I segued in this entry on the 15th of December, feeling that descendant futurists, should they somehow stumble upon this digitized diary, presuming they somehow overlooked or failed to discover records from more vaunted historians of the Gen X era, might like a brief note on how some of Americana’s formerly-taken-for-granted institutions adapted during the latter stage in 2020’s heightened states of racial strife, political clusterfucking, and Covid’s persistence.
In the sports world, the Cleveland Indians finally caved. They announced they were changing their name, amid much scorn from the peanut galleries. They became the Cleveland Guardians. Nobody thought that new title would give them a better chance for pennant glory, but Cleveland will take any mojo it can get. That was two down, for those who were counting, including the former Washington Redskins, now the Washington Commanders. Guardians and commanders. You don’t have to be a spud like me to determine how those new monikers might be reminiscent of class trends, amirite whiteboys? Check out my segments on justice for a refresher, if you like.
There are a few grandfathered organizations left standing, including the Kansas City Chiefs (given their current dynasty, a name change isn’t coming anytime soon), the Atlanta Braves (their owners maintain they have the blessings of the local North Carolina Cherokee tribe), and the Chicago Blackhawks (Chi-town insists their team is an homage to Sauk tribe chief Black Hawk).
Concerts and live music were deader than dead. Former attempts at acoustic Zoom offerings dwindled out. For a while over late summer, the drive-in concert milieu was in vogue. Certain spots across America indulged occasional shows offered by working musicians, with stringent protocols in place. Stages in the round, cars parked at least six feet away from one another, patrons had to wear masks if sitting outside their vehicles in folding lawn chairs or in the beds of pickups and such.
Despite our fair adherence to pandemic guidelines, we considered attending one of these ‘car concerts,’ one hosted by Robbie Krieger, the famous guitarist for The Doors. Eventually we nixed the idea, because bathroom breaks seemed a gauntlet. Individual visits to on-site porta-potties were advertised as being supervised by event staff, but porta-potties during a pandemic just didn’t seem to be a safe thing, what with their confined space, precious little ventilation, bio waste piling up inside.
Public restrooms in general were shunned throughout the epidemic. How many times did you see cars pulled over on highways with folks relieving themselves, standing or squatting, during your limited travels that year? If you drove through the main byways of LA or San Diego during the months of summer of 2020, I was likely one of those men standing dick in hand, back to traffic. Apologies for the public scene.
Other valiant attempts at live entertainment were waged by Covid weary comedians, mostly notably Dave Chappelle, who hosted pop-up, one-off gigs in and around his hometown of Yellow Springs, Ohio. He figured out a relatively safe way to continue working, with Covid precautions like temperature checks, masks, seating sections six feet part. It was still a risk. It’s not like comedy was an essential service. Though in that year of blight, perhaps it was.
Musical icons Van Morrison and Eric Clapton sadly chose to err on the side of the tin foil hat tribe in regards to Covid. They mourned the potential death of live music (hardly; if anything, people continue to attend, en masse, live music concerts and tours here in 2024, most notably with Taylor Swift’s Eras tour). They released a joint anti-lockdown song called Stand and Deliver, in which they opined how we were embracing slavery to big government and how we needed to be free more than we needed to be alive.
Actually, protecting our fellow citizens over our personal interests was about as free as freedom gets.