CORONA VIRUS: WEIRD ENERGY

It's nearly sunset and the air is still in Miami, warm like a summer night.

Someone is playing around with a speedboat on the river, whipping by like a bat out of hell. The image is unusual, given that the city is currently going through some changes with respect to the Corona Virus/ Covid 19 scenario.

I am sick of it, but then again who isn't sick of this blasted bug. It's not as if there was anything to like about it from the onset, and now that it's been part of life and the lexicon for a bit it's even more sickening.

The power boat appeared to be heading away from the downtown section, probably going to dock at some point since there is a curfew in the city and a shelter in place scenario. That to me translates as "you are not going to have a lot of fun, people" tonight or any time soon. And that translates to what I"m calling the Weird Energy, this sense of impending doom that is floating above us all like the proverbial Sword of Damocles.

When I say "weird energy" I mean a sense of confusion about what it is that the average person is going about doing or not doing. There is no protocol which is the same everywhere -- a lot hinges on the local politicians and the diversity of those plans is incredibly wide. 

From what I can see, there is NO plan. There is just a bunch of "leaders" with Weird Energy trying to take a stab at something when some serious and hard decisions have to be made.

People if you want to beat this thing you have to make some hard choices. You are going to have to focus on something other than what is on Netflix tonight and how you are "coping" with hanging around your own house for over a week. 

But from what I can see many of you can't, many of you are doing nothing other than floating around without any real sense of what YOU need to do -- and REALLY DO -- to make sure things get back on the right track.

Amen, and pass the toilet paper.

CORONA VIRUS: MIAMI NOISE

A couple of days ago I scribbled something about the eerie silence that had fallen over Miami on a weekend night. 

Yes, once again we had to thank our new favorite friend the Corona Virus/ Covid 19 bit of slime that has been so much a part of our lives lately.

Miami is a huge city, for those of you who have never been here, it goes on and on and on. And there are a whole bunch of different sections -- many of you see photos of South Beach and the deco hotels and figure the buck stops there.

But it does not -  that's Miami Beach not to be confused with the City of Miami and a whole host of other communities.

I'm not digressing - just making sure you comprehend that the noisemakers this evening were none of the residents of the Downtown Miami/Brickell Avenue/Brickell Key area, which is a residential and business neighborhood. Lots and lots and lots of apartment dwellers.

I got an email inviting me to applaud from my balcony around eight tonight.

Of course, knowing this neck of the woods the way I do, I figured it wasn't going to be just some polite clapping.

It was some howling, some clapping, some banging on metal railings, and a whole bunch of people trying to get the Harry Belafonte theme "De-oh" going.

A fair amount of noise for a first shot, and I can imagine tomorrow and in a few more days my neighbors and I will get our acts in gear and be heard in Fort Lauderdale.

Just be warned.

Amen, and pass the toilet paper. 

CORONA VIRUS: ANTI-SOCIAL MEDIA

Social media with respect to the Corona Virus / Covid 19 is starting to get grim.

The subject itself is of course incredibly interesting -- there is not a person alive that can state this is not one of the most fascinating albeit terrifying items we have coped with during our collective lifetimes.

But how certain people deal with social media is beginning to have a negative effect in contrast to what the poster is trying to accomplish.

Go on Facebook at any given time and you will find basically the same things:

• folks blathering about how badly the President is handling the matter
• folks blathering about how well the President is handling the matter
• the latest prognostication of how many will die
• the latest prognostication of how few masks/personal equipment is available to the first line responders
• the next city which will have the dubious honor of being the epicenter
• the next politico who tries to shut the borders of his/her state to keep idiots from bringing the virus into their neck of the woods

I could go on but won't. We are all sadly picking up way too much information on this matter because the damn thing is not going away anytime soon.

I've been ignoring social media a lot, particularly Facebook. It's annoying as hell. You have those who are fighting with everyone else about the stupidest things. You have those who honestly believe much of what is on there even though it's clearly drivel.  You have those who quote the last thing they heard from some pundit whose show airs in Nebraska or Wyoming at three o'clock in the morning.

And you have those who are "dropping out" and announce it to everyone as if it's something that will cause us to lose a lot of sleep. Kids, I'm not and neither are a lot of others.

Facebook is a truly dopey method to pass along information that really matters. You don't like someone's posts? Drop them for thirty days. They will never know.

Get anti-social with your social media. You will feel a lot better at the end of the day.

Amen, and pass the toilet paper.

CORONA VIRUS: IT'S HERE, STAY HOME AND WEAR THE GLOVES

All of these are in no particular order.

Stay home, this is not a vacation. You are "working from home" because there is some serious shit going down. Got it? 

