I Can't Believe I'm Writing About This Again

The Schloss-Blog cannot believe it but we are writing about this again.

So, really, how many of you, even if you voted for Trump in 2016, believe as he does that we'll all be back to work by Easter and will have filled our churches on Easter Sunday, in joyous congregations, fear free of coronavirus?

Gee, he forgot to mention Passover Seders preceding that in that same week, but with all he's done for Israel - actually, all he hasn't done - maybe that oversight is not a surprise (pulling out of JCPOA and pulling troops out of Syria).

The president said there's a potential miracle drug out there to cure and heal us from COVID-19.

A man in Arizona, who heard Trump hype that drug, chloroquine, consumed it, but not in anything close to a medicinal form and not on the suggestion, recommendation or prescription of any doctor.

He's dead.

Did you vote for Trump? Do you believe him unconditionally?

With the social-distancing mandates in place in so many areas of the country, and so many people either self-isolating or quarantining, why are Florida golf courses packed with players (they are busy here in Arizona too, I know, I played - shame on me)?

The coronavirus knows no boundaries, no state borders. So unless all governors issue shelter-at-home orders, such mandates are virtually meaningless. Not all governors have as of this writing. In fact, as of this writing, 21 states have issued that order, but impacting well over 50 percent of the population.

But those orders, as we noted, do not prevent the virus from crossing state borders.

Just got an alert from American Airlines, my preferred carrier. Not only have they cut back on flights, they are issuing new on-board seating guidelines, spacing passengers apart for "social-distancing" purposes, timeline indefinite.

But Trump says America can be up and running like normal, back to work after filling church pews on Easter Sunday.

Hopefully, he meant Easter Sunday, 2021.

And now, the kicker. Will we back to work by Easter Sunday? Hey America, we just experienced 3.28 million unemployment claims filed.

In the last week, that is. A record - a record by some 2.6 million.

See you at Easter services.

Next year.

Maybe.

More tonight on my Radio Free Phoenix broadcast (11 p.m. Eastern).

Good night, Mrs. Calabash. Here's to you, Mrs. Robinson.

Have you both been swabbed?

America, Where Are You Now?

With the Trump administration having taken too long, having resisted World Health Organization input, having rejected its own experts' advice and having left us all vulnerable, the Schloss-Blog notes that here we are, with the coronavirus doubling in the population every six days and resources with which to detect it and fight it not yet readily available.

In other words, too many people believed Trump, that the virus would come and go and all would be well. What Trump is doing is dangerous.

And so it occurs to the Schloss-Blog, there is a lot more of less.

• No more ballgames.
• No more cheerleaders.
• No more Eagles "Hotel California" tour.
• No more Pearl Jam tour.
• No more hugs.
• No more high-fives.
• No more handshakes.
• Not even fist bumps.
• No big weddings.
• No bar mitzvahs and bat mitzvahs.

And yee gawds, no more Tom Brady in New England (suck on it Bawston fans).

• No more medical masks left. Medical professionals are being told to wear a bandana, like cowboys on a cattle drive. Don't you want your doctor wearing a bandana when he or she treats you?
• Not enough respirators and ventilators. People can't breath because of this virus, yet we can't help all of them, even some of them, or enough of them.
• No more restaurants.
• No more gatherings of more than 50 people.
• No more gatherings of more than 10 people in some states.

On a personal note, no more joyful occasions for a while.

I am saddened that my mother-in-law's 90th birthday party next month had to be canceled, or at least postponed. She is a lady of grace and deserves to have her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren gathered around her in celebration, but the eldercare facility where she resides is on lockdown - no one in or out.

Three months from now, my daughter was supposed to get married. She broke off the engagement, for all the right reasons, but it likely would've been put off anyway now, or at least the massive party we had planned. Man, did I have a father-daughter dance planned (picture, if you will, "Time of My Life" from Dirty Dancing).

There won't be a reunion with my fraternity brothers this year. Maybe 2021. At our ages, that's a "no more" that I need to hear no longer.

No more toilet paper, or canned goods, in some stores.

No more Stephen Colbert late night. Or Jimmy Kimmel. Or Seth Meyers. Or Conan O'Brien. Or even James Corden. 

On TV news sets, co-anchors and guests "social-distance," sitting six feet apart.

Remote interviews are being done with microphones on selfie sticks. Still got yours? Remember when they were banned?

But I can think of no more appropriate close for this post than the words from a song from the Steppenwolf album Monster (Dunhill Records):

America, where are you now
Don't you care about your sons and daughters
Don't you know we need you now
We can't fight alone against the monster

This was written and recorded in ... 1969.

How prophetic.

Good night Mrs. Calabash. And here's to you Mrs. Robinson.

More on my Sunday night show on Radio Free Phoenix.

