Just Wear a Mask, Forever and Ever, and Still, (Surprise!) You Will Die

The virus news is more and more focused on the Delta Variant. And, here's a piece of absolutely expected news, if you are vaccinated, you are still at a risk and WHO says that you should wear a  mask, and socially distance.

Of course, here in California, unlike other states, we are just getting back to a vague normal. I actually went out to dinner with friends like a human being. Oh, yes, some mothers were still putting masks on their two year olds who will live for the rest of their lives with some form of hypochondria, but most of the people were doing something that hasn't been done for 15 plus months---living. 

I know. I know. Lots of you are nodding your heads in disapproval. She (that's me) doesn't get it. We have to protect ourselves. This new variant could kill people. In fact, the way "they" are telling it--you know the people out there, those faceless ones who therefore don't even need a mask--this new variant is even more dangerous than the last one. 

And at the same moment "they" are telling people to get vaccinated, who don't want to, they are telling us that being vaccinated effectively changes nothing. It tells those of us who dutifully did get vaccinations, additionally, that we were stupid to listen in the first place. Vaccinated or unvaccinated, indoors or outdoors, with people or not with them, you are in the profoundest danger. 

I have a personal opinion about the craziness occuring on airplanes, where passengers try to open the door or become violent towards the attendants. People have just spent months completely restricted. And then they go into a space in a tin can, thrity thousand feet up, with limited leg room, no real food, and must wear a mask between bites of that no real food. They go from restriction to MORE restriction. I find flying horrible enough---and have managed to do it from time to time. But not now. I can tell you that before the spate of people trying to open the hatch doors I worried about people doing just that thing. That used to be my OCD idee fixed talking. Now it is valid concern. It is unlikely I will be flying any time soon. I had hoped that things might settle down by next year because my high school reunion is then, but between masks and passenger breakdowns, I may never fly again. I admire those who still manage it. 

Let me just say it straight out. The first spate of masking and limitations damaged a lot of people's psyches. But do it again, and you might as well call it soul murder. Is physical survival more important than the mind and the heart and the soul?

You cannot flatten the curve of mortality. Besides that, I no longer believe, if ever I did, that this whole production was ever about saving lives. Oh, sure, there were people in the wheel of politics and mind control who really were trying to save lives. And I repeat, there was a virus. There are a bunch of viruses. There will always be, as long as humans live, viruses and things that can and will kill us. A friend of mine just died. She got sick. It wasn't the virus.  She had a whole year of restriction, limitation and isolation, and just as it was lifting, she died.

Finally, here is my "conspiracy theory", at least as it involves the United States, and maybe the rest of the world. There has been pushback of late against the contradictory, anti-reality, totalitarian press of Progressivism, and it is starting to meet with some success. It is time to rein it in. What better way than to be sure the people of the World be isolated again, perhaps permanently by telling them they will die if they go out or don't become anonymous mask wearers for the rest of their lives. After all, there's always another virus variant, right?

An Evening Out in the Land of Lilliput by Constantine Gochis

My father's reminiscence about an evening out he and I had back in around 1996 or early 1997 requires, to my mind, a preface.  

If you are a fan of the movies of yore, circa 1930s and the 1940s in particular, you will likely remember an actor named Sheldon Leonard.  He usually played the "bad guy" in the old black and whites, but my favorite role of his was a small one in the still poignant film, "It's a Wonderful Life" with Jimmy Stewart. He's the bartender at the local bar in that one. My father and I both knew real people who spoke and comported themselves as the actor did in his roles, people born and raised in New York as was Mr. Leonard. Tough talking, curt, sarcastic but genuine.  In later years Mr. Leonard became a high powered producer of many of my favorite television shows like "Dick Van Dyke" and "Andy Griffith". When I was a kid, I had no idea he had even been an actor. 

I wouldn't exactly say that Mr. Leonard was a favorite actor to my father, but that New York connection, and the familiarity of cultural background meant that he often mentioned the first role that Leonard had in the movies, one I have never seen still, called, "Tall, Dark and Handsome". I guess it was a sense of "one of us" ordinary folk born and raised in some concrete neighborhood had made it to Hollywood Glamour. 

Anyway, the one thing about living in the environs of Hollywood that I have always enjoyed is running into actors and actresses living their lives and having your life intersect with theirs ever so briefly. I think maybe in one of these blog entries I will list the people I have seen since 1977 or 8 (Michael Callan was the first. Does anybody know who he is? And it was in the long defunct Hamburger Hamlet on Sunset Boulevard). 

