Pandemic Diary V
Entering the Labyrinth
April-May 2020
After being back to our studio in the Ozarks for about a month my mood shifted from one panic attack to another. No matter what aspect of the situation I focused on its conclusion was a dead end. Without any source of income then a whole cavalcade of other issues stemmed from that.
As working artists we were able to scratch out a living but we were tied to the health of the national market and by extension the international economy. Especially in the art jewelry business we were effected by fluctuations in the price of precious metals and stones but also the flood of imported finished jewelry made to resemble art jewelry.
The domestic market is effected by a lot of factors and the art festival artist is not immune to these dynamic changes. Customers need discretionary income to afford what we make. The entire art market balances on the head of a pin with many complex factors standing between you and economic disaster. Consequently a disruption like an epidemic is catastrophic to the fragile art world.
But this is only one of my concerns. Rumors were flying and the media did little to help reporting something dire in one area and then conflating it with the rest of the world. So what was happening in your state or town became a jumble. Were the gas stations open? I guess so, at least some of them. Can you buy groceries? I think so but there are lines. Is the Walmart open? Maybe.
The people in charge started to come out with proclamations that varied from state to state and the central government added to the confusion. There were assorted reports about people dying from the new disease. Some said that the corona virus was usually not fatal except for people with underlying conditions. However, the term "novel" started to creep into the reports as in "the novel corona virus". What the hell is that? Many observers said that was synonymous with "man made" or "altered" or even "weaponized". These observations did little to ease my anxiety.
A viruses was often named after the place it was first found like the Spanish Flu virus so naturally the new bug was being termed the Wuhan virus after the city in China where it was first discovered. Then of course people called it the Wuhan Flu.
So we mortals began to use the term Wuhan Flu but within a short time the folks who managed the government-media complex began an abrupt clamp down on what terminology was appropriate for our new found demon of death. Soon anyone who used the term Wuhan Flu was a racist and a living breathing anti-Chinese race hating monster. All of a sudden many of self appointed guardians of the English language determined that there were Asian haters among us and likened it the internment of the Japanese during WWII.
The loudest voices of virtue were the closest to the government medical establishment and the sanctions began to appear against anyone who might make a comment on the airwaves or in print. Soon the approved term was acknowledged to be "Covid" without any geographic shades of meaning.
These limits on free speech always set off warnings in my head. Along with the disease now we being treated to a groupthink lesson by the medical bureaucrats who wanted to steer us away from thinking about the Wuhan biological warfare labs in China. The directive seemed to be, "You will not use the term Wuhan Flu!" I thought "Why?"*
Even though the states we primarily inhabited, Florida and Missouri, had relatively common sense guidelines regarding the epidemic one could not get away from the national press that was controlled from the northeast media market. So every impulse generated in New York or Washington DC was instantly amplified. Scary stories, anecdotes, government proclamations. and targeted disinformation made it into our homes and caused no end of anxiety.
I was made aware of new terms while listening to NPR someone said that although all the figures were not yet available perhaps artists in the AE&R sector of the economy were the hardest hit economic group. It sent me to a search engine and I discovered that my wife and I were in something called the Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation sector of the economy and we had a government code, 711510 that classified us. Some months later I discovered that it was as National Public Radio predicted the AE&R sector was the hardest hit with nearly 40% unemployment. Few people talked about this problem, then or now.
As the tales about people being afflicted by the new disease began to haunt the news shows and conflicting stories caused the population to stay in a state of confusion we began to reconstruct our earlier experiences. It became more and more clear to Annie and I that what we had back in January was the Wuhan Flu. All the symptoms checked out and our slow recovery time and olfactory deficiencies all pointed to the Covid plague. The only good thing about it is we possibility now had a natural immunity to the disease.
That being said the experts were not giving their imprimatur to "natural immunity" preferring to hospitalize people and place them on ventilators until they died. There would be a crap ton of money for BigPharma to make and market a miracle vaccine and anything natural might get in the way. Meanwhile, Dr. Fauci our national spokesperson, with little or no research behind him began to dictate that everyone wear a mask.
My wife is an extremely clever person with a piece of cloth and a sewing machine and within a few days we had our own masks. We doubted if it was even effective but soon many places began to demand mask wearing. So we had a mask, mine was olive green and hers was gray.
But with all the national media misdirection the fact remained that a lot of people and us in particular were increasingly being driven into penury. Because we had been self employed for our entire working life ordinary programs like Unemployment Compensation were off limits. So finally realizing there was a problem the government began to turn its eye on contract, self employed, and gig workers.
Even though as artist we had a category (remember the 711510) we barely made it onto the vast screen of bureaucracy. However, by lumping us into the AER category with gig workers and others somehow we got included in the Federal supplementary program for some relief. I applied to see if we qualified and that began a months long clerical marathon.
We were bombarded with forms for all sorts of relief; welfare, food, rent, poverty, ecological damage, Civil War benefits, and space alien relocation programs. We had made it on the list and help was on its way somewhere in that labyrinth of paperwork.
With little else to do (no art activity, no jobs, no nothing) I applied for them all. Hours and hours on the computer, on the phone, in my files, researching, writing, filling out forms hoping to snag something and bring in a few dollars.
After weeks of trying I finally got us on one of the supplemental unemployment programs for self employed and soon a few dollars would be coming. By now we were living on plastic with all the income in our business account from shows and savings exhausted we survived on a little cash we rat-holed from the past season. Even though the largess from the government would not cover what we had spent it was welcome and I was grateful to the overworked state employees who somehow got a cobbled together Federal program into action.
* FOIA documents on Covid origins
◼
You can go directly to the Road Ahead WEBSITE
◼
My book is available for purchase HERE
◼
◼◼◼