UNDER COVID, PT. 38: BACK BY ZERO DEMAND

I'm trying to find a way to blame this on Alec Baldwin.

While it's always nice to have something to write about, I really didn't want the topic to be COVID-19 or any of its variants. Again. And yet here New York finds itself in the middle of a spike that rivals -- and at times surpasses --what we experienced at the height of the pandemic a year and a half ago. 

Was I wrong in thinking that the worst was behind us? That we'd have some ups and downs, but that by and large we were ready to live something resembling a normal life? That maybe there'd come a day when the first thing that came to mind when hearing the "corona" was a cheap beer that the gringos treat like Champagne?

Good to see the world through steamed-up
glasses again, too.

Yes, yes, and very yes. If we're not back to where started, we're not that far from the starting line, either. Thanks to omicron -- which, a month ago, I could've sworn was an online investment site -- I'm once again wearing a mask outdoors, keeping six feet away from people on checkout lines, and tossing out any travel plans I might have had for the next six months. Ah, it's good to be back to normal!

Aw, Hades no!

After a few months of Broadway coming back to life, all the big shows have closed for several performances, while others are shutting down until after Christmas, and at least one is closing permanently. There's almost no point in reserving tickets for any play you're interested in seeing; chances are by the time you get there, there'll be a "FORGET IT, BUB" sign in the window. 

Al was there first, Patti.

But if you had tickets to see the revival of Steven Sondheim's Company last Thursday, you actually got to see the show... for the first ten minutes, anyway. Then Patti Lupone sauntered on stage (presumably as only Patti Lupone can) and informed the audience the rest of the performance was cancelled. Not due to COVID but a cast member suffering from food poisoning. Or so she claimed. Then she sang and told a few jokes before sending everybody home. 

Talk on the street, however, is that COVID was indeed the culprit, so she was likely trying to keep the audience calm. To me, it sounded like Al Jolson's stunt of stopping the play in the middle of the final act and asking the audience, Do you want to see the rest of the show, or hear me sing? Can't you just hear the Company audience yell, Sing, Patti, sing!

Tourists hoping to see some high-kicking at Radio City have been left disappointed, since the Rockettes' Christmas Spectacular is cancelled. Care to take in some local sports instead? Here's hoping you can extend your stay, since games have been delayed. But cheer up! Bill de Blasio insists the New Year's Eve Times Square ball-drop is still on, although you know our idiot mayor will be a safe distance from the celebrants. 

City sidewalks, busy sidewalks, dressed in holiday style...

Locals haven't got time to do anything fun anyway, since they're waiting hours on line for COVID tests. This would have been one of those times that New Yorkers would have been grateful for a little global warming to make things more comfortable while waiting for a stranger to get nasally intimate with them under a 4x4 pop-up tent. 

But after a brief warm spell, things are back to normal, and the locals are sipping overpriced Starbucks lattes in their overpriced Agnes B. gloves all morning so they can get a rapid test, which has a 40% chance of giving a false negative result. But for free!

I've done background work only seven or eight times since April, yet in doing so I probably got at least 15 rapid tests. That means there's a fair chance I had COVID and nobody knew. But unlike your average joe, I got paid for each test (on top of my regular salary), so it was definitely worth the risk.

What comedy looks like.

Over the weekend, Saturday Night Live was thrown into a tizzy when four of the cast members tested positive, while three others had been exposed to the virus.

By airtime, the musical guest was cut, along with almost the entire cast, in-house band, crew, and the entire audience. The three new sketches were filmed earlier in the week, while the rest of the bits were from SNL episodes of Christmas past. And get this -- the entire show was taped that afternoon.

Why must the show go on when there's no show to begin with? Just have Patti Lupone warble "Ladies Who Lunch" and call it a day. There are plenty of New Yorkers who would find that worth getting sick for.

Not me. But during the 1918 flu pandemic, I'd have been one of the fanatics yelling Sing, Al, sing! from the balcony of the Winter Garden. Some things are worth facing death for.

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