Nurse the Hate: Life Amongst The Goats

 

Europe is opening back up to American leisure travelers.  About half of their population is vaccinated, which is reducing infection rates to the point that the risk/reward of the traveler's economic impact has tilted the scales towards allowing new people to mix with their populations.  This is in spite of the wonderfully named "Delta Variant", which was likely named by someone within the Marvel franchise.  "It was then that Dan Danielson saved his ill grandmother, contracted the Delta Variant, causing a genetic mutation that created the superhero known today as Captain Sledge!".  This version of covid will probably sweep through here too, but hopefully we don't step backwards too far as the various dipshits that refuse to help themselves infect each other.  

The amazing thing to me is half of our populations still has chosen not to be vaccinated.  There is direct undeniable evidence that with a vaccinated population the disease transmission drastically reduces, lives are saved, serious illness is reduced, and everyone's day-to-day life reverts back to whatever "normal" is now.  Yet half of the people you see are of the mindset of "fuck that, I'm not doing it".  There is no logical reason not to be vaccinated except to avoid the infinitesimal risk of side effects/longer term impact as a trade off to letting everyone else carry the load.  One of the things that a career in sales has taught me is that the majority of people are selfish pricks that only care about themselves.  We can debate the percentages of people, but it is clearly a majority of +51%.  If most people are presented with an out clause of avoiding doing something that is a slight inconvenience to them but is a large benefit to others, they will choose avoidance.  Let someone else pick up that garbage or return the shopping cart.  "It's not my problem.  If everyone else gets a shot, I don't have to go three blocks to the drug store to get a free injection.  I heard I might feel kinda crappy for a couple of hours with side effects.  I'm busy watching Netflix anyway."

There is, of course, a bullshit excuse offered to this selfishness or laziness.  "They rushed this vaccine.  I don't know what is in it!  I'm not putting that into my body."  This line of reasoning will undoubtedly come from people that have no idea what they are talking about on almost any subject.  I am not sure why someone that has no experience in the timelines of pharmaceuticals is suddenly an expert on these protocols.  "Yeah, I was going to get an injection that makes me immune to the disease currently shutting down the planet and has killed over a half million in our country alone, but Diane that runs the cash register at the grocery store told me that "they" rushed this through.  My guess is that Diane is taking microbiology night classes Johns Hopkins and has been following the pharmaceutical trades for a couple decades.  She was probably listening in on a few investor Zoom calls and has some real questions about the data samples in the Moderna trials amongst certain blood types with a propensity for high white cell counts, so she knows her stuff.  Oh, and she also told me that that pizza place in Sheffield Lake is trafficking kids in a sex cult run by George Clooney!".  

Let's ignore the fact that the development of these vaccines are a result of an entire indistry responding to their once in a generation Gold Rush, a Trump Administration shower of money openly called "Operation Warp Speed".  The same people that are allegedly concerned about what "they" put in this injection, a clear variation of a normal flu shot, have no issue whatsoever with taking a deep drag on a vape pen, knocking back a Monster energy drink, grabbing an 18-piece Chicken McNugget, and then spraying their backyard weeds with a gallon of Round-Up.  "I heard "they" put a computer chip in it to track my whereabouts!", he said while walking around holding his phone with 17 open apps after updating his TikTok account.  While it is comforting to think that the cashier at a grocery store solved a conspiracy that Bill Gates used his mind numbingly large fortune to secretly develop a microscopic computer chip technology which doesn't exist to create the ability to track the whereabouts of a grocery store cashier in Avon Lake OH that is already voluntarily tracked with a device that she pays to do so each month is fabulous.  This scheme would enable one of the world's richest men to become?  One of the world's richest men?  Somehow?  It doesn't take much to see that the "They put something in it" folks are just looking for a flimsy reason not to do their part.

There is also much hang wringing about how to convince the other half of the people to do the logical thing that is good for all of us.  How can you trick selfish and stupid people to do the right thing?  It's not an easy problem to solve.  I think we go the other way on it.  Fuck 'em.  If you aren't vaccinated, it's not a problem.  I think you should be able to choose if you receive help.  However, you should also have to face the consequences if you ignore the facts in front of you.  If you are unvaccinated and get seriously ill with covid, you cannot receive medical care unless you are covered by your insurance or pay cash out of pocket.  My tax dollars should not pay for your laziness or fear of a few hours of slightly unpleasant side effects.  Can't pay for a ventilator?  Sorry buddy.  You knew the risks.  You rolled the dice and lost.  Good luck.  Maybe you sweat it out in bed.  Maybe not.  I'll check back with you in a week.  You don't want "socialized medicine", remember?

