Tag: Covid

Brainiac On Banjo: I’m Gonna Get A Lotta Shit For This…

Life’s a football game, as every chump and champ knows. We don’t touch, we collide, till we’re worn out inside. We’re kicking each other, right where it hurts, setting up the big play, and trying to score. — “Football” written by Iggy Pop, Whitey Kirst, and Whitney Kirst.

Art by Jack Davis

Yeah, I know I’m going to get a lot of shit for this, but the worst thing that ever happened to America is football.

OK. Breathe into a paper bag for a minute and then read my explanation.

As George Carlin told us back in 1975 during the very first episode of Saturday Night Live, and I excerpt, “football has hitting, clipping, spearing, piling on, personal fouls, late hitting and unnecessary roughness. Football is played in any kind of weather: rain, snow, sleet, hail, fog. In football, you can be sure that at least twenty-seven times you’re capable of taking the life of a fellow human being. In football the object is for the quarterback, also known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use shotgun. With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy’s defensive line.”

Art by Jack Davis

Fine. That’s the sport of football. Compared to the way the rest of the world plays their football, very few people actually get killed. Except in Canada, where they play a different game of football altogether and they are very polite, once they get outside of a hockey arena. But the culture of American football — and that’s the last time I’ll use that adjective with respect to sport — well, that’s a whole different thing. It is much more dangerous. Continue reading “Brainiac On Banjo: I’m Gonna Get A Lotta Shit For This…”

As Is With Mike Gold: Fuck ‘Em If They Can’t Take A Poke

As Is With Mike Gold: Fuck ‘Em If They Can’t Take A Poke

Sharpen your teeth for the family feast. Let all the hungry drool roll down your chin. Hide the human and bring out the beast. Let all the animal games begin! – Sandy Linzer and Denny Randell, Silver Spoon, 1971.

Last week, reported COVID infections went up 11%. That’s not entirely a bad thing.

Those new cases, according to published accounts, are almost entirely among the unvaccinated. 99.5%, according to the CDC, which is closer than “almost entirely.” If recent history is an indication, this particular subset of moronacy does not believe COVID infections went up 11%. Or, alternately, that COVID has ever been a problem at all. Or, on the mutant’s third hand, it’s all a Democratic Party conspiracy.

With respect to that last idea, they might have a point. Given the overwhelming refusal of many in the Confederate States to get the jab – no nanites for true American patriots! – they are killing off each other. Perhaps they believe the Democrats have bred a new strain of COVID, the Delta Variant (which is not the name of an X-Men graphic novel) that spreads much faster and with far greater efficiency than that which attacked the Atlantic northeast blue states a year and a half ago. To hell with ending gerrymandering, we Pizza Pederasts have on our side… oh, my god… SCIENCE!

The fly in that slice of paranoid pie is that the Democrats haven’t shown the ability to get their act together to organize such a feat since they ended Reconstruction with The Great Compromise of 1877. I continue to question the use of the adjective “Great,” but in those days the Republicans were what we call Democrats today and the Democrats were what we called Republicans – until the remaining, unpurged “Republicans” bent over and turned their asses towards the ex-president.

Be that as it may, all these death worshipping insurrectionists have been warned repeatedly, in every manner possible, throughout the lamestream media. No doubt they’re still busy looking for that Washington pizza parlor’s basement. It’s possible the Cult might have heard about it through their misinformation venues of choice: Twitter, Fox News, the Qanon sites, Breitbart, The Epoch Times, Infowars, Newsmax, One America News, Twitchy, the Washington Times, and a great many others. However, these ill-dressed goose-stepping Goebbels replicants seem to share a different interpretation of the word “vaccine.” They confuse it with “Zyklon B.”

I wonder. WWAR do? What would Ayn Rand do? That disgusting, lying hypocrite took social security, so perhaps she’d take the jab as well. The far right has a hard time letting philosophy get in the way of their own personal… growth. We know her fanboy eye doctor wannabe devotee Kentucky Senator Rand Paul thinks this is a prime example of government overreach. Saving people’s lives is not something in which any Right-thinking American should engage.

