Support?

Remember the good times!

Support our Heros!

Stay Safe, Stay Home!

We’re working 24/7 and just donated $2,000,000.

Yes. We all support this. Of course, we’ll fly an American Flag and have some Eagles. Oh, and the eagles will be soaring majestically. Maybe it will be just a profile with a solitary tear for all those we’ve lost. Eagles won’t shed tears like humans by the way.

This all seems familiar, doesn’t it? The patriotic messages, the support that is shown for our people on the front lines, and all the celebrities telling everyone that we’re in this together are supposed to make us feel better. But…

Now I’m getting mad.

Remember the good times–when we spent hours on the couch drinking beer and watching sports? When we rubbed elbows with thousands of other crazed fans, we felt a part of something. Don’t you want to feel a part of something now? Of course, you do! Maybe I’m getting cynical in this–my 4 millionth crisis. Ok, it feels like 4 million. We’re discovering we don’t need professional sports to entertain us, or sold-out concerts, or other big-ticket items. We can’t have keg parties and barbecues and tailgating any more…too close to people. Awwwww. What do they actually mean? If there are no sports shows, there are no beer commercials. No car commercials. No ED commercials. OH!!! Maybe they miss us more than we miss them. It means that the networks and pay per views have to come up with more programming! How do you do that when you can’t get an audience to see the talk show? How can you film an ensemble show if they have to zoom in their performances? Do you go to reruns? Old shows that were canceled a few years back? You can’t even get a film crew in to do TV or movies. They want this quarantine to disappear so they can get all that revenue that we have learned to spend on other things.  Book sales and audiobooks and DVD sales have gone up. Puzzles are becoming popular again. So are board games. How badly do you want to go back to the more expensive types of entertainment?

Support our heroes! You know, the guys that cannot stay home because otherwise, they lose their jobs. We need those shelf stockers and cashiers and fast-food workers. They are essential to our sanity. Support our heroes in the medical industry! I’m all for that. But don’t say that and then go to a party because you’re bored. Don’t go to a protest with a crowd of people to demonstrate your opposition to the Nazi State. How do you think this virus spreads? You want to make our heroes work harder with fewer supplies and not enough PPEs because you miss your mobs? That is not supportive! How do you support them? Pay them hazard pay! Subsidize their health insurance. Fast-food workers are part-timers who don’t qualify for health benefits. They still have to show up. You think a mask and gloves are all that is needed to protect them from infection? You’re not treating these people as heroes, they’re indentured servants. They’re the serfs that are sent to slow down the cavalry. They’re the bullet sponges. Show them real support!

Stay Safe, Stay Home! Ah, the message of all our favorite TV stars. Yes, please! Watch our shows and buy our products because we all love you. We can all sing the Entertainment Tonight 6-note theme. Aren’t we wonderful? PSAs by these people seem self-serving. They may not be able to work now, but I don’t think for 1 second that they will feel an economic impact. They’re just repeating what the doctors and scientists say we should do, but because they’re celebrities, they have more authority. How far have we come when things aren’t true unless LL Cool J says it. Give me Dr. Fauci. Isn’t it funny that we’re not seeing this message from our representatives in government? They want us to go out and spend money, so we need to lift the quarantine ASAP regardless of whether it’s safe. Get ready for the 2nd wave. Do stay home to be safe, but you don’t have to order big bucks’ worth of stuff online to replace the money spent before this crisis hit. We don’t HAVE to go back to spending money like that again.

Picture 5 blue bears sitting on the couch. The little girl bear (she has a bow on her ear) looks scared and is grabbing a pillow. One little boy bear is wearing glasses and is on his tummy in front of the TV. The other little boy bear is staring at the screen. Momma and Daddy bears are looking stressed and also staring at the screen. At the end of the commercial, they hug. AWWWWWW. We all know they’re the Charmin Bears. The message: We’re working 24/7. Oh really? Then where’s the toilet paper? They donated $2 million to a cause. How nice. Where’s the toilet paper? OHHHHH! None of the bears is leaving to go to the potty. They’re BEARS. They go in the WOODS! Is that what they’re implying we should do? It certainly didn’t look as if They were working 24/7. Good to know. I don’t want bears making my toilet paper.

It seems to me that the entertainment industry is sending the wrong messages. They don’t understand what their constituents want or need. They don’t need to be reminded of the sports they cannot watch or participate in. They don’t need to be told to support their local heroes with shallow words of encouragement, people are already supporting much more than that–making masks, pats on the back, responsible behavior. People really want to get out and be with people again, but there are many more that are staying home, and not because some celebrity says to. I, unfortunately, believe that a great many corporations are thinking that these conditions are short term and are not willing to adjust the products they focus on, the use of their workforce, and their distribution methods and are pretending that things will get back to normal. Normal has changed. It will not revert to what it was in October.

My fellow Americans (wow, maybe I should run for president!) we are smart and resilient. We don’t have to depend on someone else to solve our problems. We don’t have to pay any attention to celebrities telling us what we already know. We don’t have to rely on the government to “fix” this, for as we know, they will mess it up worse in the mistaken belief that they know what’s best for us. Any thinking person would have chosen to self-quarantine as long as this deadly virus was out there. Let’s not be stupid. If you see someone doing something ludicrous, call them out on it. (With a bullhorn…behind a locked door…with a loaded shotgun.)

I guess I’m getting cynical in my old age. Or, maybe, just maybe, I’m watching too much TV.