Pandemic Blues (Spring).
When Dad passed away, I knew it was a new era. No more of his presence meant things would change on the inside and out, for better or worse. He almost had hit the U.S. average of male life expectancy by a pinch (78.54 years to his 78.19) so heâs had about his moneyâs worth. God couldnât have cashed him out at a better time.
To start 2020, I took two weeks off from work for the first time in the six-plus years Iâve been with the company. Iâve met friends I havenât seen in ages. Iâve abandoned non-successful projects in the name of self-care. Iâve re-wrote my diet for the better now that Dad wasnât pumping me with free food âround the clock. Iâve also become the store champion in revenue for the year once again, and learned how not to get stress get the best of me. I had only one sunny day out of the twelve off in February which was extremely disappointing. As all you devils know, heading to New York City never leaves my mind. I promised myself that Iâd make a visit to both Modern Pinball and Sunshine Laundromat, visits Iâve been waiting three years for. I came close. I did visit the city in early March for a check-up and visited Central Park as I called up my Godmother Laura to make Easter plans, leaving only after a half-an-hour when it started to get dark. By then Iâd started to receive inklings of pending changes. The coronavirus was only in the back of my mind, and you normally donât think of these things unless it pertains to you. I dialed up my aunt Theresa and she told me that the city schools and offices were contemplating closing down. I brushed it off like it was nothing, untilâŠ
It was a weekend at work like any other. A regular Sunday. Then it started. A customer asked me for nine mid-range laptops for himself and his co-workers to work from home. I sold them all to him. Thatâs a $3,100+ ticket. Another older man came in looking for five printers and ten monitors for his business. I couldâve hit the jackpot if only we had enough but we didnât, but we piece-mealed whatever we could from other stores and that was another $1,500+. More customers and business owners came in to buy buy buy whatever they could to work at home with no limit and we now had a weekend clearance sale we never planned for. Every man and woman for themselves rushed in to save their jobs and tried grabbing whatever they can. When the weekend was over, they wiped us out of all our essential stock. Webcams, budget laptops, and monitors went clean off the shelves. We were fucking bewildered.
One outstanding memory I had of last yearâs outbreak was seeing someone eye-ing over all-in-ones. After twenty minutes of no one asking him for assistance, I finally got him. He already had as much time under his belt deciding which way to go: Windows or Mac? He had lots of questions for me, and took me on a world tour of my own department to see which of three units he wanted to take home with him. Fine by me, because being in the presence of his brown-eyed peanut-butter haired daughter was all that mattered. Imagine Jessica Chastain in her late twenties and neck-length hair wearing a green St. Patrickâs Day shirt with a beige clover on it and blue jeans. Somewhat conservative and reserved but she was nice 100% all throughout. Thatâs more I could say than most people on the island or in my life Iâve met. An hour later, her dad finally decided on a high-end unit. âWrap it upâ he said. âThank you for your time and purchaseâ I say, and itâd be the only time I would ever see her. Eventually, I noticed more customers coming in wearing masks. A different father-and-daughter pairing didnât get it right wearing theirs under their chins, a half-assed way to at least fend themselves from the poison going on. Later on, two young female best-friends asked me for a Nintendo Switch. When they saw I had the Animal Crossing version, they suddenly asked for two more. Done. Knock yourselves out.
Within one week our store changed operations on a near-daily basis. We shortened our hours, then limited our total number of occupants to appointments only. By mid-week our store was closed to the public and it was all phone-orders and curbside pick-ups. Salespeople became impromptu warehouse and back-end runners. We couldnât believe what we were experiencing. We were literally witnessing the slow gradual death of our traditional operating model. Corona- finally arrived and everyone was on edge not knowing what was coming next. Then we got the call from corporate: âall New York stores to be shut down indefinitely until further notice. Pack it up and go home. Expect a call from us in a few weeksâ.