As a person who believes in democracy, egalitarianism, freedom of and from religion, and the American Dream, I say to these individuals “Keep on truckin’.” We’ll see if we can bury you under the statues of your favorite treasonous Confederate heroes.

And here you thought COVID was a bummer.

As Is: Guns and Covid, for Fun and Profit

If you see me walking down the street / And I start to cry each time we meet / Walk on by, walk on by. — “Walk on By,” written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, 1964.

Here’s one of the reasons why I’m not completely opposed to handgun ownership.

You’re at the supermarket, and you’re wearing your mask. Yeah, I know, lots of people have been vaccinated, including your writer, but according to a scientific study I just made up those that refuse the jab tend to be the same ones who won’t wear a mask. Even if you’re two weeks past your second shot, the issue of your ability to pick Covid up and pass it along to those selfish schmucks who won’t do the right thing remains, as of this posting, unsettled. There are indications that the vaccines provide some benefit in this regard and that’s swell, but until Doctor Fauci, Doctor Fine and Doctor Howard tell us otherwise, it is polite to protect others, even the inconsiderate assholes.

Fun fact: with so many Q-morons refusing to get the jab, we are not going to achieve herd immunity. Well, maybe I’m wrong, and drinking bleach and shoving an ultra-violet lamp up your ass does work after all – I’m told it’s quite a buzz – but I have yet to read of any studies confirming that.

O.K. So you’re masked in the supermarket, remember? And some maskless dickhead is blocking the aisle while loudly mocking your completely unAmerican passion for consideration. You ask him, politely, to get the hell out of the way. He responds by mocking your snowflakeness and insisting he has a constitutional right to not wear a mask because it infringes on his freedom.

You respond — well, I respond — “Where in the constitution does it say you have the right to kill strangers?” After he tells you the 600,000 deaths is Deep State bullshit, you respond — well, I respond — “Perhaps we can agree that the constitution at least implies you have the right to self-defense?”

I know you can’t have more than 100% of anything, but I am absolutely certain that at least 155% of Q-morons will agree with that statement. So you (well, certainly I) respond: “So you agree that, out of self-defense, I can fucking shoot you, right?”

And then you look this fool right in the eye and you reach around to the back of your belt and make a gentle pulling motion.

At this point, nine out of ten Q-morons will get out of your way. Make certain your shirt is pulled out from behind your belt, and just walk on by.

Well, unless you’re Black and the Q-moron is a White cop. Do not take unnecessary risks. Statistics matter.

That’s it for today, folks! Don’t forget to tip the waitstaff, and praise the lord and pass the ammunition and we’ll all stay free.

Weird Scenes #117: If Elvis Can Do It, So Can You

Weird Scenes #117: If Elvis Can Do It, So Can You

Between the politicians polarizing power trips / We’re just too pure and peaceful to decide / So we got our heads together while the planet fell to bits / Now the one side left to take is suicide / We are lemmings / We are crazies / We will feed our flower habits pushing daisies – Lemmings Lament, written by Paul Jacobs and Sean Kelly, 1972

O.K. I’ve had it with the Covid deniers. I mean, totally and to the point where I now believe it should be legal to shoot the unmasked. I call that self-defense, although if I were in Florida, I’d call it “Stand your ground.”

I’ve also had it with the anti-vaxxers, but I’ve been on that page for quite a while now. In this case, I’m a bit more sympathetic. There are whole communities who have been taught that government vaccine programs were evil, and in a few but incredibly important cases, they are right. I get that. And I suspect that many of those same people are just as tired of going to funerals as I am – virtual funerals truly are the worst.

Nonetheless, these folks are taking an unnecessary risk. I’ve said I’ll take the shots as soon as I can after Dr. Anthony Fauci gets one. Now that presidents Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Biden are turning the event into a 2021 supergroup, I’ll even stand in line to get it.

