A couple of personal things off the top. It has been exactly 16 months since my last haircut. About a month ago, when we had to go into quarantine from an overseas trip I sorta stopped going at my hair with a comb in the shower for a couple days. It had become harder and harder to get it combed through, but after a couple of days without going through it, dreads started to form and it became impossible. It wasn't long before I had a ton of them and a couple were rope like in texture. I had no clue that was gonna happen and always assumed that folks with dreads were cultivating them, but in looking it up after found it is the natural end point for curly hair. My girls have long hair but theirs is way different and we cannot care for it in the same way and they were not much help with my dilemma.
Went out to dinner with a buddy and his two teenage boys, and the dad is a black guy with a bald head, but his mixed sons have nappy hair that they keep short. I know the boys from baseball and they've both been big fans of my hair experiment, really the only ones that have said 'cool hair', and as we're talking my buddy says his wife would be a good person to talk to as she has learned how to take care of her kids. We arranged an evening together for her to come over to talk about it. As we're talking, she senses that I am not a huge fan of taking time to process my hair as I've never spent more than 10 seconds doing anything to it other than wash it. I have never used a dryer or even a hair brush. After a good 30 minutes, she convinces me to let her go at it. Took about an hour, and she had to cut out a few of the heavier dreads, but by the end, was able to brush and comb it all the way through.
Taiwan is still in good shape and we are able to go to work/school/the field to coach baseball. One of the restrictions at school, and all indoor businesses here is that mask wearing is required, which means we have to practice and play with them. This season in 7th/8th grade and we took our team photo...one that I will cherish forever.
All is not completely well here though and this week saw the biggest virus related scandal so far. While all the details are not yet known, here is how I understand it from what has been written. The Taiwanese Navy had some mission planned for mid-March and proceeded with it. That mission included a visit to the island nation of Palau, one of the few countries that diplomatically recognizes Taiwan, as a goodwill visit. The so-called Goodwill Fleet then did some secret mission, most likely to monitor China in some way, and then they returned home. The colossal fuck-up came when the Navy allowed the sailors to just get off the boat and enter into the community even though there are reports some of the sailors were sick. And what do sailors do when they get shore leave? You know it...the hit every whore house and Costco. Seriously, that is exactly what they did. Word got out fast that a bunch of them had the virus (22 of them on the initial announcement and 6 more since) and then they went into full contact tracing mode. They do an amazing job with tracking as they not only devote a ton of human resources to it, but use every trick in the technology book to review where their phones have been and you can see a version of the places they went that is published so people know if they may have come into contact with them here. We've all been making fun of this list as a ton of the places listed are hourly motels and Costcos, a couple of which had to be closed for days to be fully disinfected.
Side note: Think I have mentioned that the daily case update comes out at 2pm and I have become addicted to them. When they are referring to clusters like the Goodwill Fleet, or earlier regarding a tour group to Egypt that had a several cases with new ones being added daily, they refer to those excursions as "ill-fated". An unusual word but one that is now a big part of the local ex-pat community's lexicon. Once the number of cases reaches a level, they change it from ill-fated to doomed.
Until we get a vaccine, this tracing is how it needs to be, but seriously doubt most of the States has the bandwidth to do this to the level needed. Plus, what percentage of 'Mericans are gonna sign onto getting their every step monitored by The Man. Here is another thing that would be nice to see in the States...as this was obviously a total screw up, the President, who I have a total crush on, got up and not only apologized, but as Commander in Chief, took total responsibility. It is OK to be jealous.
One of my earliest virus gags was along the lines of how you're not supposed to touch your face, which led to me asking if it was ok to touch your balls. Once again, turns out that I was prescient in that men are more vulnerable to the virus as the testicles have similar proteins to the lungs and intestines that the thing likes to live. As we fellas have them and you gals don't, that means we have one more special place for the thing to grow. Not a 1:1 with scratching them, but still...news you can use.
A new one I've been working on surrounds the virus symptom that you lose your sense smell and my ability to be the canary in the coal mine. I will fart and if you can't smell it, then you are a potential health risk.
Alrighty...that's about it. Consciously didn't rail on you know who this week cause it is getting really old. I did read a piece by a British guy that gives his perspective on him that I found spot on and have pasted it below if you're interested. Before that, ran across a couple of videos that will appeal to no one but me.
The first is from the only cricket match I attended. It was a 20-Over affair between Australia and New Zealand at the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground) in 1983. As boring live as you can imagine, but a 17 year-old me drinking beers (green tinnies if I recall) in the sun on a hot day is a fond memory. Towards the end of the match when New Zealand was behind and making a run to win, I remember how this Kiwi named Lance Cairns electrified the crowd with a batting performance for the ages with 6 sixes. This is a 4 minute highlight of that effort...
The other video is also an I was there thing, and it is a vintage performance from the Meat Puppets in their prime at the tiny McCabe's Guitar Shop in Santa Monica from 1992. I remember it being a brilliant night and this whole show video, with better sound than it should be, is proof positive. Curt Kirkwood is one of my all time favorite guitar players and you can see why. Again, not for everyone, but if you are cool...
Nate White, an articulate and witty writer from England, wrote this magnificent response:
"A few things spring to mind.
Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem.
For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace - all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed.
So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.
Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing - not once, ever.
I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility - for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman.
But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is - his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.
Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers.
And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults - he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness.
There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface.
Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront.
Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul.
And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist.
Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that.
He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat.
He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.
And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully.
That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead.
There are unspoken rules to this stuff - the Queensberry rules of basic decency - and he breaks them all. He punches downwards - which a gentleman should, would, could never do - and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless - and he kicks them when they are down.
So the fact that a significant minority - perhaps a third - of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think 'Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that:
* Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are.
* You don't need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.
* Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are.
* You don't need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.
This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss.
After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum.
God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid.
He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart.
In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws - he would make a Trump.
And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish:
'My God… what… have… I… created?
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