The officially unofficial site for details and discussion about the history and legacy of Mike Porco's Center of Folk Music, Gerde's Folk City (&other pertinent stuff)
deBlasio and Cuomo talk flippantly about stretching this into May or beyond.
or 2022. why not forever?We won't get there without a crime wave and senseless death from something other than COVID-19.Restaurants, music venues, mom-n-pop stores will be unable to re-open without foot traffic. SEND THE HEALTHY BACK TO WORK.Let New Yorkers assume their own risk. The City and State Government is in the way or our Right to Work, Right to Assemble, Ability to earn.
No storm ever lingers forever. We’ll get beyond this black cloud. Get Vitamin C and D3. Get Zinc and tonic water with quinine.
Our existing immunity is our only real defense.
People have died with COVID-19 when coupled with chronic illness.
I think we are watching a predictable petering out of COVID-19. Its gonna take some time but I am an über optimist. If that’s how I’m described, I’ll take it. If my view here on this blog is seen as insensitivity or denial of the nature of COVID-19, I beg to differ but time will reveal the truth by the numbers in the end.
WEAR A MASK
I’ve decided to don one as a precaution. I have elderly clients and neighbors.
I’m an avid bicyclist here in NYC. The death rate for my age group from COVID-19 is quite laughable in comparison to my daily risk.
What level of risk do we not already assume by crossing Madison Avenue at rush hour?
We enter the outside world at our own risk.
Granted, the safety protocol to mitigate the spread of COVID has been enacted to reduce the risk to others. I am not insensitive to that. My gripe is that the State and City Government is in the way of our Right to Work, Right to Assemble. It’s not Martial Law but it will probably feel like THIS in New York. It’s criminal to prolong it. I don’t trust the CDC with my life.
Crime wave in...10...9...8...7...
It has been declared that the majority of New Yorkers are too young, too healthy and too alive to go about their business. It has been decided that we are not to be allowed to judge our own risk.
“Many are too youthful and positive to go to school and congregate at houses of worship.
Many are too vibrant and musical to create their own safe community,” they may say.
The chronically ill must be protected from exposure to the COVID virus.
The clock ticks and it won’t be long before many defy orders to limit movement. The city will be (is) filled with desperate people.
These ’15 days’ may last to April 15. It’s already day 11 (March 26) and I’m over it.
The day the Folks return to work will be the biggest day of business for many businesses. Black Friday in April.
That said, I’m excited for the end of this panic.
I see us on the cusp of the Roaring 20’s. Banks failed in the early 1920’s but it didn’t affect society at large. It wasn’t a cyber world then. Many more families were self sufficient.
Today, we live in a smart-tech world. The return to ‘’normal’’ may include the need for official papers to leave your house for work. It may include limited State-toState travel. It may lead to a cyber-election. It may lead to immunization verification to enter the subway or office buildings. Business transactions may become cashless. Let the end-times debate begin.
For now, I would trade off some of that for the promise of a global renaissance. I’d love to see people recognize our success over COVID and know that we, collectively, are sailing along together. I hope we recognize that we need to rely less on Amazon and more on neighbors.
Why are we using the Chinese model to combat this virus?
They first isolated patients. Then they shut doors. Then they shut down a region from travel. Then they go collect the dead from their homes. Then they go back to work and monitor other countries unique responses.
Freedom of assembly and right to work are freedoms we took for granted before this. It must return without permanent limitations OR ELSE.
“Or else” we will see all of our cherished rights fade away without debate. Currently, the State is treating all kids, teachers, bankers, musicians, servers and business owners as too incapable to assume their own risk.
”You’re all too alive to go out and die.”
I’m done with it but I shall wait impatiently. I’ll vent online while the internet is still a thing. I fear that the fuse is lit and crawling along towards an explosion of crime and violence. Let’s call the whole thing off!
But be prepared. Prepare to stay in for several more days. We won’t survive weeks more of this. There will be a new definition of “going POSTAL” after a while.
Soon, the State imposed cocoon will crack and we’ll all be ‘allowed’ to go outside again. Guess what: We’re gonna party and thrive like it’s 1999!!!
So be prepared for that, as well. The year 2020 will reveal inverse realities for many of us; perhaps all of us. It will be a mirror image of the past. Day to day, as quickly as a stay at home order can be decreed, a ‘get out and live’ order can be mandated.
This shutdown is holding many hostage on both coasts and will not last indefinitely. It’s a LIE to say that it will not end and that this will ‘become our way of life.’