The biggest issue in the United States right now, in my humble opinion, is not race, divisive politics, or economic inequality.  It's lack of education and critical thinking.  A sizable portion of the county thinks the Bible is a history book, not a series of parables created by man with intention.  Established norms should not be questioned or discussed.  If science is indicating a conclusion that is inconvenient, then ignore it so it goes away.  Being willfully ignorant is now celebrated rather than being a badge of shame.  There are two dozen houses within a five minute drive of me that are still flying Trump flags, undeterred by the clear fact of his decisive election loss.  A staggering one third of all Conservative Christians believe the statement "Donald Trump has been secretly fighting a group of child sex traffickers that include prominent Democrats and Hollywood elites.".  If that is one of your core beliefs, no amount of fact presentation is going to convince you of anything.  You live in an alternate reality.  

As we continue to try to get back on track, about half of the people around us are depending on the rest of us to fix the problems for them.  It can be encouraging if viewed the right way.  Like it or not, life is a competition.  From the first step, half of your competitors have shown you that they aren't going to seriously compete.  They can't even get in the game.  If this was a biblical parable, the unvaccinated would be riddled by disease and petulance.  "And though thy unbelievers had been given thy cure from thy Lord, thy flock ignored this holy gift and felt the black hand of death.- A reading from Greg in The Book of Ohio".  This is the real world though and instead large groups of unvaccinated people will run up insane hospital bills that the rest of us will have to cover in tax increases.  

Life is a ticking clock.  I am tired of sitting on the bench because every other person is a stupid as a goat.  Let's move ahead and let the goats deal with their own problems.  Hope to see you soon Europe.    

Nurse the Hate: The Josephine Baker Story

Electric Dave did a lot of drugs.  That can’t really be disputed.  He didn’t do “bad” drugs, or what was defined as “bad” drugs in this particular cultural moment.  In the mid 1980s he took a lot of heat for things that would make him the Mayor of Denver today.  He went “natural” at some point in the 1990s, which translated to him smoking garbage bags full of weed and eating heroic quantities of mushrooms weekly.  I don’t know if that was a good idea, but at least he stopped eating all the pills in his Mom’s medicine cabinet and creating random combinations of cold medicines and LSD.  All things considered; Electric Dave was doing OK.  He had maintained a job doing IT shit remotely from some logistics company that probably had no idea that their IT guy was shipping himself boutique weed strains from all over the Pacific Northwest under the heading of “pizza toppings” for the Red Baron Pizza Company.  I guess if everyone’s computer worked, no one really cared what Electric Dave was doing.

 

I hadn’t seen him since the start of the pandemic, but that wasn’t strange since the only place I normally saw him was at live shows.  Electric Dave went to any show that had a “far-out guitar player”, the strict definition of which I couldn’t fathom as some of the guitars players he felt were “far-out” I definitely didn’t think were “far-out”.  Then again, I wasn’t smoking garbage bags full of weed or doing heroic quantities of mushrooms like Electric Dave.  I saw him a couple weeks ago at Home Depot, which is the great equalizer in 2021.  You never know who you might see wandering around hopelessly looking for an obscure piece of hardware in Aisle 37 at a Home Depot. 

 

Dave had a shopping cart filled with all kinds of crazy shit.  There were metal drain pipes, spools of wire, 9 volt batteries, a leaf blower, and about six boxes of screws.  It was a bunch of random crap you can buy at Home Depot.  Hey Dave!  What’s up?  That’s a lot of stuff you got there…. That’s when Electric Dave gets into it.  He starts telling me about this project he’s been working on, and he’s been real busy, and this pandemic has been a real bummer, and he’s mostly just been home, and he hasn’t really seen anybody, and….

 

I think we can agree that the pandemic wasn’t good for certain people.  Too much isolation and time spent in your own head can lead one down some strange pathways.  Electric Dave, pretty loosely tethered to reality anyway, was not handed a favor spending a year all by himself working through all that weed and heroic quantities of mushrooms.  A restless mind is going to find something to do with all that time and lack of stimulation.  There in that Home Depot, in Aisle 37, Electric Dave laid it all out for me.  He was going to build a time machine to go back to 1925 and start up a sexual relationship with Josephine Baker in Paris.

