Wipe out Coronavirus?

I read today in the New York Times that maybe we don't have to wipe down everything so hard that we take the varnish off grandma's kitchen table. Seems our lovely cootiebug is more of an "in the air" thing than has been told.

     This makes me feel a little weird. For months now, at work and at home and at the I don't go anywhere else, I have been wiping people down and not shaking hands with any surface I see. Avoidance and bleach, that's my motto.

     But now, it seems it was all for *shrug*.

     The messaging has changed for sure. Instead of the news telling you to separate your groceries, burn the packages, and shower in Lysol as soon as you walk through the door, most seem to be rather laissez faire about the whole thing. Of course, it could be worse.

     "How should people continue not infecting their loved ones and pet turtles, Blonde Newsperson?" says the Newsperson in Clothes.

     Blonde newsperson says,"Well, not with toilet paper."

     Everyone has a laugh.

     Blonde newsperson, face falling, "But for millions of Americans, the best way to stop the plague is to wear a mask and think about Jesus while covering your children in hand sanitizer."

     "I don't think that's the best-"

     Newsperson in Clothes gets their shit shut down, Blonde Newsperson continuing, "Then what do you do? Welcome those little plague monsters into your home? Tell them you love them and kiss their germy faces? I fill my hands full of that alcohol gel and just wipe. My kids say it burns, but I tell them that's God's love."

     Newsperson in Clothes looks off camera.

     "But that's just me," Blonde Newsperson ends. "Now for the weather."

     I saw that one time. Not in the news from some crazy person (which I feel is the outcome of all this because if you are not crazy while reporting the news after this year, you are a stone cold sociopath), but someone slathering their child in hand sanitizer.

     Wasn't even a plague. Just filled their hands and rubbed it on the child's head and face and neck like it was lotion made by Everclear.

     I said, "Ma'am, that's not great."

     "Well, it's free," the woman said.

     She was not wrong.

     Latex gloves in libraries seem the ultimate waste if this "we don't have to disinfect everything" is true. I worked with gloves a lot in college while cooking in restaurants. 

     A coworker back then compared gloves to condoms. "They keep you in and everything out." My coworker was a moron at comparisons.

     Use gloves in a library for two reasons: you don't wanna wash your hands and you need a reminder not to touch your face. I get not wanting to wash: soap burns. But if you are still touching your face you have to reconsider your life choices.

Songs I Liked For Reasons

Haven't watched anything new or done much, so I'm gonna put my playlist of "liked" on shuffle. We'll see where it goes. Paragraph per song, some might be better than others. Titles are song links on Youtube if you want to listen along.

You Really Got Me by the Kinks

That junky guitar and the marijuana meter that builds reminds me of a bar in New Orleans. One of those little hole in the street places that has a name only for tax purposes. Music plays from a speaker on the bar at half volume because some band out in the street is always better. Some little weird band half assing what they can do or whole assing all they can.

Just Really Wanna See You by Shudder to Think (First Love Last Rites)

Best soundtrack to sit and hold hands to, to sit close to, to kiss and touch and hold and laugh and dance. Specific memories coming are probably not for public consumption. Just really want to let this one roll on by with a smile on my face.

Marquee Moon by Television

Deception in a song because it sounds like a sweet surfer rolling fluttering tune but down there is a darkness that beats like a heart on that drum. "Don't you be so sad," the sings and the guitar cascades into a thumping rant to "I an't waiting, uh uh."

You Really Got a Hold On Me by She & Him

"I don't like you, but I love you. Seems like I'm always thinking of you." Zooey's haunting push on this one really does have a hold on me. Part of me wants this acapella in a big tiled room. Just hold me, hold me and hear that voice echo. I'm reminded of coming home across a desert on this one. A long drive that needed quiet in the night. A good trip ending in that lazy drive through nothing. This song coming like a lone cry in the speakers of some distant animal begging to be held.

Blue Moon by Elvis Presley

Playlist is playing with my emotions on this rainy afternoon. Of course when I hear this quiet croon against the soft base and drums, I think of Joe Vs the Volcano. Tom Hanks, sitting on those trunks in the middle of a big dark ocean. He stands and sees that giant moon above. So small are we that we think gazing on the moon from our own rafts means something to anyone. Not gonna lie, I kinda hate the falsetto Elivis rocks here though.

