How Sand Looks Very Close Up

For the first time in my entire life, I had no idea what day it was yesterday. Today is only slightly better.

We are in the never ending loop of undefined days. Well, that's not totally true. We have the case counts and death toll rising to give us some sort of benchmark for a passage of time. What is the number for the USA now? Just shy of 153,000? And there is no great rebellion, no massive rise in marches against this state of waves of illness and death. Any rebellion is, at best, localized. The political news has been astoundingly effective at deflecting the conversation away from the plague. One could stand in awe at it if the entire building were not on fire around them.

It is now the last day in July of this year and it just feels like some daze...if one chooses to not go out. Here in New Jersey, the governor has stated that he is going to put in place the previous lockdown measures if people do not stop gathering at 700 people parties, bars and restaurants down at the Jersey show, or just going to the store WITHOUT A DAMN MASK! I have lived in New Jersey for the majority of my life, and I can tell you one thing: no one cares and this weekend will be full of parties and hook-ups and drinking and gatherings everywhere is the blessed Summer sun...and we will be back on severe lockdown again very very very soon. The rise in cases seems to have bothered no one, the release from the imprisonment has made everyone forget about any crime they could commit and the repercussions of them.

We are all in denial one way or the other. I blame this on the lack of national solidarity on to do what is needed for the common good. Organized religion has lost a great deal of ground in the past decades, so sports and the government have had to pick up the needed slack. The concept of community has also broken down. If you don't believe me about things breaking down in the individual cohesiveness of morality, just ask any lawyer the kind of cases they are getting, the type of legal cases that are before a judge. And, while you are at it, ask any public school teacher what the students and parents are like. We are fractured and amusing ourselves to death. 

Do not take my comments as an absolute. There are, and always will be, wonderful and caring people. However, in the distant past of six months ago, the actions of those who were selfish and cared for their own personal interests were not directly felt on a day to day basis by the general populous. But that has changed and the fact that there is over 4.5 million cases of the virus in the US, with no sign of stopping,  speaks for itself.

This nation is fracturing on many levels and a crash of the stock market would just have it fall into an abyss. This is because there would be no way of hiding behind the illusion of a healthy economy. I say "illusion" because stocks have had their fourth straight months of gains while the GDP has fallen over 32% in the last quarter, a number that has surpassed the Great Depression of the 1930's. When the next quarter result comes in and that number is tragic again, I would not be surprised of the great reckoning arriving. 

There are many who have entered this plague with their heads already in the sand as to the world around them. There are others who plunged into the sand when they could not take it anymore. But there are some of us who are just so damn weary of the same day repeating over and over again, like the character Raymond Rambert playing his one album over and over again every day, whose backs are growing sore and keeping our heads from just collapsing and diving head first into the sand just so we can stop the pain and maybe get a good night's sleep. 

By the way, it is Summer out there. If you do touch your face to the sand right now, you will get burned. Trust me, you will be burned

Running Out of Ink: The Photocopying of Time

We are in a photocopy loop of repeating days, and we are running out of Ink.

To those who may remember those days, there was a time when bands used to put up ads for their shows via wheat pasting black and white copies of their flyers all over the place. You could tell what generation the image was by how blurry and faded it was. Well, this is exactly what it felt like to be within this pandemic, this horrible copy of the previous day where reality and sanity are fading. 

Okay, it is not horrible via the definitions of the past. It is not a dark post-nuclear war landscape outside. Neither is it a massive military presence due to a government coup. On the surface, all things seem like a Sunday in Spring: less traffic, some stores closed, and people walking outside during the day. But I believe that is the largest part of the problem. Things seem normal on the surface, but they are not.

Speaking personally, it is taxing. I was speaking with a close friend last night who is a fellow Musician. This whole pandemic has destroyed the paradigm of how we define ourselves. We have had our very life changed in every way. We have no places to play, no place to even meet up and discuss our lives and concerns. And please don't think of this as silly. The Cedar Tavern is famous for having many many many famous artists gather inside on a regular basis. While creative people are loners by nature to get their work done, we also crave to not be alone and mingle with friends. In brief, we are human beings.

