I’ll get to my Prince song in a minute. I need to rant first.
That map is the current average daily cases per 100,000 people in the past week in the United States. The darker the red, the more cases there are. I live in Green Bay, Wisconsin. If you missed geography in school and aren’t aware, Wisconsin is the state that has over a third of it covered in deep red. Green Bay is right in the middle of that deep red. All I can think right now is that it takes a special blend of ignorance, stupidity, indifference, defiance, carelessness, and laziness to be the spot in the country covered in blood red more than six months in to the pandemic. Haven’t we learned yet?
If you want to smoke cigarettes and kill yourself, have at it. If you want to eat yourself to death, feel free. If you want to ride 75 MPH down the highway on a motorcycle without a helmet on, that’s your prerogative. You’re putting yourself at risk. If you want to go anywhere without a mask right now I have a serious problem with you. Why did wearing a mask become political? Why did doing something that’s, at worst, a minor inconvenience to help your fellow man turn in to issue that made you draw your line in the sand? Is it because our idiot president with his absurd bullshit toxic masculinity believes putting a mask on is a sign of weakness? Look where it’s gotten him.
Think about this shit for a second. We’ve been stuck in our houses since March. Over a million people have died worldwide. Over 209,000 of those deaths right here in the U.S. EXPERTS have been saying since April – damn near six months now – that the best way to stop the spread is to stay at least six feet away from people, wash your hands frequently, don’t touch your face, and WEAR A MASK. A little piece of cloth that covers the lower half of your face. In late-August the University of Washington Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation estimated that 70,000 lives could be saved in the next three months if more Americans wore masks. Nope. Too much to ask. That was six weeks and 30,000 deaths ago.
So now we sit here entering October somehow looking worse than we did six months ago. Apparently we haven’t learned anything, plus we’re all tired as hell of the situation. I know I am. I don’t want to sit here anymore. I miss my family. I miss my friends. As Chris Rock said perfectly on SNL last night, I miss plans. I’ve been smart. I’ve stayed away from crowds. I did attend a Black Lives Matter rally in June, but not surprisingly, I didn’t see a single person at the rally without a mask. I stayed as far from people as possible. Were there a few moments when the crowd got too dense for my comfort? Yes, but for the most part I felt safe the entire time. It wasn’t a MAGA rally. Everyone at the BLM rally wore masks and looked out for each other. Other than that, I’ve stuck almost exclusively with the same family members having small outdoor gatherings. My mom lives by herself two blocks from me, yet I’ve gone weeks at a time without seeing her.
Here’s the worst part: My wife is a nurse. Not just a nurse. She’s an ICU nurse at a hospital filled with COVID patients. Their hospital is so full right now Good Morning America was live on location there early last week to talk about it. She’s been dealing with this for six months. She’s exhausted. Everyone in healthcare is exhausted. She tells me she has PTSD from all of the death she’s seen. There are days she says she can’t do it. Yet there she is constantly putting her own health at risk to care for people who refused to wear a mask because that was asking too much. Their precious American freedom means they don’t have to put a piece of cloth over their faces if they don’t want to. So, while she’s at work covered head to toe in PPE for 13-16 hours straight trying not to contract a deadly virus from people who weren’t considerate enough to put on a fucking mask, my kids and I are like sitting ducks even though we’re following all the rules sitting in our own home and wearing masks whenever we do leave the house like we’re supposed to. Scared shitless that one of these days our wife/mother is going to bring it in to our house anyway and inevitably we’re all going to get it. Do you know what it’s like to not want to go near your wife who you love because you’re afraid she might have a deadly virus but she’s asymptomatic? If you’re married to a COVID nurse you do. Now imagine feeling that way for six months, the last few mostly because a bunch of selfish ass holes couldn’t stay out of the bars and sure as hell weren’t going to wear masks while they were there because only pussies wear masks, right?
So, here’s my plea to Northeast Wisconsin: Tomorrow night when you’re dying to head to the bar for the Packer game because this is America and you’re free to do whatever you want, do us all a favor and stay the fuck home. When President Super Spreader inevitably leaves the hospital too early because he has campaigning to do and he ends up having another rally here in our swing state, don’t go. He doesn’t care about you. He doesn’t care about anyone. He knew he had COVID and kept it a secret. Kept going to events. Put everyone around him at risk. If he doesn’t care about the people closest to him, do you think he cares about you? He pays $750 in federal income tax but gets a free stay in the Presidential Suite at Walter Reed Hospital with the best medical care possible while simultaneously trying to push through a Supreme Court Justice Nominee who will vote to strip healthcare from millions. You ever hear of a wolf in sheep’s clothes? Well, this motherfucker is a wolf in wolf’s clothes. He’s the damned devil and he doesn’t even try to hide it. And thousands of people here would risk their own health and the people in their community to pile in to an airport hangar chant his name given the chance.
You people claim to be Christians. That kills me because I watch a MAGA rally and swear you’re a bunch of devil worshippers. Mask up and shut up immediately and we might actually be able to salvage the holiday season to some degree. Your selfishness is killing people and ruining life for the rest of us. I hoped Green Bay was better than this.
Anyway, that entire rant came because today’s Prince selection is called “On The Couch” and all I could think of is, “I’m tired of the damn couch. My family and I have been on it for six months.” I’ve been going to sleep on my couch too often lately because my wife goes to work in the middle of the night, so she goes to bed early. I’m always afraid I’m going to wake her up when I go to bed. I fall asleep on the couch so she can get her rest. “On The Couch” has a depressing meaning for me at the moment. I’ll be trying to fall asleep on the couch right after I type this, in fact. Let’s run through this one quickly.
“On The Couch” was released in 2004 on Prince’s album Musicology. It was also the B-side to the album’s title track and first single. It’s a smooth, swanky track about a dude who’s sleeping on the couch because apparently he’s “agreed to be married.” So, it’s a song about blue balls. Prince delivers a top notch vocal performance. Candy Dulfer, Maceo Parker, and Greg Boyer add to the vibe with subtle but effective performance on horns. It’s a cool song, but I’m just not with it tonight.
Sorry for turning the Daily Prince in to my political rant again, but I have to write about what’s on my mind. Unfortunately, it’s not Prince tonight. You should still check out “On The Couch” because it’s yet another quality song from an album that Prince dropped long after most people stopped paying attention.
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