I had some bet with Dad. We were always at loggerheads over various subjects and, though at the time I would have denied it vehemently, my late father and I had similar personalities and neither of us would give an inch in a debate. He usually "won" by virtue of his authority as parent, even when I was in middle age. But this time, I insisted that there be a consequence. Dinner on the loser for the winner in a really nice restaurant. Alas, I lost.  My father, a Depression era child,who did not like to spend money on food that he felt he could easily make better himself at home, was prepared to release me from my obligation. I insisted. And he conceded.

Le Chardonnay was a comfortable, dark, classy French Restaurant on Melrose Avenue. Unlike me, my father paid no attention to the other customers or the possibility that any of them might be from the glory days of Hollywood or the more au currant stars. He would not know the latter and the former would require me to point them out. We were waiting to be seated. A threesome came behind us, two women, one with a cane or walker, and a tallish dapper man whom I immediately recognized as Sheldon Leonard. His aura at that moment projected none of the street smart New Yorker of the movies. My father was paying no attention to me, but continued to look ahead. I turned to Mr. Leonard and I said, "Mr. Leonard, my father," to whom I pointed, still unaware of the proceedings, saw your first movie. He shook my hand. I now addressed my father. "Dad", I entreated. My father was slightly deaf, though he usually claimed that his failure to hear was the result of my mumbling, and so he did ot immediately turn. "Dad!" and he turned. "This is Sheldon Leonard". My father said, without preamble, "Tall, Dark and Handsome!". Leonard was visibly pleased. I realized that these two men had much in common. Both had been average New Yorkers who rose in the world, one a bit more famous than the other, but men who pulled themselves up by "the bootstraps". And both, gentlemen. 

They shook hands. It seems to me that even before Mr. Leonard's grasp had broken, he called to his female companions, "This gentleman knows my first film." They were unimpressed. And uninterested in the exchange. Both Dad and I later said that Mr. Leonard was about to invite us to join him and his companions for dinner, but was interdicted by their annoyance. 

I never thought that my father was much impacted by meeting Mr. Leonard. Actually, Mr. Leonard died not long after our accidental meeting. I was surprised, as was my father, because he had seemed very hardy when we saw him. That was 1997.

My father died in 2008. As you know from all of my transcriptions here, Dad left behind lots of stories and commentaries. Among them was a short reminiscence of that night which he sent to TV Guide in the hope that they might publish it. I could have told him that TV Guide wouldn't accept a submission from someone outside their writing pool, but he didn't ask me, and until I found it I did not know he had even made a submission. I am amazed at how our memories of that evening are fairly comparable, except perhaps for the exactness of some of the quotes. 

His submission letter said the following: "Sheldon Leonard's passing had a deep impact on me. I felt as if we had, somehow, a long association. You see, our paths crossed, one night, on an after summer night, as told in the accompanying effort. He appeared strong, years younger than his stated age, vital, and on his way to a gourmet meal.  I will miss him."

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-sheldon-leonard-1283571.html

                                     AN EVENING OUT IN THE LAND OF LILLIPUT

Given a choice between two similar items, identical in al things but price, Djinna will choose the more expensive one.  It is as if some shadow of opprobrium affixes itself to a bargain.  I feel as if I am commiting "heresy"; that I am ungrateful, particularly since I have been the beneficiary of this profligacy, to wit: an eight hundred dollar refrigerator, a cruise to Ensenada, a bowl full of book matches that announce to the world I have been treated to most of the trendy restaurants of this town, and then some.

I am not surprised, therefore, at the opulence of her choice, for the evening, a very French, "n'est ce pas", restaurant called "Le Chardonnay".  It has a narrow anteroom, kind of like Gibraltar is to the entry to the Mediterranean, through which the patrons must pass and be verified before being seated.

A well-appointed gentleman arrives behind us. We are importuned further by two elderly women, one assisted by the other and a walker. They are impatient. 

"Excuse me," says the more ambulatory lady. The two squeeze themselves to the front, where a Maitre D' posts himself. "I'm sorry," says my daughter, to no further acknowledgement.

"Sir," I hear Djinna's voice. This is my daughter's name. "I do not generally do this, but are you Sheldon Leonard?"

"I am", he says, very pleased.

