END OF THE Q-RECS

by Chris La Vigna (@Chris_LaVigna)

A blurry shot from the finale of DAWN OF THE DEAD '78. Times are tough, but we go on...

When I started the "Quarantine Recommendation Of The Day" column on this blog,  we were a little over a week into the mass quarantine, and I still held out hope that we could contain this thing, that in spite of all the blunders, hubris, and misinformation, the USA could still get its act together and handle this without mass deaths. I even held out hope I'd be able to go see a concert in Brooklyn that I had tickets for on May 1st. Now that it's June 1st, and we've lost over 106,000 American lives alone to this virus, I'm admittedly much less hopeful, and completely disgusted with the utter failure of our elected officials to put our lives above the economy.

And yet, with no vaccine in sight, and a presumed second wave looming in the coming fall/winter, New York is experiencing a steady enough decrease in confirmed cases that Westchester County, where I currently reside, has entered phase one of reopening, with New York City still primed to enter phase one on June 8th, 2020. I can't help but feel that this is short-sighted, that our collective need to experience the joys of Summer and re-start the economy could potentially cause another terrible outbreak, particularly because it's known that we still don't have any comprehensive testing for the virus in this country. I truly hope I'm wrong. I would love nothing more than to look at this post and be relieved to find out that I was absolutely incorrect in my assumptions on this. Time will tell...

Oh, and as I type this, not only are we still dealing with the Coronavirus, but major cities across this country have been rocked with protests and uprisings over the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers. It's an absolute explosion, the logical conclusion of the rising righteous outrage over the wrongful deaths of Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor, to say nothing of the countless innocent black lives that were taken before.

Not only have we been painfully reminded that our federal institutions have been running on skeleton crews for decades, we now seem more primed than ever to burn all of these institutions down and start anew. And if that is what must be done, then so be it. People will balk and say that these riots discredit the movement, but last time I checked, pretty much every major movement that has come to shape our history involved a violent insurrection of some kind. 

For Christ's sake, we learned about The Boston Tea Party in elementary school, how it was a key event in the start of the American Revolution... y'know, that riot where a bunch of colonists took crates of tea and dumped them into the harbor? Or how about the Stonewall Riots, out of which the long struggle for LGBTQIA+ rights began? 

You're gonna tell me the powers that be were going to cede over power to people just peacefully standing around, people they could just ignore when push comes to shove? Nah. That's literally never been how it works. 

I know we all got fed the same crap about MLK and his marches in school, and its true, he was instrumental in the Civil Rights Movement and he did show that it was possible to march peacefully, but he also refused to condemn the actions of other Civil Rights leaders like Fred Hampton, who was vocally open to violence against his oppressors. So any of you schmucks out there saying "MLK would be ashamed" need to shut your fucking mouths and do some actual research, because the MLK you were taught about was not the MLK who was so dangerous that the government had to have him assassinated in order to stop him (Hampton too, for that matter).

Well, I've said about all I think I need to say on that. As a white person, all I can do now is listen to Black voices and do my best to use my privileges to help them in any way that I can. I've made a few small donations to bail funds and other Black Rights orgs, and I'd recommend whoever's reading this to look into doing the same.

But back to the topic at hand: yeah, the Q-Recs are over, because technically, at least in my neck of the woods, the Quarantine is over. Many of us are still scared and unemployed, but hey, we'll be able to go get haircuts again soon! Priorities! 

This blog existed before the column and will continue to exist now that it is done. I'll still be publishing reviews, editorials, perhaps even some poetry and flash fiction, as I've considered doing before. It won't be daily, but I'll find a regular pace to my posting. To the twelve or thirteen of you who regularly read this column (or at least clicked the link to give me a view, haha) and maybe even checked out some of my recommendations, thank you. Thank you so very much for supporting a half-crazed writer who did his best to keep himself sane in these especially maddening times. I love you all.

Stay safe.

Stay strong.

Black Lives Matter.

Eat The Rich.