This was unreal! Our positions were in limbo. It felt like we were let go yet still employed otherwise. Meaning: furlough. Weâd be fortunate enough to hold our titles and be kept on the payroll while we were mandated to stay home. Later as I learned, the âessentialsâ as deemed, still had to work on through as a necessity to others; pegged to deal with the public who had no foresight as to how serious it would be. Before heading home indefinitely, I walked next door to the market. Never had I seen meat and paper shortages. Bare shelves of canned goods, frozen vegetables, pasta, and rice like the world was ending. There was no timetable for lockdown or how itâd last. I was now in competition with everyone else to stay alive. Count my high cards that an long-term food shortage was not the case.
If only Dad wouldâve lived long enough to see this unfold. Heâd be forceful enough for me to stay home with him like some early exits from my location did. I can imagine that even if my bro- didnât yell at him to stay home, Dad would say âhey, fuck you!â and drive out to see his friends. He literally fell of heart failure, and if that didnât get him, would the -virus? Could he survive it with his expiring health and the spectre of death on impatient delay? Since Dad fed me almost daily, heâd feel very sad and broken if he couldnât bring food home for me. Heâs not here on this Earth anymore to do that, so it was time to change it up. The haunt of immuno-compromization had me thinking to cut the crap and go healthy.
My ex- Yenny, the most cautious person in the world, sent me directions on how to make my own mask which I did out of old worn-out tees. Welcome to the new real dystopia. The first aesthetic of the pandemic was in the form of this makeshift cloth mask dampened with my own carbon-monoxide emanating the smell of damp stale cotton. Back to the neighborhood Chop Nâ Drop I go. I stockpiled on fruits, vegetables, broth, anti-oxidants, juices, dark chocolates, nuts, and seltzer water. The moment of spending money on real food was the moment I started making real meals; the mixture of Idaho and sweet potatoes, celery, carrots, and vegetable broth aerated a distinct spring of fumes forever tied to these months in isolation. A daily carousel of apricots, oranges, cauliflower, tomatoes, and green peppers were a wonderful much-needed addition I had to have from now on. Visits to Bullseye had plenty of food, albeit the shelves were disorganized and the essential workers were overwhelmed. Idolatry was only steps away and to stock up on whatever non-perishables I could find, then threw them on the belt where the young silent Spanish girl who didnât feel like being there was waiting for me at the register.
I noticed all around me that things were a littleâŠdifferent. Most of us were given things we never imagined. Youâd never think of being home for months to have the opportunity to catch up on a life they once had no time for. People finally caught up on cleaning, pursing through personal belongings, old photos and memorabilia, reading lists and vinyl records that piled up. Imagine all the things said about not having to travel to work, or staying home to work, or not working at all. They were right. No such thing as stress. No managers shoving daily quotas or finding faults down your throat. No awkward moments, lack of courtesy, rudeness, or interruptions. No immature adults turning into bus-ride children competing for your attention or older women stamping their feet when being reminded of how out of line they were. It was total bliss.
Most of us had all the time in the world to shit ourselves in our front-row seats for what we were seeing. Itâs all happening next door in New York City, fatally crowned the epicenter of the worst pandemic of our lifetimes. We were The Death Nation. The deaths came at such an expedient rate that literal dead bodies were lined up outside the cityâs funeral parlors. By then, restaurants closed. Businesses closed. Stadiums, theaters, arcades, bars closed. Schools and universities were canceled. Even Easter, the next social holiday in lineâŠclosed. The nationâs unemployment rate spiked high as 15% as people pounded on the doors on a broken system to have their unemployment benefits or loans in hand as soon as possible. No meta-game suffered distinctly than the music and venue industry. Artists, operators, and promoters had their livelihoods taken away from them in an instant; forced to make a living improvising on live-streaming. They just lost their selves overnight. Now, they held on tight for their own stability and sanity; hoping to reach for that brass ring while riding on a lagging carousel engulfed in flames.Â
Over at WUSB, the show still had to go on. Our general manager disallowed any further staff to enter the studios. As most planned to live-stream from their homes, I opted to send my shows in. For the entirety of spring (and summer) Iâd hand my shows in our engineerâs at-home automation for broadcast. Saturday 10:00PM Eastern Standard Time on the dot, no error. I had all the time in the world to post on Ω+, my portfolio VMFX, and get Our Lady Omega finally up to speed without worry of deadlines, distraction, or needless interruption. It was when I rifled through many auditions burning on the hard drive. Cleaners From Venusâ âThe Jangling Manâ couldnât have come at a better time, signifying a cancelled Easter intended to be spent with my Godmother now at home. I never heard it ever but it yet it sounded familiar before. The cassette fidelities and a certain â89-â90 recorded feeling that took me back to my Nintendo youth becomes a new forever memory. Shoegaze and post-punk cuts such as Ingâs âClosetâ, Millyâs âTalking Secretâ, Esâ âHidden Trackâ, and Miserableâs âLoverboyâ, to name a few, have indisputably defined the pandemic eraâs soul.