"My father is a long-time fan of yours," she adds, though I would characterize my interest in celebrity as somewhat less than adulation. Generally, my expertise consists of faces that are familiar, whose names I don't remember from various movies.

"Yes," I say. I really enjoyed your film, "Tall, Dark and Handsome".  It actually is the only one I remember.

The still pleased Mr. Leonard addresses the two ladies in a loud voice. "The gentleman remembers a nineteen forty one film!"  My daughter recalls that he refers to it as his first film. 

The ladies are visibly annoyed and make no response.

Sheldon-I feel I may take this familiar tone--shakes my hand.  He has a strong grasp. He is led--before us-by the Maitre D' but I do manage to make on parting comment.

"Mr. Leonard, you were indeed a great 'bad guy'.  I know he would like to hear more about the days when his bulging eyes, sneering lips, and menacing Bronx acccent brought terror to the screen's 'good guys' as in this case Cesar Romero. I would have liked to pursue this discussion. I have always been curious about the female lead, Patricia Gilmore. I sense that he would also like to talk about yesteryear. I suspect, also, that one of the impatient ladies is his wife, the other, perhaps, his mother in law.  What mortal man can deal with this immortal combination?

My daughter and I are seated. Our waiter is, of course, French, wise and experienced. His outer conformation, though, gives the impression of the look of an Irish Leprechaun. His is formal, at first, but seems to warm up.

The splendor of the high ceiling, the enormous plate glass windows, the elaborate wine list, from an expensive twenty five dollars "ad astra" which is a way of saying, "to the stars", an a la carte menu of gastronomic opulence, with prices to match--I could not have expected less of my beloved progeny.

I do not recall what my daughter ordered. For me, I saw futility in looking for moderation on the menu.  I went for the best-- a Gibson, with three onions, Lobster Bisque, superb and only ten dollars, Filet Mignon, perhaps two inches thick, a bottle of Pouilly Fuisse, wrong with red meat, and likely to raise the eyebrow of the waiter, but a wine I like. I had, also, two brandies, Remy Martin, and an expresso. I left the tip, out of mercy.

On the way out the sartorially elegant proprietor beams, and bids us good night. 

No Smoking, or Vaping. But Pot's Probably Perfectly Fine

This is probably another in a line of my apocalyptic entries. Perhaps it  is not quite so dramatically apocalyptic. But these days pretty much everything points to the apocalyptic to me.

When I was a kid, living a privileged life in a Bronx tenement (it really was a nice one bedroom apartment for the three of us and I got the bedroom), whenever your building was starting to slide into decrepitude, signs would appear.  Not figurative signs, but the real ones. The signs would be posted on the brick walls telling the tenants, and their children who played in the courtyard, what they must and must  not do. Things like, "No loitering" and "No ball playing". While I have always followed rules, something which these days I question when the rules are insanely inconsistent, in this case, like the other kids, I continued to bounce my Spaulding pink ball, and sometimes on the very sign that forbade me to do so. That is probably the extent of my intentional rebelliousness to date. 

As so many others, our building, in which my grandfather had actually once been Superintendent when my mother and her sisters were young, fell into complete disrepair. The patches of grass surrounded by lovely wrought iron was pulled out and the ground painted over. The dog poo was about everywhere. The garbage often did not get collected. And the landlord occasionally tried to burn the building down. The good old days.

I was reminded of all this when I came home to my West Hollywood Condo Building today. I noticed a sign taped on the glass entrance. 

I took this picture. I wondered, "Does that include pot?" because in this building there is a great deal of pot smoking. I often will be sitting outside on my terrace when an invisible cloud of scent comes over me. The smell of skunk to me. Between you, me and the lamp post, I'd would rather the smell of tobacco over the stench of pot. But there you are. I lack the progressive gene. I have actually never tried the stuff. I have, however, been beneficiary, if that is what one might call it, of a lot of second hand pot. Of course, we must extend the prohibition to vaping. If you were to say that some vaping can be done without the use of nicotine and thus all of the deficits carried with tobacco, the default is, "No, that's bad too." We don't want to encourage the idea of smoking to impressionable teenagers. It might distract them from the abortions they can get without parental permission.  Let us add to the things I cannot do in my own space. Don't use too much electricity, the forbidden amount determined by LADWP. You may lease your property but only if you do so for a full year. I thought of one of my neighbors, a man on the first floor, from some Eastern European country where they are probably still smoking with abandon, who probably took his first draw when he was 10. In the past, where it was only our CC and R's that forbade smoking and noise after 11 (which young people you know, don't follow under any circumstance), he was sort of grandfathered in to being allowed to smoke. Looks like he might be in trouble now or there is inequity in the application of the rule. Will someone complain? Not me. I only care about the insanity from a philosophical point of view when it comes to smoking. Since I don't smoke, I have no stake in this skirmish. 