This brings to mind a story, one which should lighten the mood a bit.

Back in the middle of the last century, we had a serious polio epidemic, also known as infant paralysis, because it primarily (but not exclusively) affected children. 58,000 cases were reported in 1952 killing more than 3,000 and crippling tens of thousands. It was a very big deal, believe me. I was born in 1950 and I clearly remember the hysteria that enveloped our nation during the first half of that decade… particularly as it was my ox that was getting gored. Polio had killed or maimed a horde of people since it was first noticed in 1894, and the medical mechanics industry shifted its efforts towards building very small iron lungs in an attempt to save these babies and children. Continue reading “Weird Scenes #117: If Elvis Can Do It, So Can You”

Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mind  #102: That OTHER End of the World

Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mind #102: That OTHER End of the World

Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. Remember that our sons and our grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty. — City planner and architect Daniel Burnham, 1891.

I’m going to try to do something different this week. I’m going to see if I can make it through this episode of Weird Scenes without once mentioning President Tang. Place your bets, folks.

For the past six months, we have been focusing on what seems like the greater evil — the COVID plague. It is the greater evil, but let’s assume — for the moment — we beat it. We survive. Make no little plans, Daniel Burnham said about 130 years ago, and I have tried to live my life by that slice of wisdom.

But… what happens the day after that? We won’t be out of the woods… except, maybe, literally. How do we keep our planet safe? Where else are we going to live?

Perhaps you’ve heard of a place called Death Valley. For those who only remember a rather crappy Ronald Reagan television series by that title, it’s actually a real place in eastern California. It’s part of the Mojave Desert, and it’s not quite the best part. The name of the town tells us most of what we need to know: it ain’t a walk in the park, it’s a vast, hotter than hell wasteland. The Timbisha Tribe still lives around there, just in case you think our First Americans are being well taken care of. Continue reading “Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mind #102: That OTHER End of the World”

Brainiac On Banjo #093: “What the Hell Was That?”

Brainiac On Banjo #093: “What the Hell Was That?”

One day I feel so horny / Next night I feel so bleh / Guess well have to take the whoppee! / along with the bleh / Each night I ask the moon up above / Why must I be a septuagenerian in love? ––Tuli Kupferberg, “Septuagenerian in Love,” from The Fugs Final CD, Part 1, 2003.

Well, this is goddamned strange. Not at all what I expected.

It’s not that I’m big on birthday celebrations. I have a hard time remembering such events; it’s an often embarrassing failing. The only reason I remember my own is because I’ve renewed my driver’s license approximately 18 times, thereby making it a habit. Well, I’ve just put my new driver’s license in my wallet – which was kinda fun because I didn’t have to break quarantine to get it — so unless something terminal happens in the next 24 hours, I turn 70 tomorrow. Continue reading “Brainiac On Banjo #093: “What the Hell Was That?””

Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mind  #097: Liberals — Love ‘Em or Hate ‘Em, They’re So Damn Cute!

Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mind #097: Liberals — Love ‘Em or Hate ‘Em, They’re So Damn Cute!

You’ll be all in clover, and when they look me over / You’ll be the proudest fellow in the Easter Parade / On the Avenue, Fifth Avenue… “Easter Parade,” written by Irving Berlin, 1933.

“Pull my finger…”

It’s likely that Donald Trump just had the worst June of his life. I could be wrong; we don’t know what happened to him in the summer of 1953. He could have fallen off of a runaway turnip truck. This would explain a lot of stuff that his psychologist niece didn’t write about.

The first nine days of July haven’t been any better. He was just scolded by the Supremes for arguing he was above the law. They upheld the rule of law 7 to 2, and both of his (actually Moscow Mitch’s) benchplants voted against him… again. In fact, all nine justices said the president is not above the law. I wish they were around for Nixon. Continue reading “Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mind #097: Liberals — Love ‘Em or Hate ‘Em, They’re So Damn Cute!”