A friend today summed up these officially interesting times perfectly. Absolutely perfectly.
"This is the Lentiest Lent I ever Lented," she wrote.
Yeah, that about covers it. Almost to the point where I have nothing else to add.
It would seem that we are flailing amid a world of hurt, a world of suffering and a world of fear. That's before we get to the religious obligations of prayer, self-denial and penance.
This is one hell of a Lenty Lent, all right. We even had to give up church for Lent. America's president and government would have given up common sense and competence for the penitential season, except for one niggling detail.
You cannot surrender what you do not possess.
AND HERE we are, with too many people unnecessarily giving up good health for Lent. People giving up a sense of security for Lent. People by the thousands giving up their very lives for Lent -- giving them to a virus that U.S. officialdom never took seriously until it was damned near too late. Whether some leaders ever take the coronavirus seriously enough to do any damned good remains to be seen.
Let's just say I'm not real optimistic as I sit in the 3 Chords & the Truth apocalypse bunker here in Omaha, by God, Nebraska.
That's about all the elaboration I can muster. It's hard staying at home. It's hard being isolated from friends . . . and the world. It's hard for me, and I'll bet it's hard for you, too.
So . . . we all do what we can to make it through, and to help one another make it through. The Big Show is what I do -- give you some music to listen to and maybe a thing or two to think about. Maybe that's helpful. I pray that it is.
Wash your hands, keep your distance, and be careful out there.
It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
If I see one more social-media post about not listening to the "hysterical" media -- a group I was proud to belong to, and still do in my own way, and to which my wife, over in the dining room busting her ass for the Omaha World-Herald, still belongs -- I am going to go all Ray Nagin on WWL radio after Katrina.
If not for "the hysterical media," you wouldn't know what the fuck is coming at you like a freight train. You wouldn't know squat about "wash your hands" and how COVID-19 is spread. You wouldn't know that your health-care system is at risk of collapse if you don't stay the hell home and not cause yourself (or your loved ones, friends and random strangers) to be infected.
If not for "the hysterical media," no one would be sewing face masks for hospitals or trying to help out laid-off workers -- because they'd have no damned idea if they weren't hard hit themselves.
IF NOT for "the hysterical media," you'd know jack shit about jack squat. (Which still, unfortunately, is too often the case in this country, despite the heroic efforts of "the hysterical media.")
Untold members of "the hysterical media" have given their lives to let unreflective and ungrateful people know the things they'd rather not know but damned well need to. On my darkest days, I don't know why "the hysterical media" bother.
Right now, there are hard-working folks in "the hysterical media" who have been infected by COVID-19 in the course of trying tell you about the threat of COVID-19 and how your fellow Americans are suffering under the plague of COVID-19.
Not that people fucking care. At least, won't care about until they're lying on a gurney in the hall of an overwhelmed hospital, gasping for breath, waiting for death because there's no respirator available.
Your governors have been screaming bloody murder about that shortage. You'd know that if you actually had been listening to "the hysterical media."
Now, please don't get all hysterical when you're blindsided by what you refused to believe was coming. It's a bad look, don't you know?
And please don't say the media didn't try to tell you. They did, and you called them all "hysterical."
End of Week 2 in nearly total home sequestration: Mr. and Mrs. Favog have not killed one another.
So far, so good.
In the name of "flattening the curve" of COVID-19 cases, we certainly hope you're doing the same. Your health, your neighbor's health, your grandmama's health and the health of our American health-care system demand that middling sacrifice of us all.
The virus, it is real. And real bad.
SO, IN THE NAME of making your homebound state as pleasant as possible, here's another episode of the Big Show . . . 3 Chords & the Truth. As usual, it's a good one.
An eclectic one.
One that will make you, at least once (maybe twice . . . OK, maybe three times) go "WHOA!"
That is how we roll here in the Apocalypse Bunker in Omaha, by God, Nebraska. We're doing our level best.
Now turn us on and listen to the music. And wash your damn hands.
So . . . is anybody else disinfecting groceries? Yesterday's gobstoppering paranoia is today's mere prudence, I suppose -- here in Coronavirus Nation.
It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
You can't say the Big Show is a laggard in having an apocalypse bunker, now, can you?
And I'll bet you're scrambling to construct one of your own, now, aren't you? Complete with microbial air filtering capabilities.
Well, that's why 3 Chords & the Truth is a leader, in musical entertainment and disaster preparedness, too. That's why you're here -- you want the best in entertainment while you get ready for God only knows what next.
THIS WEEK on this here program, we're going to keep it light and relaxing, because God knows we've all had about as much anxiety and heaviness as we can stand. So prepare to be mellowed out . . . and to have a little joy infusion into this present viral-induced joy deficit.
And that's about it. We're going to try to chill as best as we can. We need all the chill we can muster for the times ahead.
As you're hunkered down.
In your own apocalypse bunker.
Remember this, though. We'll get through it. It won't be easy, but we will.
Somehow.
It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
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If marijuana -- hell, crystal meth -- isn't legal in Nebraska (it's not), you'd be hard-pressed to divine that from the Omaha World-Herald's website tonight.
This fails every possible journalistic test. It fails in newsworthiness. It fails in "what folks are worried about." It even fails the Internet Age test of "What story is gonna get the most page views?"
PUTTING "Creighton looks to spruce up 24th Street" in the lead-story slot over, oh, coronavirus fast getting a foothold in the Omaha area even fails a basic tenet of the news business that every first-year journalism student learns in college -- if not on their high-school newspaper: The most important story gets the most important slot.
I can't say I know exactly what the hell is going on here, but whatever it is, it's seriously messed up.
The World-Herald hasn't won a Pulitzer Prize since 1944 (and probably won't under the bleed-it-dry ownership of Lee Enterprises) but at least you'd think it wouldn't be too much to ask that it not try for the newspaper version of the Darwin Awards.
The covid-19 thing, the "novel coronavirus," is getting real here in the United States. So far, 15 are dead. Total confirmed American infections are north of 300.
One case was confirmed at the Omaha hospital a block from where I write.
And this is what the president of the United States said -- amid health officials praising him in Dear Leader terms -- during a visit to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta today: "People are really surprised I understand this stuff,” he said. “Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability.”
Believe me, Donald John Trump's only "natural ability" is for being a liar, an ignoramus, a buffoon and a flim-flam man.
SO . . . what does this have to do with this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth? Well, this week's edition of the Big Show is all about WATCH YOUR STEP. That's what we all have to do now, because we're pretty much on our own -- watch your step.
Part of watching your step, besides washing your hands -- a lot -- and substituting a wave for a handshake, and staying out of large crowds, and making sure you have enough provisions to hole up at home for a while if need be . . . is keeping a level head and keeping your spirits up.
The aim of 3 Chords & the Truth is that last thing. The aim is to play some good music, make you think a little bit . . . and to keep spirits up. We're going to need that. A lot.
Besides, this here program would serve as excellent entertainment if you're homebound and eating lots of beans, soup and tuna fish.
That . . . is all.
It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