The news is showing we are just shy of 147,000 deaths from the virus. This staggering number, which is simply going to rise, seems to be ignored by everyone. There is no panic here in New Jersey because, well, it is believed we have been though the fire and cannot be touched. People are tempting fate and that is not a good  thing.

This eternally repeating day is why I have been so bad at keeping this journal going. In the beginning, this was all new and one would wake in the morning confronting this new reality. But things have just kept repeating and there is a numbness that has has come over everything. You can always put off something till tomorrow because there will always be free time tomorrow.  And that does not seem the changing  any time soon. The news is blurring together and leaves one anxiety stricken on all fronts, until one just shuts down and do something to kill time until sleep.

We are in the digital age and one can make an infinite number of copies without any degrading of the image. And that would be horrible if it were to be mimicked by life. Those blurry band flyers showed that the image had a lifespan, a history. These days are more like that. A new day arrives and the previous day is repeated, but the ocean of time continues to carry us forward even if will never be able to touch the horizon. 

Camus talks about this feeling of being caught in a haze of repeating days. I THOUGHT I knew what that was before this, but now I believe I totally comprehend. 

So, I will do my best to write in this blog tomorrow...hopefully one that happens sooner rather than later.

On Rebellion Within Plague

"At this point Father Paneloux evoked the august figure of Bishop Belzunce during the Marseille plague. He reminded his hearers how, toward the close of the epidemic, the Bishop, having done all that it behooved him, shut himself up in his palace, behind high walls, after laying in a stock of food and drink. With a sudden revulsion of feeling, such as often comes in times of extreme tribulation, the inhabitants of Marseille, who had idolized him hitherto, now turned against him, piled up corpses round his house in order to infect it, and even flung bodies over the walls to make sure of his death. Thus in a moment of weakness the Bishop had proposed to isolate himself from the outside world, and, lo and behold, corpses rained down on his head! This had a lesson for us all; we must convince ourselves that there is no island of escape in time of plague. No, there was no middle course. We must accept the dilemma and choose either to hate God or to love God. And who would dare to choose to hate Him?"

(To begin, for reasons I am not sure, it seems Camus got this historically wrong according to what I could find. Still, it is a relevant story, even if it is false.)

It seems that things are not holding together very well out there, and I did not expect any different.

As I type this, the television is announcing that the number of virus deaths in the USA is: 140,563. That is an insane number and it is only going to rise. Florida has an 18% positivity rate. To make it simple to imagine, if you have five friends in a room, one has the virus. Make that picture be in every square mile of Florida. Yeah, that's huge. But the people of the nation seem to not care.

The story Father Paneloux tells shows that biology and humanity will get their way if you ignore them. In most of the country, the virus is spreading and it does not seem to be slowing. Here in New Jersey, we are going down or are steady. From what a friend told me on the phone yesterday, you would have idea that there was a pandemic going on in the shore town of Asbury Park. Other than the restaurants being outside, it was the same. No masks, people close together. Okay, well, let's hope the heat and being outside helps keep the transmission low.

It seems that people are not taking this seriously in most of the country and that wearing a mask has become a political thing. Again, I won't go into that, simply because it is just something I have a hard time believing, that science is now a political Make Your Own Story. Well, we are paying for this and paying for it hard. The virus is just doing what it does and spreading like crazy, with the added bonus that wealthy and powerful people can get a test at any time and have results come back very quickly. Meanwhile, the working class have to wait in their cars for hours and have to wait over a week for the results. 

People can tolerate a great deal of inequity for a certain amount of time if the suffering is kept to a minimum and when the poor cannot really taste the difference between the divide. But a test for a virus is a test that works for all people. The poor now realize how screwed they are when they cannot get tested and the upper part of the economic spectrum can get a test a day without any problem. 