I forgot to get my mail, distracted by the door's missive. I came down again. I realized there was another item posted on the other side of the door.

Ahhhh we have the word on high. The City. It is, at least one can so interpret it, based on the plain language of the posted notice that only tobacco is impermissible. They only use the word "Tobacco". 

Note, that right now you can still smoke tobacco in your apartment and on your exclusive use balcony/terrace assuming your building is not new, where then you cannot.  But as of 2023, nope nope nope. You cannot even smoke in your dwelling unit or your crummy old balcony. Well, tobacco. Smoke your pot up with abandon inside, outside, anywhere your heart desires. 

In some years--I will probably be long dead---people will hear about all the lawsuits over pot smoking and what was known all along, that it was far worse than tobacco, and that it was a gateway drug, and lots of people that didn't need to be died because of it. Worse than tobacco ever did. 

By that time, the state will have bugs in your apartments and be telling you what to eat, when to get up and what thoughts to have. Some people think we are already there. 

What It Was Like to Live During the End of the American Experiment: A Letter to the Future (if there is one).

I have all the volumes of Edward Gibbon's the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire. I haven't read them. But they look lovely in my library, in which reside many books I have actually read. I think it came as some special gift in a book club and I liked the look of them, and I did hope that one day I would open up the first volume, at least. But it didn't happen that way. There's still time. Well, until this particular part of Western Civilization, once known as the United States of America, falls, a circumstance that feels to this denizen of Los Angeles imminent. Our Lord said of the Catholic Church, also on a downward spiral in modern society, that the "gates of Hell shall not prevail against it".  He did not say thusly about the United States, and I fear therefore that my hope for and faith in the Church of Christ does not translate into a similar hope for and faith in the continued survival of the United States. 

Rome, in its various historical iterations, lasted about 500 years. The United States has been in existence 245 years. If things continue apace, I don't think the States will make 300 years, and even that I 'm not sure of.

Sorry to be so gloomy. It's one of the reasons I haven't been writing too much in this forum. I did publish, two or three weeks ago, a writing of my father's. A friend God bless her, actually wanted to hear more from me rather than one of his stories. (She might regret that if she is reading this now). But I haven't had the heart. And I might add, if my father were alive right now, and he had gotten into blogging, there would be volcanic fire, verbally speaking, flying from his page. My father was predicting all sorts of dire things back in the 1960s. I'd say, "I should have paid attention", but frankly, I don't know that my attention would have made any difference. So much of what is happening seems the inexorable result of human hubris that never stops to learn from anything in history. It's easier to rewrite history. And it absolves, secularly speaking only, of all societal sins. Until the next time. There always is a next time.

So, what's this entry about? It's a kind of letter to the future, if there is one. A letter to whatever the United States becomes, devoid of its founding essence. And perhaps to the remnant of Western Civilization, since that has become anathema, its culture, its writing, its music, its philosophy, its theology, all useless to the wisdom of feeling and power that characterizes the ruling class of today and while telling the Glory of the West to stop imposing itself on them, imposes every burp, giggle, and pleasure need onto the rest of us. Morality is an ever moving goal post, born of the id and untamed by the ego and definitely without any reference to a superego in the secular sense, and in a frenzied rejection of anything so silly as a God of the Universe in the theological sense. 

You want to marry yourself? Go ahead. You think men have babies? Of course they do. You think abortion is a right? You are a high schooler who thinks that it is a positive good? If I showed you an abortion, little girl, would you think it is still a great thing? That's why they won't let anyone show pictures of abortions. It's a little too much. Too alt-right. Alt-right is now anything that used to be of societal value, those things we all used to agree upon. Not perfectly, but more than now when everyone is placed in opposition to one another. If a baby is aborted, it's a choice. If someone is for capital punishment, she is a viper. No logic ever considered that the child is ab initio an innocent, and there is a question about the person subject to death by the government after a trial. (Now by the way, I am not unerringly pro-capital punishment; but there is a distinction, a nuance). And you know what, if someone showed that "courageous" high schooler an abortion, I suspect that she and her followers would say, "so what?" It's just not as important a life as mine.  Since the wisdom of the elders is meaningless, those elders being attached to that despicable Western Civilization, nuance is irrelevant. And if the person who articulates that perhaps there are truths, and goods, that do not require one's subjective approval, and they are part of your group, and they are going against "your truth", they are simply said not to be a member of your racial, social, religious, cultural, or experiential frame. They are, well, cancelled. They are made invisible. And, in time, that history which is being rewritten, will be repeated. 