No Rm. 9, Kentucky by Shudder to Think

Here's a falsetto I can get behind. Playlist seems to think I want quiet singers telling someone they're missed. Shudder to Think always reminds me of my friend from long ago. Last time I talked to him, I called and he said we'd hang out some time. Then we did not. Over a decade ago. Follow each on Instagram for whatever that's worth. "Tongue kiss through the kitchen screen." The lyrics mesh with the tonal guitar shifts. More memories of riding in cars and smoking cigarettes and laughing and turning it up loud on the weird parts. 

Highway to Hell by AC/DC

Guess me thinking about all this driving influenced the playlist. Different devices so no crossover. Of course I'm turning this one up and flooding my brain with that guitar. This is one of those ever present songs. No specific memories, just sweaty beer soaked smoke filled bars where (if this was a movie) things would go really fast and people would appear and disappear while taking shots and shooting pool. Hyper color green walls and red dresses and wooden floors that drink the shadows of shaking lights. Someone writing "Highway to Hell" with an arrow pointing to the bathroom.

I'm Gonna Put You Down by Gangstagrass

Virginia hiking with frustration and loneliness. Putting down boots with the beat. Singing to the chorus "Dig a hole in the meadow, dig a hole in the cold cold ground. Dig a hole in the meadow, I'm gonna put you down." Tonez's lyrics protecting art and profanity are just damn fun to hear.

The Way You Make Me Feel by Michael Jackson

Goddamn it, I'm not having the art vs artist debate. This song, like most of Jackson's, fucking rocks. Still, though, this one has some shame attached to it for me. Eighth grade dance this song played. She wanted to dance with me, but I couldn't. I was scared. I think she cried, and my friend danced with her. Two years later, I made a vow to always dance with anyone who asked. It's worked out so far. I'm sorry, Vicky.

Time After Time by Cyndi Lauper

We were laying on my bed watching My Name is Earl. Randy, Earl's brother, plays this song on a boombox as a running joke in the series every time he gets dumped. The air in the room was tense because we both knew it was over between us. Still, we held hands and watched and waited for the show to end so she could leave and I could drink myself to sleep. An episode where they go to Mexico. Randy gets heartbroken. No boombox, but there's a guy with a guitar named Pedro who starts playing this. The last hard laugh we shared, both of us rolling. It's good we had that.

Pet Semetary by The Ramones (live)

I mean, yeah. Stephen King and the Ramones. Two of my first loves when I started breaking out of my shell. I just like the way Joey damn near growls in parts of this song.

Rolling in the Deep by Adele

Everybody has this on their like list, right? "There's a fire starting in my heart," indeed. I'll be honest, I like other of her songs more. This one probably got more play by me because the damn beat is so good for jogging. Plus, sometimes while exercising I need an angry woman telling me to fuck off.

Rockaway Beach by The Ramones

Another jogging song. Sorry, playlist, already did that today. Still, I can bop along with this somewhat surfer kinda song. It's even got the "ooo's" that every great beach song needs.

And that's where I'm gonna end this because I gotta clean the bathroom. Y'all let me know what you listen to! What should I add to my "Like" shuffle?

Coincidence in the Mandalorian

I opened a beer, filled my vape tube, and started the Mandalorian.

     First season was fun. A finding your legs type of affair where the characters were being felt out. Mando strolling in cock first, shoulders back, shooting people the way the Force intended. Every once in a while, like his shoulders, there was a slump. Never for long, though. Rally cry and pew pew and Mando and Baby Yoda riding into the sunset.

     The first episode of the second season brought a giant dragon and some hell with it. Krayt Dragons ain't nothing to fuck with. Still, you could say the whole thing was justified. Mando came to town looking for other Mandalorians and left with some Fett armor. Felt good, a return most welcome. Except this time I did not seem so worried about Baby Yoda.

     If that is his or her real name.

     Maybe it is fatigue? That cute little face is still adorable. I want them to succeed. Yet I find myself more often than not with the second and third episodes saying, "Did nobody teach BY anything in the first fifty years?" Simple stuff like "don't put that in your mouth." I'll get to that.

     We start the second episode with Mando and BY roaring across the desert. On a steel horse they ride, wanted dead or alive. Some guys with a rope decide "dead." Shit's trashed as they closeline our heroes. Then our heroes kill them. I began thinking, telling my notebook, "what?" I mean, of course they are being chased. Look at that cute bastard. But how did those guys know Mando was riding that way? It's a big goddamn desert yet there's only one rock formation in or out on Tatooine? 

