This Pandemic Is a Blessing in Disguise and Also Some Unbelievably Fucked Up Shit
The quarantine and pandemic have changed the way we live so dramatically and seemingly instantaneously that we may never go back to our old lives. The seemingly unstoppable spread of this terrible sickness has changed the rhythm and pace of everyday life. A country and a culture perpetually in a terrible hurry has been forced to slow down.
This awful, unprecedented health crisis is full of unexpected upsides. It has afforded us an incredible opportunity for self-reflection. We finally have the time and the space to really look inward, to examine who we are on a profound, soul-deep level. We also finally have the time to really look around, to explore our surroundings, to appreciate nature and all of God’s gifts.
We can spend time with families that we have ignored in our mad rush for professional success, that we have overlooked in our scramble up the corporate ladder. We similarly have time to finally take the plunge and experience all of the art and trash we’ve always wanted to see and hear and read but never had the time, whether that means binge-watching Friends in its entirety of finally finishing Infinite Jest.
We can do yoga and learn how to make quiche and play bass guitar. We can watch live streams from great artists doing their part to help humanity get through this. We can spend long hours talking on the phone with elderly relatives we’ve neglected, or ignored, or never had time for.
We realize now how inter-connected we all are as human beings trying to survive and find meaning and purpose in the worst tragedy of all of our lifetimes.
At the same time, it is essential to acknowledge a painful, incontrovertible truth: COVID-19 is some scary-ass shit. It’s fucking terrifying! It is beyond fucked up. I have seen some scary ass shit in my lifetime but I have never seen any shit as scary or as fucked up as this.
9/11? That shit was fucked up. People lost their shit. But it wasn’t a tenth the fucking atrocity COVID-19 promises to be.
I am fucking enraged about this shit. I’m apoplectic over the Fuckhead-in-Chief’s predictably, inevitably shitty response. I hate the miserable fucking ghouls in his family and his administration and the confederacy of worthless douche-canoes that constitute his cheerleaders in the right-wing press.
I just about lose my shit when I see those worthless fuck-nuggets with their machine guns “protesting” the quarantine. I want to punch those morons right in the fucking face.
When I saw that Georgia governor Brian Kemp was re-opening the state so rashly that even a selfish sack of shit like Trump thinks he’s behaving irresponsibly it made me want to kick Kemp right in his fucking dick so hard that his testicles travel all the way up through his body and explode out of his worthless skull.
Holy fucking fuck am I ever angry! I feel like I could fucking explode with rage.
These feelings of love and appreciation for COVID-19’s gifts and blinding, profane rage towards all the ways it has destroyed a world that was already incredibly fucked up are not mutually exclusive. Depending on the day and the time, I’m either an appreciative spiritual seeker or a fiery ball of hatred and rage. Heck, sometimes I’m both simultaneously.
So let’s try to make the best of this awful time while also acknowledging that it’s not only human to be boiling over with rage about this fucked up pandemic and the all bullshit that comes with it: it’s inevitable as well.
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And of course I sure would dig it if you would consider buying the Happy Place’s first book The Weird Accordion to Al, a lovingly illustrated deep dive into the complete discography of “Weird Al” Yankovic with an introduction by Al himself here
Alternately, you can buy a signed, two book bundle of both of my 2020 releases, The Weird Accordion to Al and Postal here for a reduced price!