UNDER COVID, PT. 12: HERE TODAY, HERE TOMORROW

Stuck Inside of Co-Op with Those COVID Blues Again.

As we wrap up week three of Shelter In Place: A Drama In Indeterminate Acts, a sense of acceptance has come upon the city -- or what little I see of it. 

Masked strangers everywhere you look? That's good! Grocery stores allowing only 30 people at a time? No problem! Washing hands with the diligence of the surgeons operating on JFK after his shooting? Thank God!

And yet none of this stopped me getting my annual intestinal bug that spread to my sinuses -- just enough of a scare to start me preparing mental drafts of goodbye letters to my wife and daughter. (Don't sell the movie posters for less than $10 each!) 

The bug was gone in 48 hours, allowing me to once again focus on what really matters: not getting hammered before sunset.

If I had seen Craig Melvin, I'd have yelled, "Hey, the mask
goes on your face, not your throat!"

Just how little I've left home the last few weeks was made clear when my Google Maps Timeline for March arrived. Usually, my travels show me covering the boroughs as I go from job to job. 

This time, it's just trips to the grocery store, East River, or, if I'm really adventuresome, the Great Meadow at Central Park. Most days, there's nothing. 
Which creates a 21st-century philosophical question: If I have no Google Timeline, do I exist?

On Wednesday, I did an early-morning shopping run that would keep us pretty much set (outside of milk and fresh produce) for two weeks. As the cashier totaled it up, she gave the bittersweet statement, "I'm going to give you the senior citizen discount." Sweet, because it saved us 20 bucks. Bitter? The mask was covering 80% of my face! Is it that obvious?! 

This would be a good time to get your spot for
New Year's Eve.

Meanwhile, traffic cameras on the morning news show a desolate Times Square like an episode of The Twilight Zone. You half-expect Howard Duff to run through the streets screaming, "Where is everybody?!" 

So you can imagine how New Yorkers got a lift when, earlier this week, it was announced that Broadway shows were expected to re-open June 7. When asked at his press briefing if that date was a barometer of the re-opening of the rest of the city, Gov. Cuomo snorted, "I wouldn't use Broadway as a barometer of anything." And if you've seen the current crop of musicals, you'd understand that you shouldn't use Broadway as a barometer of Broadway.

That's the same look I'm giving Hoda right now.

How happy I was to learn that important people (i.e., those in show business) understand how what we're going through, mainly by confusing empathy with self-pity. The Today show's Hoda Kotb -- the only TV host whose name looks like your Scrabble tray after choosing your first round of letters -- told us so. Or, in her words, "I do know what lonely feels like" -- even as she lives with her partner and two kids somewhere outside of the city.

Wait, so explain to me -- what does Hoda Kotb know from lonely in the age of COVID-19? As she herself explains it, she was single for many years. 

Oh, bro-ther. The only disease she was trying to quarantine from was the clap.

Who do I have to kill to get into this jail?

Then there was Ellen DeGeneres, who compared her living situation with "jail."  It's pretty clear how removed Ellen is from reality that she actually believed her fans would think this was funny.

To their credit, they didn't. And after getting hell from them, she removed the video from YouTube. Like people wouldn't remember it. Particularly Ellen's former employees, who describe her in what would best be described as unflattering terms.  Remember, never trust the celebrities who seem nice! 

Seig apparently thinks he's posing for his high school
year book.

I'll tell you who really cares about me. Andy Sieg, the president of Merrill-Lynch, our money handlers. In an audio recording emailed to me (and, I guess, a few million other people), Sieg predicted that while the market would be bumpy the next few months, the fourth quarter would be a strong one. 

It was quite reassuring. Then I noticed the caveat at the bottom of the email: "Opinions are those of the speaker and subject to change." 

You're not kidding! In 2018, Seig predicted a 50 year bull market. He might want to think about getting a new barometer.


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For no other reason than to bring some much-needed entertainment, here's the Turtles' Pepsi commercial, circa 1966: