Living in coronavirusworld 211: Stay strong

 11/19

fall

first tree

On my late afternoon walk I see my first public Christmas tree on a floating platform in the Harlem Meer. Later, when I walk into my neighborhood bar, the bartender puts my new release on the sound system. One of life’s small joys. The  bonus is when Spotify follows me up with Dylan. (https://open.spotify.com/album/1lRaxaO1wvyNPcfiXyJVFF)

The  Center at West Park has finally put together a virtual series of performances knowing the virus isn’t going away anytime soon. And we’ve got to replace the whole scaffolding damaged by the wind Sunday night. We have  managed to hang on so far but what happens next is very much up in the air. 

A special virtual performance of Uncle Vanya starring Alan Cumming and Ellen Burstyn and an all star cast is the probably the highest level of actors I’ve seen yet in the ZOOM theatre mode. Almost felt like I did back at the beginning when I set out with upbeat determination to make the most of this situation. That  began to wear out after about four months. 

11/20

not this  year

My mother has been released from her rehab facility and allowed to return to her assisted care facility. Now with the spike, she must be quarantined for two weeks.  That is going to be very hard. Being trapped in her room for Thanksgiving especially. There is true cruelty to what this virus does to our elderly people. All we can do is hope that the vaccine is real and comes out soon.

courage

My rabbi friend and I meet for coffee. The President’s barrage of lawsuits and strong arming of state officials to revise votes, throw out ballots, etc. is past alarming. They are now pushing a conspiracy narrative centered on a cyber plot hatched by Venezuela (??!!) in cooperation with Cuba and “probably” China. This is of course insane. But the problem is millions of people believe it. It will take courage for Republican state officials to withstand this onslaught. January 20 can’t come too soon. My friend also is concerned about can we trust the vaccine? Why are ours ready before European or Asian vaccines? The one between realize and science fiction get ever harder to draw. And even knowing who you can trust is worrisome. Hope is necessary.

In the face of this new spike, New York City is closing the schools again. And leaving the bars open. Which makes no sense. School kids are the least likely to get infected. So it is. Making it up as we go along. 

outside

It’s a warm day. Sunny and 65. One of a diminishing number of days to enjoy outdoor time with friends. 

Finish the day by hosting my weekly gathering of Open Mic friends. If any of my international (or even US) readers would ever like to perform in a virtual open mic, you can find the sign up information at https://www.facebook.com/WPNYCOpenMic. 

Such a strange contrast…the warm weather, warmth of friends and relentless anxiety. So it is in coronavirusworld. 

Living in coronavirusworld 206: To feel the joy

11/11

81st Street

Our Underground group has moved beyond the despair we felt last week and we are allowing ourselves to experience the feeling of relief and joy  at Saturday’s outcome. 

Thank you Pennsylvania

Cutch

I wear the same hat as I did last week for Pittsburgh and a Phillies jersey for Philadelphia to say thank you Pennsylvania, thank you Pennsylvania. It’s Andrew McCutchen's jersey. My favorite contemporary player. The face of the Pittsburgh team during its’s brief midteens return to  good ball and playoffs. He loved the city so much he named his first son Steel. And the city loved him back. Until the Pirates, as is their wont, let him go. For "prospects."San Francisco, then an all too short time with the Yankees and now Philadelphia. No better way to honor Pennsylvania!

In the face of the current call to come together and heal, Joel quotes our friend Vince as saying he’s got no desire to make peace with Trump voters. Whether by intent or ignorance their votes still representing bigotry. Steve H says we need to retain moral clarity and not rush to reconciliation too quickly.  As I’ve said before, No reconciliation without reconstruction.  And Steve P rejects the idea of two equal tribes. If you’re committed to the importance and value of each human being, you are not in a tribe. Joel reminds us of what the ring leads us to do in the Lord of the Rings. We all respect Dave Chapelle’s work on last weekend’s Saturday Night Live. Talking to white folks. How we’ve got to learn to forgive one another. Or else sign up for nigger school. Some of us are old enough to remember Dick Gregory and see Chapelle in that tradition. 