If you are thinking of visiting Florida, take it from those of us who live here -- we don't want you. There is a reason why Disney closed -- it's keeping the bulk of you visitors out of here and giving us a better chance of fighting this beast without your germs to make things worse.

When you go to the market, don't float around looking at everything and taking your sweet time. Go in, do your business and get the hell out. There are others who want to get in and chances are they are waiting in line to enter the store.

Get ready now because the Great Toilet Paper Shortage of 2020 will happen at the store near you.

If you are one of those who did visit Florida for spring break, and are now apologetic about it, we still think you are an asshole. 

There is a reason why a lot of people are wearing masks when they go into a store. Can we be sure they (or a bandana) work? Not necessarily but given that everyone is wearing one, who are you to decide not to? 

And by the way, if you don't live in one of the hotspots, and hear from someone who does -- remember these people are feeling the threat far more than you. I know the feeling because that is the case with me and all of my neighbors - we spend the bulk of our time in the house now.  

Remember, in a few weeks that could be you. Stay home. Wear the gloves. 

Amen, and pass the toilet paper. 

CORONA VIRUS: DON'T TOUCH THE CHINESE PACKAGES

I'm going to be very bad here.

I am going to rat out a local TV reporter who apparently had NO common sense during her standup.

Those of us who work(ed) in TV news know that reporters are supposed to do this thing called a "standup" in which they park themselves in front of something while giving out information.

The "standup" is the lynchpin of the piece -- where the reporter inserts himself/herself into the story and gives an extra bid of advice or illumination as a result.

During today's 11:00AM broadcast of the Miami NBC affiliate, this chick (photo included) did a standup.

The story had to do with medicinal supplies arriving from China I believe in South Florida. HERE IS THE VIDEO: LOOK AT HER BARE HANDS. 

There she was -- in a red dress, touching the boxes with her bare hands several times for emphasis.

I'm saying it again -- SHE TOUCHED THE BOXES WITH HER BARE HANDS SEVERAL TIMES.

I could not take it -- and of course called the station. They were very grateful.  I did work for an NBC affiliate once in my life and have some loyalty. But there were several people who were responsible for her mistake.

First, her. Second, the videographer. Then the person who edited the video. Then the producer/director who used it as part of the newscast. And of course anyone else at the TV station who saw it and had to be in the ozone layer not to notice.

Let's no think of how many people that dynamic duo came into contact with during the duration of their day.

If I were news director at that station, you would all be having a very, very unpleasant evening tonight. You would be shaking in your shoes. And all of you would be written up. No questions asked.

So to the entire staff at Miami's NBC6 - DO NOT TOUCH THE CHINESE PACKAGES.

Amen, and pass the toilet paper.

CORONA VIRUS: MIAMI - THE SOUND OF SILENCE

I can't help it, the sound of silence is coming through loud and clear today and it's not the Simon and Garfunkel song.

It's Miami, the city of Miami, now under both a "shelter in place" and a city wide curfew. It has resulted in an eerie, otherworldly Miami -- one that is more than just asleep. It's in a coma.

When I was a kid visiting Miami, one of the things I could not understand was how damn noisy the place was. I grew up in a tiny town where nobody screamed, nobody made anywhere near the noise Miami generated in just a pocket of itself, never mind the whole enchilada.

And as I got older, at first I looked down my nose at it. Until, that is, I got older still, and started appreciating the noise. And added to the hoopla. 

Damn, Miami, damn. 

I realize why we are all doing this, keeping inside the house, keeping to ourselves in hopes that we crush this freaking Covid 19 virus that any one of us mere mortals would love to strangle, crush, squash to an unrecognizable pulp. 

And then, Miami, you will come to life, again, my friend, now my home. You will make noise, because I will make noise for you. I'll stand in my balcony and holler my lungs out to make up for this creepy, crazy silence that is hovering over you.

We will all make noise, Miami, we will all make noise again. Believe me.

Until then, Amen and pass the toilet paper. 

CORONA VIRUS: IT IS WEDNESDAY (HUMP DAY)

It is Wednesday.

I had to put that on my Facebook page today -- dawned on he halfway through the morning that I had completely lost track of what day of the week it was.

I don't by any stretch of the imagination pretend that the last day or days have become so boring that I have paid no attention to them.

I don't want to say that I've lost track of hump day, that mid-week moment in which you realize that the weekend is just not that far away.

However, this Wednesday is falling on as yet another of the now ongoing series of Corona Virus or Covid 19 days in which Earth is held in the grip of an absolutely abominable, albeit tiny, terrorist.

So I'm not going to forget this one in particular, definitely going to keep in in the record books even though for a nasty bunch of reasons.

But as life continues, as it will, and hopefully this damn virus gets blasted into oblivion, I'd like to note that someday, someday soon perhaps, Wednesday will become as yet another mundane occurrence which we may actually forget.