     Maybe they didn't know shit about BY and were just raiders. Sure, but I feel like they went right for him. In the end, like all of us, the last man standing bites off more jetpack than he can chew and is launched skyward. His fall mirrors the fall of man as a superior opponent looks at a child and shrugs.

     Moving on! Back to camp where Mando gets transport for a frog lady and her delicious eggs. I mean, they do look like that jar at the end of the bar filled with pickled eggs that nobody but the guy with one arm touches, but Baby Yoda is into it. And, to say again, who taught this kid to eat everything. Even if his first few dozen years were as a larva or whatever, goddamn somebody slap that kid's hand. I thought he learned his lesson, but then came the spider eggs.

     The standoff and flight against the X-wings brought a smile. When everything looks okay, then those wings open up, that's just simple storytelling. They could have said "Hey, we just wanna talk about some crazy shit you did that we might let you go for," but cops gonna be cops.

     Now I'm gonna dump on the frog lady. Who on an ice planet trapped underground wanders off to maybe find a hot spring? And who does not look around before getting bare ass and dumping their babies in the pool. If my mom did that, I would be dead and deserved it. Not to mention all the kids getting eaten by that adorable big eared green trash compactor.

     Spider fight and cavalry save the day for some reason. Come'on. Ice Spiders? Somebody played a lot of Skyrim on their refrigerator while writing the script. Effective, but expected. And those X-wings just found them on that whole goddamn planet? I drop my glasses in my studio apartment and it takes ten minutes before I can see again.

    Coincidence makes kings in the Mandalorian. The old golden rule is "coincidence can get characters into trouble, but they have to get themselves out." Having space rangers show up to blast your troubles away feels wrong in retrospect.

    Hobbling out into space, we get to some actual others of our dude's kind! And it is Motherfucking Starbuck! Gotta say, when they took off their helmets and called him a cultist, I dug it. Nobody writes stories where our "outsider badass" might actually be a brainwashed sycophant (outside of most movies sanctioned by the US military). Texting with a friend, she said, "so Mando's a Jehovah's Witness?" I just hope he gets to celebrate his birthday up in the stars. 

     And then we have another "help us or we won't help you" plot, which seems to be the series main bag. I'm for it. Our guy is always on the ropes with his little puppet of hunger and gets to display how awesome he can be almost constantly. We do get another "Mando's fucked without coincidence" on the pirate ship, but I will trade that for the hallway scene where he's getting battered then blows shit up.

     Wrapping up, we carreen ever closer to this being a sequel to Star Wars: Clone Wars and Rebels. "Go find Ahsoka Tano," Starbuck said. And so we go, knowing full well that by the end of this season Starbuck holding the DarkSaber will make many nerds piddle on the carpet. 

    I never completed either of those series. At some point, Star Wars became "not for me." I was always into the sword fights and the World War II imagery, but the drama often falls flat. Politics in the real world holds way more sway over my mood than made up in-fighting. I like Mandalorian because of the simple "guy and a kid against the world" story. Grand schemes are not at play, global fuckery is not an issue, and just getting to tomorrow feels like enough.

    Hell, that might be my new catchphrase.

Horror for Halloween

Early afternoon, the sun obeying daylight savings and dipping low in the sky, when along came a woman and two kids. Little kids, the kind that you have to hold their hands, or they go off climbing god only knows. Some high thing like a slide or a giraffe. That little collective walked up to me outside the library where we were doing curbside.

     "Do you have an appointment?" I said.

     The woman's eyes rose over her mask. It was a floral thing that made me think of my grandma's garden. Ugly and unkept and forgotten under a window made for dumping out ashes and regret. "No," she said. They wanted DVDs. 

     What kind of DVDs? We had all kinds written on a big board. People could not be allowed in. We gave them a choice. No longer could the rabble run through the stacks. Like good cooks, we kept them out of the kitchen. Only the rain and the cold.

     "Some kids. We like Legos. And horror for Halloween," she said.

     I left them. Kids bags were easy. I had no idea if the bags had legos in them, or movies with legos in them, or if the movies would explode and drive some entertainment by killing the family pet. All I knew was that the bag said "Kids," and someone had drawn what looked like a dying duck. I hope the family did not have a duck.

     There were no goddamn horror bags anywhere in the library. I checked. Twice. We checked them all out.