We share stories of where we were and what we felt when we got the news. Dre said Paterson, New Jersey felt like just another day. But he felt like the week lasted 10 years. Steve H recalled the Trump Train of motorcycles six mile long parading through his small town and wondering are they still out there? We compared 2008 to 2020. Pro Obama to anti-Trump. Joel recalls Sam in the first book of Lord of the Rings. “One more step and it will be the farthest I have ever ben from home." Clyde felt the joy in the street. Hearing a rapper chanting “We fucked Trump up” and everywhere the  sound of Kool and the Gang “Celebration.”

The importance of joy in resistance .  Allowing it to feel real, to  be real. Not happiness. But radical joy. Like Desmond Tutu in South Africa’s apartheid days.We have already won. We read the book. We know how it ends. The real meaning of Revelation:  God draws back the curtain. 

wear your mask!

We need to move beyond do no harm. Like mask wearing . It's not about you. It's about harming others without knowing or intending it. 

Joel says the joy in the street, the multicultural, multiracial, multi class joy helped him to feel like a New Yorker again. 

We wonder where the expression "Out of left field” came from. Then remember then old Yankee Stadium with its short porch in right and the vast expanse of left field. Whee balls could get lost and confusion reign. Ponder for a moment the slogan of indigenous people and formerly enslaved: “Stolen land/stolen people.” Red.  And Black.  Money continues to transfer upward.  Work to be done.

Dre has a series of questions to ask us. Next week. 

But today we will allow ourselves to feel the relief. The release. To feel the joy.

Living in coronavirusworld 201 : the day after

 

11/4

Count the votes\\\\\\

                                               

As our underground gathers, there is a consistent sense of shock that so many of our fellow Americans, one out of two, actually want four more years of this. It’s very hard to fathom. Or accept. But no matter the final outcome, this much  is already true.

On the Tonight Show, Jimmy Fallon said that it’s like waking up with a hangover and realizing you still in the bar. 

anything to help Michigan and Pennsylvania

I have no idea what hat and shirt to wear for today’s gathering. So decide to go with something to add support for Michigan and Pennsylvania to go for Biden. My shirt is from my visit to Tiger Stadium in 2014 in Detroit. It was Polish night, so I got a Polski Tiger fan t-shirt. The hat spins off of that. It’s a 1947 Pittsburgh Pirate hat. Only worn that year. That was the year Hank Greenberg, the Hebrew Hammer, after spending his entire career in Detroit, came to Pittsburgh. They moved the left field fence in 30 feet ostensibly to give Hank a shot at beating Babe Ruth’s record 60 home tuns. Then called it the Greenberg Gardens.  A year later, when Ralph Kiner took over for Hank, they called it Kiner’s Corner, which would ultimately become the  name of Kiner’s radio show as a New York Mets announcer. My neighbor Barney Greengrass would laws take his iconic sturgeon out to Yankee Stadium for Hank when the Tigers were  town. Because Hank was a landsman, and because he hated the Yankees. Giants fan all thew way. The now San Francisco Giants still visit Barney’s after World Series victories. Anyways, we use what we can to up the mojo.

Steve H..and more of us, confessing to feeling helpless. Last Sunday a Trump caravan of trucks with blaring loudspeakers disrupted his service. Sam speaks of, and most of us agree, a feeling of shame. To be an American. Some even want to disassociate, saying it  always this way from the start with a constitution designed to protect slavery. (And thus the electoral college which hamstrings us today) But I can’t go there. Our constitution, like a work of art, has ideas more powerful  than the weakness of the men that created it. Martin Luther King, Jr always spoke to the cognitive dissonance between the words and the  reality. And I recall Abraham Joshua Heschel’s thought  that a prophet comes from a people and speaks to that people. With the strongest motivation of love. We are of this people and  share in the collective guilt and responsibility. By disassociation, we lose the capacity to speak prophetically to the people. 

And we need to know whee our ultimate loyalty is. As someone said, If I am not his, I am not. 

