but you can deal with that later.
But then I read this article:
It deals heavily in statistics, raises many valid points and offers many important questions that I don’t hear being asked elsewhere. It demonstrates that there are so many unknowns. There are so many holes. There is so much that we don’t know, as we continue to approach things from a worst case scenario.
Who’s right? I don’t know.
Left with nowhere else to go, I decided to do a little thought experiment. Why? Because I don’t like orthodoxies. And I am not interested in turning off my mind when there is so much at stake. Because I do think it’s important how we handle ourselves and make decisions when faced with things like Covid. Thinking is important. Emotions feel good. Emotions are fun. Relationships are good. Relationships are fun. Love is good. Love is fun. And thinking is important.
So the thought experiment goes like this — If we take ourselves out of this situation, if we picture that this was happening to someone else, something else, what would it look like? What if any lessons might it reveal? Using the known knowns we have now (to backward paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld), what does this look like and where does it go? It’s just a thought experiment. I read it and I still don’t know. A contribution to the conversation. Something to think about is all. Because maybe continuing to think about this is the point, at this point. Who knows? What the fuck, it worked for James Thurber!
The Herd that Stopped Running
Once there was a herd of antelope that loved to graze in the fields. There were old antelope and young antelope and small antelope and graceful antelope and some antelope with pre-existing conditions like asthma and diabetes. Every year the antelope migrated to rich grasslands in the north. It was a long journey, but worth it. The antelope were hunted, though, by lions along the way.
One year, there were more lions and they were more aggressive. The antelope leader changed his plans and let all the antelope know that he wanted to mitigate against any antelopes being lost, because the model showed that there could be a lot of antelopes lost, particularly the old and those with pre-existing conditions. They weren’t sure just how deadly the lions would be, but they knew they were out there, and that they were coming. Models showed from five to fifteen dead antelopes, many of them old or with pre-existing conditions.
To mitigate against any antelopes being lost, the leader said, the herd would stop running. Once any lions appeared, they would just stop running. No matter that the grasslands awaited. No matter that the grass where they were was growing thin. No matter that the lions would still be waiting for them to move again. No matter that for every day they didn’t run, one of the antelopes would lose their ability to provide for their offspring or for themselves, and maybe not make it to the grasslands at all once the lions were gone.
No. No. No the leader said. We have conflicting data and we’re not sure but we don’t want to lose the old or those with pre-existing conditions, and besides, we might lose some young folks too, and after all, who wants to get to those grasslands at such a cost?
The antelope all agreed. Yes, you’re totally right. This is a good policy. We’ll go and the minute the lions show up we’ll stop running. And we’ll save as many as we can. Screw the grasslands and those lions.
So they left their barren fields and started galloping along and sure enough the lions showed up. So all the herd stopped running. The young, with fresh legs and untamed futures, were told to lie down and sit still. They hadn’t been to the rich grasslands, had only heard stories, and couldn’t wait to get there, find the way, and then go back again and again. But no…their job was to lie down and not move and certainly not go outside. All of the older antelopes needed to survive. And also those with pre-existing conditions.
So they stopped and didn’t move. The lions waited. They stood there and stood there and stood there. Days went by. Then weeks. They ate all the grass. They started to snipe at one another. Some of them built big beautiful artworks. Some played. Some loved. Some wrote bullshit on facebook. Some wandered off on their own looking for the grasslands and were never seen again. Most just stayed. They wanted to help the old and the weak. They wouldn’t run. They were going to save everyone. It could be done.
The lions waited.
Then all of the old antelope died. They were, after all, old.
And when the herd tried to run they were attacked by the lions anyway.
The End