We’ll all have the cleanest gyms and hands, but this will pass.
Get ready to frequent those music concerts. Be ready to mass up, elbow to elbow, 3 deep at the bar. Play 2 hand touch football in the park. Go to $5 movies, $5 concerts and $5 burgers. Buy $5 items that were once $9.99!
A worse scenario concurrently hangs over us. That might mean a shutdown until the riots and food runs out. Lack of rent money will make the ‘stay at home’ order become an academic anecdote. The level of this business shutdown is the exact level we’ll put up with. I’m already over it.
My recent video series began 4 days ago with a $50 pledge to a friend. Twenty days from now, it could be a life or death situation for thousands (really millions) who, on average, were never exposed to COVID-19. Oh the irony.
My other video logs should reveal that I do have empathy for those in the direct path of this pathogen. The rest of us should LIVE LIFE. Kiss, cavort and buy beer.
Of course, other factors could make my prediction 100% wrong. Those $10 items might be $25. The food may stop. The Market may stop. The 401(k)s may be absconded and won’t I look silly for being optimistic.
That’s why I’m praying for and betting on a mass awakening and coming together. At the moment. The ‘Great Fathers in DC’ are plotting to send millions of Americans thousands of dollars so it can’t be all that bad. It’s a good start. My New York City will be on a delayed curve compared to the rest of the nation but we shall land on our feet. We need to tend to what we can control which is ourselves.
I’m committing to my small team and if we all carry a little more water then we will make it to the greener pasture. We will venture beyond to brighter fields leaving that black cloud behind us. We’ll GET TOGETHER.
I bring it up getting together because I’ve been known to organize groups of listeners for musicians in my circle of friends.
Should those utopian days be delivered upon us, I’ll do what I can do to make a small show for some musician in need.
The longer this lingers, the further away into the future goes that idyllic view.
Stay positive!
Visualize music in the streets.
Know your rights!
The most vital: Speech, artistic expression, assembly and press.
Quinine in Tonic water helps get zinc absorbed. Vitamin C and D3 are vital to the immune system. Zinc works well with Vitamin C. Get exercise. Get out where you can while you can. Your immunity is your only defense.
If Covid won't kill you, the food riots might. There's a wall between (us) and what (we) want and (we) gotta Leap (year) through it I want to share a possible solution to soften the panic. Share some digital money with someone. I've 'adopted' a musician and will keep in contact with him. Ernie Vega @papavega on Venmo. I will give where I can to one dude JUST FUCKING BECAUSE. I'd love for the idea to go 'viral' because math don't lie. If we all adopt one extra, then the worst case scenario is already beat.
That's what started this quarantine video series. It's still my main encouragement. However, Dylan's lyrics appeared to ring true in some ways to me today. I'm not AJ Weberman. It's a layman's analysis.
Groom still waiting at the alter
Prayed in the ghetto with my face in the cement
Heard the last moan of a boxer, seen the massacre of the innocent
Felt around for the light switch, felt around for her face
Been treated like a farm animal on a wild goose chase (We're following orders like pets on a wild goose chase afraid of contact with each other. We'll make great pets.)
West of Jordan, east of the Rock of Gibraltar
I see the turning of the page
Curtain rising on a new age
See the groom still waiting at the altar
Try to be pure at heart, they arrest you for robbery
Mistake your shyness for aloofness, your shyness for snobbery
Got the message this morning, the one that was sent to me
About the madness of becoming what one was never meant to be (Everyone shying behind masks stumbling over curbs to stay 6 feet away from others. Madness over a strain and pandemic that was meant to be a beta test for the real pandemic to come. Covid likely to be less deadly than the projections)
West of Jordan, east of the Rock of Gibraltar
I see the turning of the page
Curtain rising on a new age
See the groom still waiting at the altar
Don't know what I can say about Claudette (Corona) wouldn't come back to haunt me
Finally had to give her up about the time she began to want me
But I know God has mercy on them who are slandered and humiliated
I'd a-done anything for that woman if she'd only make me feel obligated (I could be wrong but Viruses mutate themselves out of existence. Your body will expel Covid. Healthy bodies don't want covid as badly as she wants you. Covid came through America in January)
West of Jordan, east of the Rock of Gibraltar
I see the turning of the page
Curtain rising on a new age
See the groom still waiting at the altar
Put your hand on my head, baby, do I have a temperature?