This country has seen a wave of protests that have once again shown the racial issues that we have forever seemed to deal with since, well, forever. One would have to be foolish to think that this virus did not act as the gasoline that was lit with the match of the violent acts which happened in Minneapolis. The people in my beloved city rebelled and took to the streets. This led to places all over the world having mass gatherings to protest inequality, showing a global rebellion. 

In the book "The Plague", there is only light reference to actual riots in the streets. But, it must be noted that the main character Tarrou was a political revolutionary, a former rebel who has seen the fault in his way of life and is now simply trying to be, as is stated a saint who does not believe in God. But it is he who starts the volunteer squads who help with the plague when the local authorities are helpless due to the machinery of bureaucracy. His rebellion now takes form of fighting against the plague and even gets Rambert, the trapped journalist who is trying to escape, to join the fight. 

If we are to believe, as Camus states, that this world is absurd and the only thing we can do to find meaning is to rebel against it to become happy, then we are now at a point where everyone can rebel and the fruits be shown. If we were to all fight against this pandemic, all of us do our part, the unification of the people would lead to a sense of hope. Think London during the Blitz of WW2. We would see the similarity within humanity before any difference. Well, ideally anyway.

But now, with the wealthy and famous behind their walls and the common people who feel powerless;ess choosing to show their power by not wearing masks, there is no unity. This has, I believe shown the level of selfishness within the country and the lack of unity that was always under the surface, with the virus and the protests causing the truth to be exposed. I can only imagine that the tide will turn when those who have been able to be far away from the majority of the country, as well as those in the larger community who choose to rebel by not wearing a mask or take precautions, will have themselves or others close to them die. from the virus.

Why does this remind me of the the gospel passages that speak of "weeping and gnashing of teeth"? It is mentioned when Jesus talks about the of the unrighteous ones upon the time of judgement. I can envision, rather easily, the look on a doubter''s face  when they or someone they love gets the virus and is in the ICU. There is no religious talk here, just the moment when someone realizes they could have stopped a tragedy and did not. People chose their path and the results just happen.

If all it takes to rebel within this pandemic, if nothing else but to be a rebel against a foe that has killed over 140,000 people, please...just wear a mask and be that rebel.

The Ballad of Cottard: A Barefoot Waltz on Death Row

The USA is just shy of 137,000 deaths from the virus in under four months and there is no end in site.

If this were said via a panicked voice on a blackened movie screen in a theater, your heart would start racing. You could see the premise of panic as clear as day. But why have we become so numb to a reality that would have freaked us out as fiction? Well, isn't that the place where our brains fear to go?

We are heading into an abyss when it comes to the infection and death rate outside of the Eastern most places in the USA. New Your and New Jersey are not going down anymore, but are stable. That's nice to know, but there is still a risk and that, let's be honest, is scary. Within this moment the situation is as follows: You can go out without a mask and roll one dice to see if your number comes up. If you go out with a mask, it is two, maybe three dice. 

And, I have to make this sidebar comment. People who have bravado (i.e. delusion) say, "Hey! I could get hit by a car every single time I go out! You always take a chance! Screw it!" Okay, well, that's true, the pick-up truck that plows into you without your seatbelt on will physically effect the parties involved in the accident. You took the chance, you pay the cost to the dealer when you get the wrong hand. But, what if that car had the chance to plow into your home as well? Or your mom's house or someone else's house you saw that afternoon? Our idea of individual freedom and taking personal responsibility for it within a nation that has not gone to an official war with a draft of its best and brightest is far from reality.

Arizona, Texas, and Florida are lighting up like a bingo board on fire when it comes to cases. With mask wearing having become a political issue, we have come as close as we could to any Old Testament Bible story crushing a nation as anyone in history. Religion on its own does not supply all the answers. Science alone does not supply all the answers. I love both very deeply and have faith in them. At the core of both is a very hard end point: there are no absolute or easy answers. Ever.

