So first off, let me clarify something about COVID. I do actually think Geoff Berner's views about COVID are a bit extreme. We talked about COVID in our recent feature for the Straight. Actually, we talked quite a bit more about it than made the final article. For instance, there's this paragraph that got cut (I guess Mike felt there was too much COVID in the piece?).
"The government has pretty brutally misled people about the nature of the disease", Berner says on a Zoom call with the Straight. He cites things like emphasizing handwashing over the need for masks, despite COVID being spread through airborne transmission. "It's great to wash your hands and all, but that has nothing to do with COVID. And they're still pretending that it doesn't affect kids! That was the scariest thing, when they opened everything up without giving the vaccine to the kids yet, because they claimed it didn't do anything to them; now long COVID is topping asthma as the number one childhood illness. It would be nice to get this information out to folks, but generally there's been an abandonment of public health, to a large extent. That's why they've got measles coming back..."
Now some things Geoff says make good sense to me -- like, it was fuckin' stupid to go stand in the basement at Alf House with 50 other punks for that Night Court show (the show I reference in the article, as the last time I caught COVID: cramped, poor air quality, not much ventilation: bad fuckin' idea to pack 50+ people into that space). But there are other considerations at play, and if we reason backwards from my actual practices, we can sort of uncover the principles at work; they're clearly different from Geoff's.
I mean, I don't wear COVID masks on public transportation unless I think, as today, that I'm actually coming down with something. Basement of ALF House aside, I do still go to concerts and stand around unmasked (...unless, again, I'm actually sick). I mostly don't think about COVID that much, and to the extent that I do, it's more about being afraid of giving it to others than its potential impacts on myself (my body seems to be able to handle it okay: it has been pretty mild the last few times I've had it. The first time round with it was a doozy but it's hard to be that afraid of something that seems no worse than a mild cold).
Perhaps I have been swayed by misinformation, perhaps I don't know who to trust, but I can kind of understand why Canadian public health is in the state it is in (...a state of denial, say), and am not as accusatory about it as Geoff is. Like, I am not advocating for a world where governments issue masks to all people free of charge, to be worn in all public spaces at all times until... when? I'm actually not entirely clear what Geoff thinks the endgame is there: "This is how we live now?" That we mask up at all times in public in the same way that, like, we wear shoes and pants and so forth? That we not do things indoors unless we're all masked and/ or fast-tested? That's going to be expensive and it's going to be wasteful as hell and even bad for the environment: I have no yearning to return for a time when there were discarded used COVID masks clogging up every gutter!).
On the other hand, I just had an older friend come out of a scary two week experience of COVID -- someone with enough "comorbidities" (easily my least favourite word of the pandemic) that I was afraid for them. I know people with long COVID. There are definitely things out there online, seemingly reputable journals and, um, government studies (I dedicate that last "um" to Murray Acton), that suggest that each new exposure to COVID carries the potential for long COVID and/ or unpredictably serious, poorly understood health consequences, possibly permanent.
And though, like I say, I worry more about transmitting it than catching it, I've had COVID six times now. We might say I am also at high risk, since I teeter on the line of diabetes as a way of life. Maybe even though the last five infections have been no worse than the common cold, one does not want to discover that it is infection seven that fucks me up for life, you know?
I'm also not as convinced about COVID vaccines as Geoff is, given that three of the people I know who have not been vaccinated also (perhaps coincidentally) have all apparently not had the disease yet. Anecdotal, sure, but kinda weird!
Mostly I don't know what to believe. One thing I know, though: if I develop a sore throat and feel a cold coming on, I do not perform non-essential tasks in public. I might still go to work, with a mask on, or even buy groceries, if they're essential. Once I even went to a concert (but I had committed to write about it, and wore a mask the whole night). But strictly for pleasure, let's-go-to-a-show nights out? If I feel like something is coming on? No. It's irresponsible.
So I did not go see the show at LanaLou's last night. I very much wanted to, wrote about it, etc, and I'm glad to hear the turnout was good, but I've got a rasp in my respiratory system and a tickle in my throat and I actually did feel worried that I was going to spread something if I went. It remains to be seen how bad this is, and I'm still going to go to work today -- in fact, am editing this on the bus --and I'm not going to give up my Stick Men ticket yet (for Sunday--I wrote about that show, too). But I distinctly felt like I was coming down with something last night, and Erika and I bailed.
I hope people went and had fun. We ended up here at Chez Lax-MacInnis watching Season IV of Jack Reacher Reacher. There is a whole lot to be ceitical of, if that is your bent. I'm not a fan of Alan Ritchson, for one, find his acting and line-delivery only a bit more nuanced than vintage Schwarzenegger and his physicality a bit odd (he kinda walks like he has a plunger shoved up his ass), even though he's obviously a better match for the role than, say, Tom Cruise. I also find the show lacks a flair for dialogue, which is basically just read flat from the books. But I have read an embarrassing number of those books. They are very compelling, and some of that definitely carries over to the show, and especially the new season...
I must say, Gone Tomorrow is a fun book for them to adapt. Like my favourite in the series, The Hard Way, it has a narrative predicated on Reacher making mistake after mistake. Unlike The Hard Way's story, however, the underlying structure is a very implausible/ silly/ paranoid one, more convoluted than The Big Sleep and less progressive than your average episode of 24. (There are mild spoilers that follow so if you don't recall the plot of the book or haven't seen the season yet, skip the rest of this paragraph?). It manages to dodge accusations of Islamophobia simply because most people in its viewing audience likely don't realize that Indonesia is predominantly Muslim. It even manages to have a suicide-bombing scene in it without ever once getting explicit about its character's background or motivation; religion is briefly hinted at but even then obliquely. (Did the book also sanitize this element so heavily?). The conspiracy at the heart of both the novel and the season ultimately proves so bloody idiotic and chance-dependent that the mind reels, with each new surprise forcing you to revise your interpretations of what has gone before until you no longer trust the narrators at all. Also, if we delve into the actual political subtext of things, this particular season is about as progressive and nuanced as your average Charles Bronson film. Even the most dubious characters, the ones who seem the most likely villains, from a liberal POV, will prove to be heroes after all... if they are white men. (Brown women don't fare so well). Cops, politicians... however corrupt they may seem early on, almost all of them get redeemed (and if not, Reacher kills them flat out).
That said, the action sequences are among the most gripping I've seen (especially episode V). It's by far the best-made of the four seasons that are out there. In lieu of going out, we binged three episodes last night and now have to wait six days for the final one to air on Prime on the 18th.
Speaking of COVID, I do also have friends who talk about "the Great Reset" and all that, and they have a point, too: due to fear of spreading the virus, we eschewed going out and being social and community-oriented and instead stayed safely indoors watching a show on fuckin' Amazon Prime, of all places. That's not a great future for humanity, you know? (You imagine a THX-1138-style broadcast instructing people to not go out, but to "stay home and interact with your devices"). Those fascist evildoers at the base of COVID conspiracy theories couldn't have wished for a better outcome...
...and speaking of which, here's the new Doug Andrew song that I mentioned, which Doug sent to me this morning by way of accepting my apology that I didn't make the show. Doug tells me it was a great night!
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