Russ wants to go immediately to what’s our job. Sam speaks of the importance of community organizing. We all agree, either Trump or Biden will win, but our deepest problems remain. Dre calls us to focus on what is possible. 

We know this as well: the virus is not going away. That will continue to be our context. 

Trump has announced that he is no longer a Presbyterian. He Is now a non-denominational Christian. (More votes there)

There are many ideas as to what we need or do. We need to recall God’s contingent promise to Abraham under the requirement to be a blessing to all people. To have purpose gives us forward movement. We need to talk less about rights and more about responsibilities. To challenge the question what’s in it for me? To create a community that acts in support of individuals and itself. 

My friend Jeremy relates how his parents debated waiting until after the revolution to have a cool so that  would grow up in batter world. They grew tired of waiting. 

Joel  cautions us to not leap into action too quickly. We need to live  with this. Grieve at what has been lost. Allow ourselves to reflect on it. And allow the path to emerge.

Joel talks abut how Trump has debased meaning itself. Words do not even mean the same thing  to the two sides. How do we even talk to one another?

Who are we as a people? How do we connect with our people? 

This is hard.  

Russ quotes fro the song, O Happy Day: He taught me how to watch, fight and pray, fight and pray, And live…

                                                  Oh Happy Day

I meet my rabbi friend for coffee.  It’s a beautiful sunny day. And we are both dealing with the shocking truth of our country. We are forgetting appointments. He takes a break to teach.  I finally realize it’s my granddaughter’s birthday and join in the ZOOM. I remember being there in Berlin  when she was born,. Over a year since I’ve seen her.  They can’t come here. We aren’t allowed there. 

on Lennox

ATLAH

I walk. Take in the leftover signs of Black Lives Matter protests. See the sign at the ATLAH  (All the land anointed holy)church. This Black Nationalist homophobic entity declaring Obama and Kamala to not be black, in fact be “covert white supremacists. What strange bedfellows for Trump, whose support froth black community actually grew this election.

I stay up late again. Unable to sleep. And we still don’t know. 

Living in cornavirusworld 101: Election day. How long can you hold your breath?

 

11/3

                                                                  Election day

How long can you hold your breath?

It’s Election Day. All day long, you try to do other things. Take care of other business. When all you can think of is the election.  You’ve waited four years for this. There’s been this surge of expectation. The long, hope filled lines at the polling station across the street with people anxious to believe that their vote can bring a change. Your 92 year old mother in her assisted care facility determined to  get her vote counted. You feel like you are just marking time until the votes start to come in. 

Take a walk.  At the school yard as darkness falls, a solitary guy on the basketball court working on his game with intensity. One way to fill this time. I wind up at my neighborhood Cantina for the Tuesday nigh taco special, keeping the routine I’ve established to help keep covid sane. The 115th street Halloween craps game has become the elction eve craps gamed has become the election night craps game stretching out like a vote too close to call.

My rabbi friend has set up a ZOOM room for friends just to hang out and talk. That’s the closest we can come to being with on another. Uli my friend from Germany emails me remembering being with us in 2008 when Obama won. How we poured out into the street in spontaneous celebration and the police shut down Broadway for the all night party. He said that night that it reminded him of when the  Wall came  down, And I responded that another  wall came down for us that  night. He wishes that for us this night. But it will not be. Both because we can’t be together  and because hour after hour it’s just too close to call. 

I find myself amazed at the numbers the President is rolling up.  I just can’t understand it.I think of my friend in Pittsburgh in the ICU on a ventilator with covid and pneumonia. At risk, just like me. And they say he is not responding. And I look at the President and think, you bastard, you did this. We are not rounding the fucking corner, You are killing us because you won’t act. And my friend hovers between life and death. 