To follow blindly is a right we have within this country. However, there is always an effect after the cause. If you want to protest that the Northern White Rhinoceros was the last point of the Divine in the world, you are allowed to protest, write letters to the editor, get a press agent, have a Facebook, twitter, and Reddit page to state your beliefs. But the cause and effect of these beliefs and protests, outside of illegal activities of violence, will not effect others. Not wearing a mask and allowing close gatherings in a time of pandemic will effect others. All one has to do is look at the stats of deaths today and the proof will be there.

I honestly cannot find a link to the book "The Plague" within all this.....well, maybe there is one.

The character of Cottard is the only one happy when plague breaks out. This is because, as someone who was on the run from the law for an undisclosed serious crime, he feels free when the town turns into a prison. In the novel, Cottard tries to commit suicide and fails. The main character, Dr. Rieux, is called to him by M. Grand, something of a beautiful and absurd character who is Cottard's neighbor. When Rieux treats the man for his injury, he states that he (Rieux) must tell the police of this because, if he does commit suicide in the future, there would be deep legal problems for Rieux. 

Normally, according to the book, this is literally nothing of any importance for the police. Official paperwork to avoid a lawsuit later. But for Cottard, it is the worst news. As he is on the run and hiding in Oran, to have the police even know his name is akin to being thrown in prison. Still, Rieux and Grand win out, and the police are called. Afterwards, nothing happens to him, except the plague comes to town.

But Cottard overplays his hand. Instead of laying low or even escaping to somewhere else via illegal means, he stays in town and makes a a great deal of money in the smuggling business as Oran is hurting for just about everything and those that are still alive will pay anything for what they want. In the end, the authorities figure him out via his noticed position in the illegal affairs, and he is arrested at the end of the book. 

His character is really talked about in analysis of the book and that is a shame. Granted, he is not a huge character in the book, his presence has a great deal of importance. He was forever living under a death sentence, never knowing how or when he would be found. Within a city that was a lottery based death chamber, he felt at home and at peace because everyone was in his shoes for the first time. 

Let's all go barefoot and never be happy in this present place, shall we?

On the Anniversary of a Nation...that Plays in Traffic

Tomorrow is the anniversary of this country and we are all getting tested on freedom...

As I unfortunately predicted, the numbers all over the country are growing, and are growing fast. We are just shy of 129,000 deaths and I have no doubt we will pass that number by a good margin within the next four days. I have to be honest, I get very angry at what I am seeing. This part of the country got thrown into the pit of all this in the beginning and our lives were changed, and many for forever. We lost lives. We lost our jobs. But we all chose to do what was needed to stop this horror, and it WAS a horror. 

While it is understandable that people far away do not think it will happen to them, it was the bloom of the present cancerous ideology that had people believe they knew better and that they desired their freedom to not have their lives changed over something that was not happening to them. But I firmly believe that it was not a choice based on freedom, but one based on not getting caught. These people who desire to not wear a mask follow other rules that impede their behavior. They drive more or less in the mandated speed on the roads. They wear their seatbelts. They don't drink and drive. They demand that their food be prepared properly at a restaurant so it doesn't make them sick. They wear clothes when they live the house and enter a store. They don't walk in the middle of busy highways. And there is the catch.

If you drive 90 miles per hour in an active school zone, you will get busted. You go naked into a store, the cops will be called. You get busted when you do things like that. And all those things are done for the common good. But there was no penalty for not staying at home, for not wearing a mask, so people did it. All of us here on the East Coast saw people getting ill and dying so we knew there would be a price to pay for our actions. But others saw what we were going through and didn't want to believe it would happen to them.

As I have said many times before, biology and physics care nothing of one's desires. This virus has spread with Texas and Florida getting slammed. Now, after the horses have left the burning barn, they are trying to change course and have people wear a mask outside and close gathering places. Remember that burns barn I just spoke of? Well, take it from me, that is the life of those in the states that ignored the issue because they wanted to be free to make a choice. 

