The Big Orange Cheese

Halloween, 2020.

The bug was out of control.

Across the world, infections spread like wildfire. France was in lockdown again. Brazil was digging mass graves. According to Johns Hopkins University, in the United States there were over 9 million cases reported since January, one million of which was added only in the last two weeks of October. The U.S. set a new record: 90,000 cases reported in one day. That was basically a new infection every second. Over 1,000 folks a day were dying. 230,000 Americans had succumbed to the virus. The autumn surge hadn’t just arrived; it came with a vengeance.

Bottom line, we didn’t want to initiate anymore lockdowns, quarantines, or shutdowns of commerce, more willing to let those of us more susceptible to the virus perish, to continue our preferred way of life.

Australia and New Zealand were leading the way in eradicating Covid. There were two primary reasons for that; they were island nations remotely located in the south Pacific, and they followed stringent quarantine and lockdown measures, requiring their citizenry and incoming travelers to abide by regulations to the fullest extent, enforceable by law. Legal consequences of pandemic protocol infractions were something we Americans steadfastly refused to put into play. After all those months of misery and partisan bickering, we still didn’t like being told no.

In California, massive spikes in gun sales and gun ownership occurred. A study out of the University of California at Davis showed that 110,000 people purchased a firearm because of the pandemic (47,000 of which were first time gun owners), and many gun owners polled admitted they had a firearm loaded and at the ready, not locked up and secured as in normal times. Most of those recent gun purchasers cited a fear of governmental collapse, pandemic-driven chaos, or social unrest in the streets as the primary reasons why they’d decided to buy a gun. 

As a Socal boy, I realize I should’ve been more stoked (that’s right, I still say ‘stoked,’ told ya I was an 80s exile) about the Los Angeles Dodgers’ first World Series win since 1988 that last week in October. I didn’t watch any of the games in full. I followed the sports highlights at the end of the night. Baseball long ago lost its shine for me, I respect its rightful place in the American lexicon, I played Little League (somewhat poorly) when I was a kid, and I’ve been to a number of Dodger games over the course of my life, you can’t really avoid hitting Dodger games in SoCal. Winning the pennant is something a Southern Californian dude should embrace and celebrate, like we’re supposed to herald any Laker wins (still no real NFL glories here, it’s a long-lamented brouhaha in SoCal not having a mainstream legacy football team – most Angelenos will gladly tell you the San Diego Chargers simply don’t count, nor did the LA Raiders or the LA Rams, much as we tried).

But because of the doom-tainted glasses I’d been wearing all year, all I could see after the Dodgers’ 3-1 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays in Game Six was American hubris on full display for the world to see, first in the actions of fans taking to Angeleno streets in large, mask-less mobs to celebrate the World Series win, second in the decision of LA favorite son Justin Turner to return to on field victory celebrations after being removed in the eighth inning due to a positive Covid test result. Turner basically said fuck it and ignored Major League Baseball’s agreed-upon pandemic protocols, refused to comply with directives not to return to the field and risk spreading his active case.

While it’s obvious why Turner wanted to participate in the culmination of a blunted season soldiered through a global pandemic, a season in which he was an integral component in terms of getting the Dodgers to a World Series win thirty years in the making, the blatant disregard for others to accommodate a need for self -validation was a public confirmation of the status quo for Americans. He even took off his mask for the team photo for posterity. Fans were quick to point out it hardly mattered, as he’d been playing among the other players and staff for the entire game, and if he’d infected anyone else, it was too little too late.

Dodger star or not, his obligation as a human to surrender a desired need for completion, hard-won as it may have been, to not risk indirectly infecting others upon getting his positive test result remained a necessity despite the glory at hand. Sacrifice our personal good for a greater good. That’s what we’re supposed to be. It’s what we pretend to be.

It’s not really his fault.

It’s our fault.

All of us.

He wouldn’t have made that choice if it wasn’t already so common a choice, if his decision was an anomaly rather than the rule. I get it, fame and glory beckoned, and he figured it was worth the risk, and surely his teammates and fans thought the exact same thing. If contract tracing backtracked any deaths to that decision of his, he would’ve regretted it. I’d have struggled with the decision to quarantine only two innings away from a World Series win that likely would be my only appearance in such a life altering game, a culmination of a sports career I’d worked hard to actualize. Obviously, anybody would. Ultimately, I’d have decided the moment in the spotlight wasn’t worth how I’d feel, if I discovered somebody died after contracting the disease from me.

Things are definitely worth taking risks in this life, don’t mistake me. I felt the same way when I hit Olvera Street in Los Angeles for a shopping trip, though I was masked, but if I’d inadvertently infected the shopkeeper and they died? Then my choice wouldn’t have been worth it. But Turner should’ve done the maximum effort in running the gauntlet…by wearing a mask.

In not observing pandemic protocols, we’re making a choice for others, not just ourselves. Dodger glory after three decades of loss wasn’t something to be taken lightly, not for Southern Californians. Yet no pennant was worth unnecessary loss of lives. Sports are an important and integral part of American society. They should not supersede the sanctity of life. Despite what many a fan might tell you. Nor should my preferred mass gathering…concerts. Live music feeds the soul. But if a live set is gonna kill someone for an avoidable reason, let’s go ahead and postpone.