But enough of that for today. Down comes Mario, my five year-old nephew whoâs yearning to play. Dad / Pop is no longer here, so itâs me heâs looking forward to seeing every day to try and win me on Uno or Candy Land while ginger-superior Madelaine Petsch / Cherry Blossom or Hayley Orrantia were on the flat-screen. We had nights where heâd chose a deck from my collection and weâd make separate piles out of suits. Heâd play some good ones, too: the âJuniorâ of Hearts, the âMomâ of Diamonds, and the âDadâ of Spades he calls them. Aces were âsooper!â and the jokers had their own narrative: a clown on the unicycle was riding to 7-11 to get some Slurpees for us. (Once in a while, a horse-head or the word âMAVERICKâ in cowboy caps- for those wild ones.) What kind of an imagination is this? And he loved Monopoly, too. We played so much that it inspired another aesthetic forever tied to the pandemic. Solid oranges and sky blues against the CRTâs, and Monopoly symbols of trains and utilities helped create sets of icons for a series of graphics templates Iâve made.
Red bottles with blue and red labels of now-discontinued blue liquid soap. Blocks of green and white cleanser cubes cased in plastic. Bulbs of blue and purple diffusing liquid. Cucumber sanitizer. Theyâre all symbols of cleanliness. All the time in the world posting, sound-editing, and layouts prove exhaustive at times. Itâs 1AM Eastern Standard Time in New York City / Long Island and an open window allows the smoky cold chill of a 50°April breeze to vacate downstairs. Itâs an invitation to step outside and admire the clear moonless skies. No clouds, only the stars above. I sit in my backyard to hear near-total silence emanating from the expressway. The asphalt rushes were a bare minimum because no one had a reason to travel. The utmost quiet was enough for the nostalgia to vacate right in. The cold, clear, quiet spring Saturday and Sunday nights spent with my Plainview circle of friends. Weâd talk shit about everyone we knew, what our favorite Green Day, The Offspring, Collective Soul, or Nine Inch Nails songs were, and matching up with the alternative girls I never met before. The post-dinner April starlights spent shivering with Cath- off the busy Sunrise Highway admitting how much I missed her and how it felt when she succumbed to the heroin demon, the drives down random gas stations to save her ass, or the rare night rides from campus to take her home after my Wednesday radio stint. The temperatures also matched the experience of visiting Central Park for the very first time while an essential contact was in the back of my mind, her text asking how my day in New York City waited for me when I arrived home. It kills me that these are rare moments Iâll never have back. To this day that Iâm still paying emotional interest on them.