I have just heard on the news that the Florida governor is asking that people stay home this holiday weekend. Even a gas station microwave burrito has enough brains to know that is not going to happen. People will gather and they will mock it. But you never laugh at the devil as you will have hell to pay. Cases will shoot up and the hospitals will be overwhelmed because of their choices.

The second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence says we have the right life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That is what we are celebrating tomorrow. But the first part of The Constitution says we are to promote the general welfare. If you have faith in physics, then you must agree upon the "Butterfly Effect" that states all actions have an effect upon all others, no matter how minute they may seem. We learned that here is New Jersey very fast but it seems most of the other parts of the country will have to learn it the hard way.

It seems that, alas, humanity must learn things the hard way.

Driving on a Rainy Night Upon Dangerous Roads...

In the end, it shall forever rest upon the free will each of us has....

Okay, I have been silent for almost a week and my apologies to all of you who have been coming here. But, I have been blindsided by how all the sacrifices we on the East Coast have made over the past FOUR MONTHS have been burned to the ground by the other places in this country. Like, what the f*ck? Did everyone else in the country think that those scenes of corpses in convince store refrigeration trucks, not to mention the mass graves in NYC, a joke?????

But if I take step back, how many thousands of times have I looked at news footage of foreign countries where there has been a massive tragedy and just dusted it aside? Yeah, okay, fine, yes, you have a point that this is a VIRUS and IN THE SAME COUNTRY where I live. But, it seems that unless you are having to deal with it yourself in some real way, you can just float along the Sea of Denial and not care.

People here in New Jersey have decided to drop an anvil on their collective feet and go to bars down the shore without wearing masks and crushed together like sardines on a Tokyo subway at rush hour. I am so weary that I cannot even do a face-palm move. All I know is that it now looks likely that the numbers will increase again and we will be screwed. Mark my word, in two weeks this will all get nasty.

NYC seems to be ready to do the same and I am not amused. Again, everyone wants to get out and be in the presence of another human in the flesh. But this is not under the same burnout that it was like in "The Plague". In the book, people came to a point where they just didn't care and went out for human contact. It was one city and they could feel the rest of the outside world being free. In the end, for the people of Oran, you just rolled the dice because it was unfair how they got screwed and the rest of the world didn't. Despair is rarely a good bedfellow.

But that's not the case here, for the most part. The WORLD got this thing, so the idea of "other" was non-existent. But people's reality tends to go as far as where they drive. So, while we were having WAWA Store refrigeration trucks used for emergency morgues and mass graves in NYC, they thought it would never happen to them. Biology is amoral and just does what it wishes. Now, the rest of the country is having to deal with what we on the East Coast have had to do, and we may wind up in the thick of it again by August.

Fear brings out the worst in people and the fact that wearing a mask has become a political statement is beyond me. Yes, masks suck and I do not like wearing them. But it seems like such a small inconvenience when compared to either death or permanent lung damage after a hellish illness. In the end, it comes down to the people to desire to do all for the common good.

Another odd parallel is that, also in the book, the bureaucratic mechanisms in the book were not enough to truly help out with the crisis. It took volunteers to come forward to help out, with these people knowing that they would most likely die in the process. This was done via the work of the character Tarrou and almost all the main characters step up and do something. Here, there is this disconnect between the federal government and the state government which is causing havoc with everything. To confound things even more, mayors are disagreeing with governors. There is no clear message to the country. It is not that everyone is left guessing, but that everyone seems distrustful of each other as taking precautions has become a political statement. Thankfully, that was not in the book, as no. one would ever have believed it.

Back in very late 1997, a guitarist who changed my life was killed in an automobile accident. The official account was that he skidded off the road during a rainy night while driving treacherous roads in Northern California. They found him days later via a road repair crew that was doing work. His loss was, to many in the Music world, an absolute     shock and injustice. Personally, I had just seen him a short time before at what would be his last performance ever. He was 43 years old and about to turn 44. His performance showed that he was doing something no one could have believed: reaching new heights of passion, performance, and invention. It was so inspiring to see him play, especially that time.