It all came down to the mortality rate. If it reached 75%, people wouldn’t blink an eye about skipping a World Series celebration. Because it was so ‘low,’ (in that month, it appeared to be what seemed like a measly 3-6%, depending on sources). Yet 230,000 Americans dying of a virulent bug inside of 9 months was not incidental. I said early on, it would probably take a Walking Dead kind of scenario for many Americans to take quarantine seriously enough to abide…bodies uncollected on the streets, boarded-up hospitals, martial law.

Even if those of us who were being ‘overly cautious’ were wrong about the death rate and severity of the thing, we were still erring on the side of caution regardless of how ‘few’ Americans had died. It didn’t matter if we ended up being wrong about the severity of contagion or efficacy. We still did what rational sentient life forms ought to do in that situation: treat an unknown virus with widely varying effects case to case, with no reasonable forecast as to long term effects on survivors, as a dire threat to all humanity. If even one life was lost due to a lack of empathy, that was one life too many. And it sure wasn’t a fair trade off for a sports game, a political rally, or a backyard BBQ, or a concert.

The original James Bond died that Halloween. As a red-blooded American whiteboy, I felt some measure of remorse for the passing of Sean Connery. One of my very favorite Connery roles was in the classic B flick Highlander, when he played Juan Sánchez-Villalobos Ramirez, Connor McCloud’s Spanish swordsman mentor – the misappropriation of a Spanish racial role ceded to a Scottish actor notwithstanding. He didn’t even bother putting on an accent, left his Scottish brogue lilt in the filming intact. We Gen X’ers didn’t think as much about that stuff back then. No American whiteboy could keep their man card if they weren’t a fan of Jimmy Bond. I was always more of a Roger Moore guy. Gen X thing. And I remembered the Barbara Walters interview with Connery, where he said slapping a woman sometimes was fine, and that sometimes it needed to happen. Even back then, that was a bold, fuck you I’m a whiteboy kinda statement. Walters was unimpressed. Watch the YouTube footage. It’s painful.

While I was piling on about the onset of legit dystopia, the media lent me yet another hand by showcasing a discovery of forced monkey labor. Let me reiterate that. Monkey slavery.

In that autumn, Costco and WalMart discontinued carrying Chaokoh brand coconut milk after PETA accused its manufacturer of using forced monkey labor. PETA investigators from its Asia division found cruelty to monkeys at farms and facilities used by Theppadungporn Coconut Company, according to the animal rights group. Apparently, when the monkeys weren’t being forced to pick coconuts or perform in tourist sideshows, they were chained to old tires, confined to small cages only as large as their bodies, and if they were non-compliant and showed resistance in defending themselves, their teeth were pulled out.

Yes, there ya go, that was a thing, probably still is, trained monkeys under indentured servitude assisting Asian corporations in harvesting alternative milk creamer for our chai lattes. The fact there was monkey labor at all in our world said a lot about where we were as a species. I admit, that was something I didn’t really need to know. But I do, and thanks to me, so too, do you as well. You’re welcome. Misery loves company. More importantly…monkey slavery. Monkey slavery. For fuck’s sake. That day, I reeked, I stank of whiteboy naiveté, in my ignorance of the reality there were lower order simians collecting coconuts for higher order simians.

That evening, on Halloween, we laid out sealed baggies full of bulk candy along our driveway for distanced pickup, and indeed, a handful of children combed the neighborhood in search of sterile tricks or treats during a Covid era American holiday.

Afterward, we settled in to watch our annual viewing of It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. No longer broadcasting on public television, having become a subsidiary of Apple TV, we had to stream it, and without commercials it wasn’t quite the same, but what was, in those days? I love that perennial, childhood favorite as much as the Christmas special. I still get irked when Chuck gets rocks in his bag instead of candy. I still marvel at the primitive yet impressive pastel art animation in portraying a war-torn French countryside for Snoopy’s World War One flying ace. I still admire Linus’ dedication to an abstract spiritual belief in a benevolent pumpkin deity, all in the face of his associates’ scorn.

It’s still funny when Sally demands restitution from Linus for putting her faith in him and sacrificing her Halloween goodies. While I was penning this that evening, as we watched the show, I might’ve drawn a Great Pumpkin parable to the larger issue at hand, perhaps our leadership failure at containing a pandemic, or the onset of dystopian Americana. I could’ve easily done so, particularly with the too-easy painting of the Great Pumpkin’s cosmetic similarities with a certain executive, or the ostracizing of Linus’s belief in a greater, long term-reward over immediate payoffs of in-hand, trick-or-treat candy. Actually, in the Peanuts comic strips, Linus often exhibits that clearest sign of higher intelligence: delay of self-gratification.

It’s a cartoon, you say, lighten up, and you’re absolutely right, which is why I chose not to delve deep into some metaphor regarding the Peanuts gang and the American malaise of 2020. Instead, I simply enjoyed my memories of the show, woofed down some Snickers fun bite bars.

Still. If you’ve ever tossed a rock into a kid’s Halloween bag, you’re a dick. 

*Compiled from October 31, 2020