Rinse, repeat. For two months there was no place to go. No work shifts, classes, ballgames, weekend traffic, or Sunday dinners demarcating the days of the week. Saturdays were Tuesdays. Sundays were Mondays. No one ever humanly experienced a blur of time where every day was literally the same. Then a phone call. âOperations are re-opening. Be here Sunday and ready to start packing.â What my manager shouldâve said to me: âbe ready to be crucifiedâ. I told myself itâs the last week of May. Three days to get back into it. The spoils of staying home from work once again with financial security and benefits intact will end. Slowly but surely things will pick up again. The floodgates will soon open and here come the entitled Karens, ugly kniving fishwives, dumbshit Tonyâs From Brooklyn, and whatever unkempt messes who somehow still manage to breathe will tug my shirt for attention or see me as a whipping boy for their insignificant grievances I never asked for.Â
If the quarantine made many lives a nerve-wracking unbearable hell for some people, then what happened next would be the breaking point: footage posted of Minneapolis police murdering George Floyd sent people into the streets in an outrage, and rightfully so. Short-Term Memory America didnât learn and repeated their mistakes once again. No surprise there. The unnecessary needless precursory murders of Breonna Taylor and Armaud Arbury led up to the stateâs latest nationwide collapse of unrest.
It took the latest event of racism and murder for everyone to finally come outside since the start of the pandemic and show what they were hiding for the longest time. Frustrated adult-male mouth-breathers acting out like total jerkoffs throwing their childish ignorance and building blocks in more reasonable mature peopleâs faces, and unattractive vanilla pig females turned into cartoon versions of themselves as they yapped multitudes of n-bombs and were damn proud of it. Cutting noses and spiting their own faces; doing whatever it takes at all costs to preserve their personal right and false constructs in treating people-of-color like garbage. Bulletin-board bruisers and ultimate keyboard warriors finally brought it out for all of the world to see. Others, however, had enough of their friends, family, co-workers, and fellow human beings being shot, beaten, or killed based on the color of their skin. They came to protest, picket, fight in the streets, and set it all in flames because enough was enoughâŠenough of a corrupt racist celebrity president whoâs done absolutely nothing except write off white supremacists and dismissed the coronavirus as a hoax. It all came down to this after living in an irrational anything-goes backwards presidency, all because the Fascist-in-chief cared for no one but himself, his family, and those who pledged their allegiance to him.
If the last four years provided us some out-of-this-world ridiculousness, what else wouldâve been possible? Weâve experienced a hell like no other. We genuinely lived in fear that we could reach the point of no return. No one had any idea what was in store for us or how bad it couldâve been; during an election year, nonetheless.Â
Where Iâm heading is another story. I drive home down Rt. 25 and there are clusters picketing on the side of the road. One supporting Black Lives Matter, one for Tr*mp 2020. Summerâs on her way and the new heat was here; the allegory of pent-up frustration and emotion which everyone was feeling exacerbated by the pandemic. The possibilities were spring-loaded in the back of my mind and made me on edge, not knowing what could happen.Â
All I, and us, could think about was when this would all end, and when we could go back to life as we knew it. We were holding out on all hope that something had to give. When will we be open for business again? When would be all go back to what it used to be, or what would âthe new normalâ be? Will we change course and advert a national crisis, or will be dig ourselves a totalitarian grave so deep we wonât crawl out of? Will we have reason, rationality, science, humanity, and common sense back again, or will we have hatred, nastiness, cruelty, and contempt kept in place for traditionâs sake and have it rammed down our throats until we die sick of it?
It was the three most surreal months of my life. True uncharted territory; no map, no compass. And Spring wasnât even over. Not just yet. As everything was unfolding and unraveling, something else was headed my way. A season that was anything but normal was going to end on an even more bizarre and curious note. Not in the form of more shutdowns, sickness, emptiness, or despair; but of someone who reached out to me.
Cleaners From Venus âThe Jangling Manâ
Damp âDeath, Sex & Arbyâsâ
Future Islands âDay Glow Fireâ
Lisel âDigital Light Fieldâ
Milly âTalking Secretâ
Stardeath & White Dwarfs âWhat Keeps You At Nightâ
Miserable âLoverboyâ
Districts âCheap Regretsâ
Snarls âWalk In The Woodsâ
Strobobean âKeep It Togetherâ
Katie Tempest âPeopleâs Facesâ
Penelope Isles âRoundâ
Shopping âAll Or Nothingâ