To this day, I keep wondering why he was driving those hills at that late hour? If he had just gone slower, maybe this would not have happened? If he had just pulled over and slept in his car or a motel or hotel earlier in the evening or taken a less hazardous path? Sure, that would have delayed him, but it turns out that amount of time was nothing compared to the absolute loss. I am not blaming him for the accident, nor for his death. My wonder is about, what if he had just taken a safer road that took longer? But these are nothing more than the dreams of someone who is alive about someone they knew who died. What if we could just have the chance to not have the one piece the narrative be there and a better one in its place? I miss him as a musical inspiration. I miss many other friends every day who have passed on. I think about the one or two things that I would change to have them still around: go to the doctor a month earlier, quit smoking, get them help sooner, etc. At one point or another, we all want to go back in time and change something in the past so that we would have a better present and future.

I believe that we are in that collective place now and we are wasting it....

Father's Day in Oran.....

So, we are here on Father's Day of the pandemic and.........

We are at 122,550 deaths from the virus in the USA as I type this. That means, by simple abstraction, many fathers were lost to this thing. Hate to be someone who talks about the dark-side of things, but, seriously, how the hell can you avoid it?????

Here in central New Jersey (YES! IT IS A PLACE!) things are trying to place their reticent toes in the water of the ocean of normalcy. Somehow, politics has won over basic biology, and wearing masks is now a political statement. Like....what?? Politics is cultural. Biology and physics are amoral. People, that is Reality 101! 

It is Summer, so I am re-re-rereading "The Plague". I can't help it. I have to read it every year around this time. The whole place I am within now is not within the book. A Bubonic Plague just ravages where it is at. This virus has killed, what was the number I stated before, OVER 122.5 K and rising here is the USA? RISING! Seriously, people, can we just get into the concept of basic human reality and wear masks????

I refuse to talk politics in this narrative as it is not in keeping with Albert Camus' narrative of the book, The Plague. I will say, as  a matter of fact, that about 6,200 people gathered fora political rally in Tulsa with the deep majority not wearing facemarks in an enclosed area with central air circulation. 

In Camus' book, there is a MASSIVE gathering at the Catholic Church in town to hear Fr. Panaleux give a sermon to give tonic for the troops, to help people get through this newly appointed ruler of the town. Camus is stunning at how he places the words of a Jesuit Priest into his character. Seriously. Camus hated religion but loved the writings of St. Aquinas. (They both really liked the intimate company of women and loved to party.) It is an amazing sermon the character brings, even though it is littered with everything Camus hates about organized religion.

In that sermon, the massive church is full, beyond capacity. All there have at least some place within them to turn to God, the infinite unknown, within their turmoil. If you read the whole scene, is is a masterwork of writing on every level.

Well, here is New Jersey, we are taking the median route. I have yet to hear any people profess to have new faith id God, but there is a desire to go drinking and shop. In terms of Moses and the people he led into freedom, this does not bode well.

In the end, I believe, habit is greater than the fear of death. We want more of what once what was, so much so that it blinds us of death. We gain meaning from going about what are used to and will follow that past the edge of the obvious cliff. 

But all of us who have ever been born have been so for the physical presence of a father, in one form or another. Many of us find surrogate parents in others that we are blessed with and are forever changed by the better via their presence, even if it was subtle. 

Oh, yeah. None of the main male characters in "The Plague" have children. This makes sense since Camus was not married with children at the time. To be frank, it is a major sausage fest of seemingly celibate heterosexual guys enclosed in a port-town. So, don't look for fatherhood there,... with the "minor" character, M. Othon. It is his son's death from the plague that changes the course of the narrative for just about all the main characters, especially Dr. Rieux and Fr. Paneloux. So, like it or not, fatherhood plays a part in the book as the father is never the same after the death of his son, with characters having to bold-face lie in stating the child did not suffer much. 

So, Happy Father's Day from Oran. Sorry all the restaurants are closed....