I toggle myself between CNN on the TV and the ZOOM room. I’m taking it easy on the bourbon but finally give in and go to the deli for junk food snacks. Nervous and anxious.  The ZOOM room closes. I watch a show about abolitionist John Brown and go back to CNN. Too close to call. Coming down to battle ground states. No matter what happens, I have to face the reality that half of my fellow citizens believe that things these last four years are ok. Acceptable. And want 4 more years. And I don’t  know what to do with that.  Biden is actually too moderate for me but I have come to want his easy, calm way. Feel that’s what  we need. Like Gerald Ford after Nixon.To be able to get through a day without the headache, the heart ache, the sick feeling ii the pit of my stomach as I read the President’s latest tweet. To just breathe for awhile and I almost cry because I just can’t live like this for another years. I just can’t.

Biden addressee the people. Says he’s feeling good, but not able to claim victory. The American people will decide. But if he wins, he tells us, he will be the President of all the people. 

They say the President will speak later. I stay up to hear him.  After 2:30 AM, almost 45 minutes after his scheduled appearance, he finally emerges at his White House not social distanced not masked super spreader party. Flanked by banks of  American  flags, he stands to speak and fulfills all emu worst expectations. Claims s he has won. No desire whatsoever to represent all the people. And that they, some very sad people. are trying to The greatest fraud in history. Demands the voting stop. Even though voting did long ago and what’s being done now is  counting. Even though it seems he’s still got a good chance to win, says he’ll be going to the Supreme Court  to stop he election count.  That his people are being disenfranchised. And stop the counting everywhere except Arizona, where he’s still got a chance.  He says one thing  I agree with, that this election such an embarrassment. Word, as they say. Vice President Pence tries to make a more conciliatory, normal statement. As if…..

Even Republican stalwart Rick Santorum called the presidents words distressing and that as a Pennsylvanian he respected his state’s counting process. And that all votes should be counted.  I am sure that the 45 minute delay was filed with  friends and advisors trying to gtee ho not to say what he said. But that is not who he is, lek a demagogic stand up insult comic.

After hearing the President’s remarks, I once again cannot fathom how he could be on the verge of reelection. I can’t do this anymore. And so finally  to bed. How  long can you hold your  breath?

Living in coronavirusworld: And in late breaking news...

 10/2

Thank you John Lewis

The day begins with the breaking news that the president and his wife have tested positive for Covid. An international family chat starts up immediately. With predictable comments about karma and divine intervention, And equally predictable, serious questions about what is really going on, the thought that t must be an angle to this somehow. Hat nothing is what it seems. It’s a sad testimony as to where we are now that throughout the day, I hear people raising these questions. There’s just no trusting what’s real and what’s not anymore. And whatever side you’re on, conspiracy theories abound, To me, it was virtually, well maybe bad word choice, but inevitable given the president’s nearly total disdain for the most rudimentary of precautions about masks, social distance, crowds, science  and common sense. Now an already chaotic election season becomes yet even more bizarre.

Medical care in coronavirus world grows ever more complicated. Due to fears about immune systems and risk factors, my dermatologist required me to get flu and shingles vaccinations before my visit and complete blood work before making a recommendation for meds. The rows of empty vials increase my natural anxiety about needles and veins. Made only worse by a nurse who misses the vein the first two times. Thankfully, the back up eases in the needle on the first try. Even have my first HIV test.

My friend Rabbi Steve wonders how to respond if his congregants request prayers for healing for the President in his shabbat service tonight. I quote Tevye from“Fiddler on the Roof”: God keep the czar…far away from me” then say that it’s part of every Sunday service in the Episcopal church. When I dated a priest many years ago, I just could not pray for “our President Ronald” (as in Reagan)

nevertheless, fall....

I join runners in Germany (and around the world) in a Bavarian Oktoberfest 5K. From Harlem down the  the Upper West Side finishing up at the Gate. Where the conversation continues about just what the President might  be up to.  And it will be awhile before the Gate is ready to move to indoor dining. Getting  outdoor ready was challenge enough.

By the time we gather for Open Mic, the news reports that the President  is being medevaced via helicopter to Walter Reede Hospital. Our day is slow getting  underway as everyone offers their own opinion. Our national story has become a badly scripted soap opera. It could even be funny but….