This civilization killing mentality about the big things in life also appears in the little things. The other day I got a letter from my city leaders. I got it because I own a private piece of property.  I happen to live in it right now. But the letter advised me of the laws regarding renting my private property, about how long the lease HAD to  be, and some other things that really are none of anybody's business. And then a while back I got a letter from my electric company. They let me know that I had during the previous three months used a bit more electricity than my neighbors, and they had advice for how I could reduce my electric use. Now, anyone who knows me, knows that I hardly use ANY light. My apartment is virtually dark. I like it that way. But I think in those previous winter months, during something, what was it, I think they called it Covid-19, I was using my electric heater more because I was compelled to be AT HOME. The lovely state that I live in is going to increase property taxes for water runoff for the three or four days of rain we receive every year. I guess my neighbors are better people than I am. Perhaps so.

There is no consistency in any rules that are being imposed. It is purely a matter of control over the organs of the society, and their power. I said that before. What you or I are required to do or to forbear doing depends on who has power, and they no longer have to exercise it according to a common principle upon which we all agree. So, during Covid, there were some businesses or non-profits, and even now, when purportedly the society is no longer in the throes of Covid as we were months back, that had very strict rules. Hospitals and rehab places and nursing homes. And others, not so strict. I know this stuff not by report, but by experience. In one place you were allowed to wear a certain type of mask; in another, you were told you couldn't. Each place had relaxed or strict rules according to who was in charge. "The CDC! The CDC says this!" I have seen some cruelties imposed in the name of public health. There are the big public ones like putting old people with Covid into nursing homes. But mama couldn't be visited by her own family and died ultimately of isolation. I know of at least one priest who in these later days of Covid protection, who had been visiting people in a hospital was suddenly stopped by the powerful person du jour and not allowed. 

The times, they are 'a crumbling. That's the glory of change which doesn't replace the foundational stuff that it is overthrowing, overtaking, destroying. And more than that, where human beings put priority on their desires and every private urge they have and pronounce that "It is good". There is a billboard on my main drag. It's just another exampe that everything is permissible, big and small, as long as someone can make it so.

It's very cute, I am sure the publicist, the creator, the managers, whoever, told each other. It's a new TV series. "Tell Keving to F--- Himself". The F word is purported covered by the face of one of the stars. 

There's a cute little cartoon out there too. It is "educational". It teaches children, little kids, how to well. . . .pleasure themselves. Make sure it's private they are told. Why? Why? What is the reason it must be private? It can't be any objective moral reason. It has to be that someone in control says it must be private. Until they decide it doesn't have to be. We are at the bottom of the slippery slope. There really is little slope to go. 

There are a million things that I see day in and day out, that those of us without a voice see, day in, and day out. It is mind numbing. More so that so many are embracing it. Walking off the cliff with a smile on their faces.

So, if you are able to read this say, 100 years from now. . .and boy do I hope that I'm wrong that the United States is long dead and that the frenzy of pleasure and power have brought about a cataclysm, what was it like. It was soul killing. I am hanging on merely by virtue of my faith, and the support from the leadership is, as I have said, less than stellar.

What's worse about being in the middle of it? It didn't have to happen. Human beings did it to themselves. To their fellow human beings. They chose it. They chose to destroy. And they told themselves as they did it that it was not merely fine, but good in some definition of good that I will never understand.  It would be so much easier if I didn't care. I'm old. I have no kids. (I do worry about the children of good friends though and some of them I love much and hate that they might suffer). 

I feel like I am in the middle of a Biblical conflagaration. And I don't want to be there. 

And I have no choice. That's where faith has to keep me afloat. Suffering for a purpose. Some purpose I do not yet know, in terms of my little part of tthe tapestry. 

Will your generation do any differently? I doubt it. Until you learn that Man is Not the Measure of All Things. He is a Creation. And he has to answer to a Creator. 

But I'm not betting on that lesson ever being learned by a human civilization. And this one, the United States, it had a real chance, once.