I see people who are supposed to know better standing around like furniture
There's a wall between you and what you want and you got to leap through it
Tonight you got the power to take it, tomorrow you won't have the power to keep it (Shutdown orders in major cities happened in short order by overnight decree. Know which Rights we all just lost our own power over- work, movement, congregation, leisure. People would like to work but the doors and walls are closed.)
West of Jordan, east of the Rock of Gibraltar
I see the turning of the page
Curtain rising on a new age
See the groom still waiting at the altar
Cities on fire, phones out of order
They're killing nuns and soldiers, there's fighting on the border
What can I say about Claudette?
Ain't seen her since January
She could be respectfully married or running a whorehouse in Buenos Aires (The worst scenario- cities on fire, no cell service, lockdown on State borders for a virus already here since January and nearly GONE. Pray)
West of Jordan, east of the Rock of Gibraltar
I see the turning of the page
Curtain rising on a new age
See the groom still waiting at the altar (We'll collectively live to collectively see the real Groom; another panic and another .1% death rate flu-like strain)
Dead man, dead man
[Verse 1]
Uttering idle words from a reprobate mind
Clinging to strange promises, dying on the vine
Never being able to separate the good from the bad
Ooh, I can’t stand it, I can’t stand it
It’s making me feel so sad
(I Don't trust Dr. Fauci. We have to keep 6 feet from the world but not him. ''Masks are good, masks are useless, masks are good'' What did he do about H1N1 which killed 12,000 in the US? How many of his HIV patients are alive? Hint: Zero. Owned by big pharma 100%)
[Chorus]
Dead man, dead man
When will you arise?
Cobwebs in your mind
Dust upon your eyes
[Verse 2]
Satan got you by the heel, there’s a bird’s nest in your hair
Do you have any faith at all? Do you have any love to share?
The way that you hold your head, cursing God with every move
Ooh, I can’t stand it, I can’t stand it
What are you trying to prove? (We were collectively too sated and happy before. Phone, Tv, bowl of cereal, alarm set for the morning. Now we, at least I, have resorted to praying for us all. Churches and synagogues closed: Walmart open)
[Chorus]
Dead man, dead man
When will you arise?
Cobwebs in your mind
Dust upon your eyes
[Verse 3]
The glamour and the bright lights and the politics of sin
The ghetto that you build for me is the one you end up in
The race of the engine that overrules your heart
Ooh, I can’t stand it, I can’t stand it
Pretending that you’re so smart
(Politicians and Mayors shutting down work and gyms while they go to work and the gym. The People are locked at home while THEY work and take income from the engine generated by the People's past labor.)
[Verse 4]
What are you trying to overpower me with, the doctrine or the gun?
My back is already to the wall, where can I run?
The tuxedo that you’re wearing, the flower in your lapel
Ooh, I can’t stand it, I can’t stand it
You want to take me down to hell (This won't end with any politician or unelected bureaucrat skating away after blanketing entire cities in fear. Pitchforks ready once the National Guard leaves the streets. Until then, it's just a manmade decree to not work. A Belly up economy will force people against the wall. Not a pretty vision. Protests and riots inevitable.)
Dead man, dead man
When will you arise?
Cobwebs in your mind
Dust upon your eyes
I want to share a possible solution. Share some digital money with someone. I've 'adopted' a musician and will keep in contact with him. Ernie Vega @papavega on Venmo. I will give where I can to one dude JUST FUCKING BECAUSE. I already support my daughter and ex with service. I hope Ernie can appreciate the gesture. I'd love for the idea to go 'viral' because math don't lie. If we all adopt one extra, then the worst case scenario is already beat.
How does this virus and lockdown affect the world of musicians?
Can a solution be right in front of our faces?
Yes, says Bob Porco.
CHOOSE one person to support a little.
A MANDATE BY THE DEPARTMENT OF THE STATE OF MIND
Is it possible to inspire a solution to Covid through Facebook and the internet?
It could be a rough patch for some so I've 'adopted' a musician who is out of work and will help with the groceries. If we all help one, everybody eats. Very simple. Please share.
Here's the guy I sent digital money to: @papavega on Venmo. Reputable guy. Took lessons from Van Ronk. We worked together at the Gaslight on MacDougal Street in 2012 with Randy Burns. Met him in 2010 live on air at Bob Fass' Radio Unnamable. How things change.
Daily LOCKDOWN video blogs or Video Logs to be posted. Just because. Plus, I'm temporarily not working either:)