For the moment, however, it's Wednesday. It's HUMP day, the day we again kick that blasted, awful Covid 19 critter out, out, out.

Amen, and pass the toilet paper.

CORONA VIRUS: FEAR OF THE SUPERMARKET

Fear.

I got up this morning and experienced something new for me -- fear. Fear of going to the supermarket.

I'm not what you would call a wallflower. And naturally this whole Corona Virus is a mighty tough scenario for everyone who lives on earth at this juncture.

But this morning was something else -- I wanted to go pick up a few items at the market and I realized that I was dreading the whole experience.

An infinitesimally small item -- the universally hated Covid 19 -- was freaking me out to a degree that I thought twice, no several times about doing what is really a very routine task chez moi.

Usually on market days I throw on some sweats and run into the car, driving quickly up the road. 

Today, however, I had to think about the outfit I was going to wear for the job. I picked out a long sleeved shirt, leggings, socks, a baseball cap, sunglasses and a pair of yellow rubber gloves. And of course, the ubiquitous item to cover my mouth and nose.

I looked at myself in the mirror and realized I looked like a bank robber, tucked away and hidden behind all of that clothing. It's a lot of layers for Miami, especially today when the temperatures had already climbed pretty close to 80 degrees.

At the market many others were dressed like me, or a variation thereof. The fear was that someone, anyone, would possibly sneeze or cough and one of those "droplets" filled with the dreaded Corona Virus would be airborne in my direction. It would "land" on me, it would "infect" me, and I could potentially be one of the many victims of a minuscule threat no human could see with the naked eye.

Yes, I was afraid. But that's what this "global pandemic" has reduced all of us humans to -- we are threatened by something that is like the sword of Damocles, albeit invisible, something which hovers over all and casts a dark, ominous shadow over the entire human race.

Fear. Never have I dressed for the part. And as a human, never have I wanted so badly for something so small to be afraid of me and disappear from where it arrived. 

Out, out damn virus. 

Amen, and pass the toilet paper.

CORONA VIRUS: SIX FEET

I've always been amazed at the relative lack of education in the bulk of the populace. I'm not talking about how many years someone has spent in school, by the way. Education to me is a mind well shaped, a thinking being capable of figuring out the basics.

Apparently there are a whole bunch of people that have no concept of how to measure a six foot space.

As part of the Coronavirus plan of attack, people have been told to stand six feet apart from each other. The notion is that this would help prevent contamination should someone sneeze or cough. Well, at least that is the theory. I know a few people who when they sneeze could possibly send droplets into orbit.

During my walk today I could not help but notice that people were meandering terribly close to me, way in violation of the six foot edict. They ran by me, sweaty on top of it all, wearing their ear buds and in their own mind space with no concern about the other humans on the walking path.

In other words, totally clueless. 

We are going to have to come up with an easier method for these dimwits to figure out how far to stand from other people during these Social Distancing Days. Let's call them SDDs.

The easiest way? Stick your arms out on any side of yourself and don't let anyone within that circle. 

Think of DaVinci's Vitruvian Man.

Here he is in all of his glory. I'm not going into all the different facets of this iconic figure and why he is perfection. 

But I am going into the idea that we all take a look at him, stand with our arms out and not allow anyone to come within that distance from us. While Social Distancing seem to be the words du jour, I would not be surprised if after all of this is mercifully over we will finally grasp the notion of personal space and no longer run into each other as we stand in line to purchase items at the market.

Got it?

Amen, and pass the toilet paper. 

CORONA VIRUS

It's like a bad movie -- the entire planet is in the grip of an unknown virus which is spreading like the proverbial wildfire. 

Humans are in a panic -- in this case hoarding toilet paper and hand sanitizer, among other household supplies. And it's not a joke.

Tonight many of us are experiencing an eerie silence in the communities where we live - as community leaders have encouraged the citizenry to avoid being in crowds and coughing into their elbows. Let's not talk about the five million instructional videos on how to properly wash one's hands. 

Starting today I will scribble down my thoughts without too much editing -- and allow this to serve as my own record of an insidious horror nobody on earth has experienced before. 

I'm located in Miami -- but I will be filling in with thoughts on news I may hear from friends elsewhere or else rants with respect to what the politics are behind all this.

On most Sunday nights, my neck of the woods is somewhat quieter than Saturdays. Families have come back from numerous activities and are now readying themselves to go back to work or school.

That's not the case tonight -- the silence is palpable and a lot more people are at home than they usually might be. Airplanes, which are a staple sound during the twilight hours are few and far between. 

A loud and lively city is shushed and subdued. Scary, too.

For the record, I fervently hope that this ends quickly and as painlessly as possible given the parameters.

Time alone will tell.

Amen, and pass the toilet paper.