     I walked around the staging area for the bags. Scratched at my head, right up top where it itched. Why horror? Why now? Halloween is dead and gone for another year. Lost in the minds of children gazing forward to Christmas. Lost in the minds of adults thinking about the holidays. No traveling this year because there's a virus that might kill grandma. Might as well kill grandma by making her learn how to talk to her phone with pictures. Skype, WhatsApp, Hangouts, all the mess of phones now when the Jetsons made it look so simple. Now Halloween is dead and Thanksgiving will happen over a screen and somehow the bastards in charge are worrying about Target's next sales year.

     Some still have that Halloween spirit. The freaks, the weirdos, the goths, the splattergeeks, the open-minded just enough to dance among the wreckage of a summer camp they never wanted to go to or the bloody carnage of a suburban neighborhood they hated. My people. Those beautiful souls who look and feel just right with the world having dark corners to poke at. Dark corners filled with screams and holding someone close and knowing that while monsters exist in this world, the one on the screen can not get us. 

     Depends on the screen, I suppose. The bastard Trump shows up on more scenes than he has any right. Gotten a fair number of people. Casualties in this war for politeness stuck up there. The dead from a virus and the dead from racism and the plain dead. Ghosts who haunt Facebook wondering where their friends and family went. Ghosts who get no response.

     I had a kinship with this family. This woman with her hideous mask and two little girls who like movies with Legos.

     So I went about putting together some movies. But what do you put in a bag? Do I go with only movies I like, or the big commercial appeal? What kind of horror? The slow and the plodding, or the right out of the gate I'm gonna melt your face and violate your stuffed animal? How long had I been in here looking while the sun dropped even lower?

     I had to pick Crawl. Picture this: You're daddy is not picking up the phone, even though a swirl of atmospheric hell is coming at his house. You drive down there. You're a damn good swimmer and about to make the team at some Florida college. You are capable and love your daddy and what's that noise under the house? It's daddy and a goddamn pack of alligators! Enjoy that fight for your life.

     Second, something creepy and violent to offset alligators eating people in Florida. California. Sunny, bright. A black family goes to the beach and sings in the car and overall has a good time. Then come some people in red suits that look just like them. Attacking them. The followup to Get Out, Us is a damn good, slow burn, thinker of a movie that has some logical issues. In the spirit of most CHUD (Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dweller) movies, it's best not to think about it and enjoy a damn well made movie.

     We had a copy of John Carpenter's The Thing. Throw that in there.

     One Cut of the Dead. I don't even know how we got a copy of that Japanese zombie flick, but I'll be damned if I will not throw it in. Funny, dark, fast moving, it's the best comedy zombies since Shaun of the Dead.

     Last, Invisible Man. It's new, it's stylish, and I will be damned if it is going to sit on a shelf in my library and collect the dead skin of library employees. Once slated to be a big part of a franchise release, Invisible Man was brought down to a simple story of a man torturing a woman. And he is invisible. It's not just a clever title. 

     So I threw those in a bag, checked out the lot of them, and headed outside. No idea how long it has been. One of the children is upside down on the bike rack hanging there like a christmas tree ornament. Told you they climb stuff.

     "Thank you," said the woman and fucked off with her two kids into the dwindling day.

     I never saw them again. I assume the Lego movies scared them off. Never trust movies with moving parts. Flesh and blood humans all the way.

A Scratchy Voice

When the call came in, I had three people in front of me. One wanted a computer. One needed the printer to stop being an asshole. The third danced and said the bathroom was full.

     I told the man to wait for his turn on the computer. Of course as I started speaking, someone got up. About goddamn time, his words.

     The man with the printer problem left. I do not know what happened there.

     For the dancing patron, I peaked my head in the back room and asked Freddy if he could handle the desk. Desk duty is not in his job description, but that is how we learn. He was on the phone. When he saw me, he stood up. Told me the call was for me. They would not leave a message. They needed me.

     I sent Freddy out and picked up the phone. A scratchy voice on the other end asked if this was a bad time. I said it was. Could I call them back? They said no. They said this was a one time thing. Twenty-five thousand dollars if I would take a family heirloom. 

     I guess I laughed. Of course I did. People think the library takes old stuff all the time, but they never offered to pay. Instead, I told the person on the other end I would have to meet in the flesh. They said they would be in tomorrow.

     Back out on the desk, I found freddy with a mop in hand. He shrugged. I started for the bathroom, but he told me not to worry. The dancer did not make it.