Sidebar: I just needed to write something.
Dear WordPress,
I was thinking about this the other day when I spoke with my dad. I came to the realization that unless you’re 85 years of age or older, and unless you witnessed the Great Depression, or survived the Holocaust and World War II, you’ve never seen anything the likes of this Coronavirus situation in your lifetime as an American. Myself, my parents, my sister and her newborn son aka my nephew, are all experiencing something of this magnitude for the first time, together. That’s a crazy revelation.
Sidebar: yes, I understand that my three week old nephew is unaware of anything that’s going on around him, but hopefully you get the point.
This whole thing has brought out the conspiracy theorists to the nth degree. Wildest theory I’ve heard is that this disease was brought to the US to eradicate senior citizens because of their collection of social security is becoming a problem for the government to pay out. I see the reality of this situation in my area and I don’t think that’s the case, but it’s a clever theory. But, this is all interesting to see leading up to the 2020 Presidential Election.
I don’t see Joe Biden beating Donald Trump. And I’ve been saying I see a Donald repeat for over a year now, much to the chagrin of friends and family members. Some of whom think Biden is absolutely going to beat Donald. But the guy looks like his skin is falling off his bones, he forgets his thoughts mid-sentence, and he’s no more likable of a candidate than Hilldog was in 2016. So again, I fear people in my area are suffering from bubble syndrome and think that New York City and its Tri-State area reflect the same feelings of the rest of the country, yet when I look at a map I think I see far more states going red than I see states going blue.
Sidebar: Hillary and the Electoral College are the reasons I didn’t vote in 2016. I just didn’t like her, but I would’ve have voted for her over Toupee had I walked into the polls on that Tuesday in November. I knew that New Jersey was going to go blue with or without me, so why make the trip before the 12 hour workday I had that same day? I’m the poster child for why the Electoral College is a fucked up system to base the election on…
People up here keep jonesing for Andrew Cuomo, Governor of New York, to make a run at this thing with seven months to go. In my eyes, he’s a far more viable candidate than Biden. His faculties are far more intact, he’s 15 years younger than Joe, and when he speaks he’s laser-focused and engaging. Whereas I see Trump destroying Biden in debates, I think Cuomo would destroy The Donald on the stages. The question is, can Cuomo really afford to abandon what he’s currently doing to save the state of New York during this insane Coronavirus crisis to focus and make a run at the presidency? Simple answer, no. It’d be entirely irresponsible at this point.
This shit is scary and mind-blowing. The entire production industry that I work in has been shut down in the Greater New York City area. This whole no work = no money thing sucks, but on the bright side at least I’ve been able to do some of the things that I’m not generally able to get done when I’m working. Things like cooking, cleaning, sleeping in, catching up on the shows/films/podcasts that have fallen by the wayside, and of course keeping up with Matty Mouths Off. This WordPress is a great outlet of mine, and along with cooking again, has been crucial during these strange times where I can’t work and I’m left to my own devices in terms of exercise as I can’t physically get into my boxing gym.
I live in the most densely populated state in the country. There are an estimated 9,241,900 people packing into the 8,729 square miles that are New Jersey. Factor in the fact that I live less than 15 miles outside of New York City, and the truth is we’re all just living on top of each other out here! Makes sense that we’ve been affected more than any other region in America by Corona. Events are getting canceled left and right, as they should for great reason.
AEW’s Dynamite show that was supposed to be in Newark on March 25th, and that a few friends and I had tickets for was postponed until July 22nd. Wrestlemania is still going down next weekend, but without any fans in the arena, and it’s being split up into two nights with the monicker that this particular show is “too big for just one night!” When in actuality nobody, including Vince McMahon, wants to sit through a 7-8 hour show with zero fans in the crowd. And when you can’t have more than ten people in a specific area at any given time, including your camera guys, referee, and ring announcer.
Sounds like a logistical nightmare, right? I mean what do you do, just have tour buses outside of the Performance Center with 7-8 performers, a driver, and an agent to build the matches in them and just funnel the wrestlers into the arena for their matches one by one? And I’m sure some of the matches are being pre-taped elsewhere to avoid such a logistical nightmare, but what about anything live being worked on the days, April 4-5th?
But how about a little bit of cooking. In case you’re interested, below is a link to the New York Times recipe for the braised short ribs I made in this piece’s featured photo. I subbed two cups of beef stock (bouillon cubes and water) for the red wine, and I used butter and flour to thicken the “roux” of sorts. It came out a bit more stew-like than the NYT’s recipe, but it’s quite possibly the best meal I’ve ever made…
https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1019034-garlic-braised-short-ribs-with-red-wine
Man, one of the major silver linings in all of this for me is that I’ve been able to get back into cooking and reinvigorate my love for it. After spending pretty much all of November through the first week of March working as an electrician on feature films and a Netflix promo. Working anywhere between 12 and 18 hours a day, I had damn near forgotten how therapeutic and fun cooking can be. It’s like boxing and writing to me, I get lost in it!
Speaking of which, I know this stream of consciousness is simply just that, and these are merely a compilation of jumbled thoughts to share with potentially zero readers, but I felt the need to do this for my own therapeutic reasons.
In case you give a shit, here are the next 15 songs on my “Bipolar Time Machine” playlist that I keep shuffling on Spotify:
- “Brooklyn Zoo” – Ol’ Dirty Bastard
- “It Must Have Been Love” – Roxette
- “Mama, I’m Coming Home” – Ozzy Osborne
- “Cult of Personality” – Living Colour
- “She Sells Sanctuary” – The Cult
- “I Do It For Hip-Hop” – Ludacris, Featuring Nas & Jay-Z
- “Burden In My Hand” – Soundgarden
- “Flagpole Sitta” – Harvey Danger
- “We’ll Meet Again” – Vera Lynn
- “Warning” – Biggie
- “Give It To Me Baby” – Rick James
- “Living On A Thin Line” – The Kinks
- “Family and Loyalty” – Gang Starr
- “Let’s Stay Together” – Al Green
- “Funk #49” – James Gang
And if you want it, here’s the link to the full playlist:
– Sincerely, Matt Chernick aka Chern Mathews
MattyMouthsOff 