The PopCulteer
May 14, 2021

A big “thank you” to my readers for putting up with a sparse week of stuff here at PopCult and on The AIR. This has been a long and grueling week that has seen your PopCulteer get his second Pfizer shot, among many other medical misadventures, and my blogging and radio time had to be sacrificed.

I want to stress, however, that I am not fully-vaccinated. Unlike most people I will have to wait two weeks after my second shot, and then get an antibody test to see if it worked. As an immuno-suppressed person, this is pretty standard. There is a chance that the vaccine won’t work on me. I’m very optimistic that it will, but I’m still not ready to rip off my mask and run naked in the world.

Apologies for putting that image in anyone’s mind.

I am a little concerned at how fast the penduluum of public perception seems to have swung. We should not villify people who err on the side of caution. I know the CDC issued new advice on mask-wearing Thursday, but I hope that we don’t go from shunning people who don’t wear masks to shunning those that still do. I hate the idea of vulnerable people being accosted by morons for the simple act of trying to stay alive. If you see someone still wearing a mask after mandates have been lifted, it means that they know something you don’t (about themselves, most likely) and you should respect that.

I know that there are toxic thought bubbles emanating from the cesspool of arrested-adolescent, narcissistic wing of pundritry disguised as journalism that express contempt for the economic shutdown and all the safety measures that kept the pandemic from killing millions more people than it did. As much as I hate to acknowledge those people, it’s an obligation of decent people to point out how full of crap these self-centered, self-appointed experts are, and how dangerous their crackpot theories can be.

I’ve seen some really poorly-thought-out articles online that suggest that people have become dependent on masks and that they’re clinging to them needlessly out of some kind of Stockholm Syndrome-type connection. That idea is irresponsible idiocy.

While the number of new cases of COVID and the number of deaths reported daily are dropping dramatically, they are still as high as they were in September of last year, and they’re way higher than they were a year ago. The trends are very encouraging, but we are not through this pandemic yet.

Dropping all the safety measures now makes as much sense as jumping out of an airplane as soon as you see the runway.  We have a lot of obstacles to overcome and a lot of goals to reach before we can begin to approach normal life again. Let’s land this plane and taxi to the terminal before we start acting like we’re already home.

I get what the CDC is doing. They’re using masklessness as the carrot on a stick to get some of the more stubborn among us to get vaccinated. That’s not a bad idea. We just maybe need to rein in the irrational exuberance a bit over here in smart people land. In a country where we had to put out an official statement telling people not to put gasoline in plastic bags, we can’t count on everyone to exercise sound judgement or use common sense.

I hope everyone realizes that we may see vaccination mandates this summer. You might just need to show your card to get on a plane, train or bus, or in a stadium or arena. If this becomes necessary, it’ll be because too many folks decided they could just ditch their masks without getting their shot.

If all goes well and my body starts producing antibodies, there’s a chance you might see me and my video camera out recording local bands in a month or two. You might see me still wearing a mask. That’s me being careful. I hope that everybody is careful and doesn’t take any unnecessary risks.

We made it this far. Do you really want to be one of the doofuses who dies from COVID the week before the pandemic ends?

AIR Marathons Continue

Meanwhile, over at our internet radio station, I’m taking advantage of my down time to bring you more marathons of our AIR Music Specialty programs. Friday from 7 AM to 1 AM you can listen to Mel Larch’s MIRRORBALL, celebrating the Disco era. Then Saturday morning at 1 AM, shift gears into the New Wave era with Sydney Fileen, who will bring you Sydney’s Big Electric Cat until Saturday night at 9 PM. That’s when we kick into twelve hours of Radio Free Charleston before going back to our normal schedule Sunday morning.

Sure, it’s  all reruns, but they kick fifteen distinct kinds of butt so you ought to listen anyway.  You can tune in at The AIR website, or on the embedded player over in the right-hand column to binge-listen to the coolest music on the planet.

Live Music Saturday

If you are fully-vaccinated, you can go to The Empty Glass Saturday night for this show, featuring three great local punk bands that we’ve been playing the hell out of on Radio Free Charleston for the last year, Jay Parade, Jerks and Boldly Go…

Swiped From Twitter

A cute and funny fake ad, sent out by my favorite American Passenger train company to have a little fun with the gas situation…

And that’s it for this week’s PopCulteer, which I’m writing early Thursday evening, just in case I feel like a truck hit me Friday morning. Check back for all our regular features, including a very special RFC Flashback on Saturday, and cross your fingers for all-new shows on The AIR next week.