This Is Not America

The Schloss-Blog does not recognize America anymore.

Our president, when we need him most, is doing the least, deliberately distributing false and misleading information at a time when truth, accuracy and heartfelt reassurance is needed most.

There is no "baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet" advertising singing to me. No roar of NASCAR. Few if any K-12 school bells. College classes canceled and college sports too.

While the safety factors are obvious, they are also reactionary and come far too late. Too many children depend on school for at least one good, solid, nutritious meal a day. Up to 70 percent of kids depend on school lunch for food at all and 40 percent get their only, daily nutritious meal at school.

What now for them?

Got tickets for Pearl Jam's tour? Any tour? Good luck with that. Virtually all canceled.

The Schloss-Blog was going to reunite with his old "Bruins" softball teammates and go to a Cubs exhibition game in Mesa next week. We played together for 20 years. Won championships. Reunion, now, not happening.

While all these moves, plus all the other cancellations, are prudent, much, much more is so up in the air.

Are you going to church? Not this month. Playing in a weekly poker game with the guys in a cigar smoke-filled man cave? Might want to rethink that.

Your routine life is different. You're working from home. Your kids are home or your college kids are on the way. Even West Point has told cadets not to report back after spring break.

Entertainment businesses are shut down. You might be home for an extended time but you ain't going to the movies.

They're not being released until fall. Maybe.

Moscow Mitch McConnell held up the coronavirus emergency financing bill because he wanted to add a clause wiping out the abortion-financing Hyde Amendment. Really, he did. People are dying in front of our very eyes from the virus, can't get tested for it and McConnell wants to leverage a politically sensitive, unrelated issue.

Despicable.

The president discouraged coronavirus testing because he believes any increases in the officially reported number of cases in the United States would've been bad for his reelection campaign. Why does he believe that? Because Trump called the coronavirus a "hoax," invented by his political foes, perpetuated by Fox News.

That's right - he doesn't care if you die.

Did you vote for him? Going to vote for him again? He doesn't care if you die. Still going to vote for him?

I'll let the late David Bowie finish up this blog for me -

A little piece of you
The little peace in me
Will die (This is not a miracle)
For this is not America

We are in trouble. Good night, Mrs. Calabash. With any luck, the Schloss-Blog will be back next week.

Got any toilet paper, anyone?

Questions, Questions, Questions...

So the Schloss-Blog is wondering about lots of things (and not about the Astros either, but they should be locked up in a public pillory and subjected to humiliation).

I sneezed. Do I have coronavirus?

The guy next to me sneezed. Does he have the coronavirus? Do I now?

If I do have it, can I go to an Astros game and give it to them?

Will the custom ($$$) orthotic inserts I just got work better than the ones that came with the special-support sneakers I've been wearing, because they sure look a lot alike? Doc said to wear 'em a few hours a day and get accustomed to them. We'll see what happens. We'll feel what happens.

Why do I watch reruns of "Chicago P.D" all the time? The episodes are syndicated on about three different networks that I've seen 'em on, so far, so they're on almost all the time, like on a video loop. I love totally unethical, crooked cops.

Every media outlet I listen to, watch or read is optimistically wild about the Chicago White Sox and pessimistically cautious about the Cubs. Is this legit? Are the White Sox gonna' be for real this year and the Cubs not?

Anyone watching the reincarnated XFL? Who the heck is Brandon Silvers?

Maybe if I hang out at Sunda long enough, Lady GaGa will come in and maybe we can get engaged. She is playing Chicago this summer and ain't she coming to see 'ex' Taylor Kinney. Or is she?

Can you get coronavirus by staring into an eclipse of the sun? No? Damn, if Trump has it, he didn't get it that way.

Are the Cubs going to trade Kris Bryant already and get it over with? He's walking as a free agent next year.

Will the Olympics be competed in empty arenas because of the coronavirus? How about the NCAA Tournament games?

Is Donald Trump right when he says the coronavirus will go away if you go to work? He must be - it means you'll just give it to someone else and then you'll be alright.

I'm going to Paris soon. Anyone want to teach me French? The language, you idiot, the language!

Speaking of Europe, the Cubs and Cardinals are going to play a regular-season series in London this summer. Does anyone care, or is it just because MLB wants their fans to start fights in London pubs instead of Wrigleyville bars?

Should Mitchell Trubisky be the Bears' quarterback this season? Maybe Kris Bryant (he's probably got as good an arm).

OK, I'm done. Got a reservation at Sunda, and I'm staying until Lady GaGa shows up.

Shout-outs this Sunday on my Radio Free Phoenix rock 'n' roll show for all the outstanding athletes I got to cover this season on the basketball courts of Chicagoland and the football fields of Arizona too. And their dedicated coaches.

Good night, Mrs. Calabash.