 

Now you are probably in the same place that I am on this little project.  Let’s say that Electric Dave somehow solves the riddle of the time space continuum, a very large leap of faith considering his time machine is built from ordinary products at Home Depot and scrap lumber.  Even if he does somehow get to 1925, how the hell is he going to get to Paris and get in there with what was the biggest sex symbol of 1925?  Between you and me, Electric Dave is no looker.  So, for whatever reason, I focused in on this logistical hurdle and allowed for the willing suspension of disbelief on the time machine itself.  I think I got caught up in the excitement of possibility.

 

I asked Dave, “Hey man, so when you go back to 1925, how are you going to get to Paris?  It’s not like you can book a flight on United.  You’re going to have to take a train to New York and then get on a ship to cross the Atlantic.  Plus, you’re not going to have any money.  You can’t take a $20 bill from 2019 and pay for shit.  No one is going to take money from the future.  And you can’t wire yourself money from 2021 to 1925.”  We both sort of scrunched up our faces as we worked on that issue in our heads when Dave blurted out “Yeah well I can just buy old money at one of those stamp and coin shows at the Holiday Inn and stuff my pockets with that.”  Yeah…. That might work.  I had caught the fever by that point.  “Make sure and take a pocket French dictionary, because you can’t use Google translator.”   We both nodded our heads at this.

 

So now I’m thinking, if you build a time machine, why go to 1925?  You’re chipping yourself right in front of The Great Depression and World War II.  1925 sure wouldn’t be my first destination.  Electric Dave was focused though.  “Yeah man, I watched that Hemingway documentary and then I fell into a YouTube rabbit hole on Paris in the 1920s.  You know who Josephine Baker is?  You ever see Josephine Baker do The Banana Dance?  She’s hot as shit.  I really got obsessed man.  She’s awesome.  I start really checking her out and it turns out she’s bisexual too, so I figure I can have threesomes with hot burlesque dancer friends of hers.  It’s going to be killer man.”  He beamed a smile at me, a man more assured than any I had seen in a couple years.

 

Who am I to rain on someone’s dreams?  Electric Dave and I exchanged some more pleasantries, and I think I said “Hey, that’s great man… just great… really happy for you” or something like that.  We did that elbow bump thing you do now, and I went towards the yard care area looking for some ant killer.  Dave wheeled his cart towards hardware.  That was a couple weeks ago.  I haven’t seen him since, but I keep going on the internet looking at Josephine Baker from the 1920s.  I can’t wait until I see Electric Dave on one of those jittery 1920s film clips.

Nurse the Hate: Memorial Day 2021

 

A look of serious focus went across his face as he bit down on his Nacho Cheese Dorito Locos Taco Supreme.  A satisfying crunch yielded the gooey prize, the third of his “Crave Pack” that had been delivered via Uber Eats.  He normally didn’t allow himself the luxury of the delivery surcharge, but his $300 stimulus check had hit his bank account and allowed him to pay the minimum balance on his credit cards green lighting him once again the ability to buy on credit.  He was back in business.  He finished chewing and slurped down an aggressive gulp of his 20 oz Monster Hydro Super Sport Energy Drink.   “I’m not getting no vaccine.  Who knows what is in that?  I’m not putting that into my body!”  He crunched down on the fragile remnants of his Nacho Cheese Dorito Locos Taco Supreme and licked his fingers.

It was Memorial Day.  Two fighter jets streaked past, doing a fly by on a local parade.  “You hear that?  You know what that sound is?  Freedom.  That is freedom.”  He smiled and looked out at his Ford pickup truck with the American Flag sticker in the window.  He had his NRA sticker tastefully placed on the back right corner next to his “MIA/POW Never Forget” window decal.  “I wish I could have joined the service right out of school, but I’ve got that bad back.  They wouldn’t take me.  I would have gone to Ranger School.  Best of the best.”  He always sang the national anthem as loud as he could when he went to the high school football games giving disapproving looks to anyone not standing at strict enough attention.  They should have gone to State when he was on the team, but that Coach didn’t know what the fuck he was doing.  Coach should have started him.

His job at the window company wanted him to return, but he could probably squeeze out another month of unemployment.  “They laid me off because of covid.  China and the Democrats are the ones that caused that.  The Media won’t tell you that because they’re in bed with them.  They’re all making too much money.”  He shifted his weight in his plastic lawn chair.  “I’m not like those deadbeats you see in Lorain and downtown.  I work!  I’m just sick of my taxes going to pay for them to all freeload.”  He looked over at his new smoker, a luxury he afforded himself after the last stimulus check.  “We should do some ribs today.  It’s Memorial Day.  Gotta honor those patriots.”  The sound of the fighter jets faded.  The flag on his porch flapped lazily.  He crinkled up the Taco Bell wrappers and got up from his chair with an unconscious groan.