Our hairy new reality

We’re living in strange times.

During the past few weeks, I’ve found myself doing things I never thought I would need to do. I’ve embarked on a couple (unsuccessful) toilet paper safaris. I’ve eaten a dusty can of lobster bisque that’s been hiding in a corner of my cupboard since Reagan was president. I’ve explained to my pre-school aged grandchildren that no, they can’t come for a visit, but I’ll be sure to attend their college graduations assuming it’s safe by then.

I’ve had lovely chats with most of my creditors, few of whom seem to believe a man who eats lobster bisque needs more lenient payment arrangements.

My little bar band, which has provided a sizeable chunk of my annual income for the past 45 years, now has no place to perform and no audience to perform for should a venue suddenly materialize.

Despite all this, I’m still better off than a lot of folks. Overnight it seems, we’re all living on Walton’s Mountain with John-Boy, Mary Ellen and everybody else who used to say “g’night” at the end of every episode. It’s only a matter of time before we’re eating possum stew and buying eggs from the mercantile one egg at a time. On credit.

I dunno. Maybe it won’t come to that. But along with all the other unusual coronavirus activities I’ve been taking part in lately, yesterday I cut my own hair. That can’t be a good sign.

I didn’t want to cut my own hair. I never have before; never even considered it.

When I was a kid, my mom (a former beautician) cut it for me. Even after I’d grown, gotten married and had kids of my own, I’d sometimes be able to talk her into breaking out the scissors on a Sunday afternoon to give me a free trim.

But she’s been gone a while now and even were she still here, I wouldn’t want to risk exposing her to any potential cooties just to ensure my coiffure looked pretty.

So there I was, scissors in my right hand, clippers in my left, staring at my big, dumb face in the mirror and wondering whether I dared go through with it.

On the one hand, I’m married, so it doesn’t matter whether I look good. On that same hand, nobody’s likely to see me in person for a while other than the checkout person at the grocery and even that’s not a sure bet, long-term. Also, I’m old and really, when did it become a thing that a guy my age had to look anything other than surly?

Grandpa Walton wasn’t cute. Neither was Woody Guthrie, Herbert Hoover, Huey Long or most other old dudes from the Depression era. John Steinbeck and Hemmingway were ruggedly handsome, but if you look carefully at those old photos it’s obvious neither of them had a clue as to where to find a talented barber.

So why should I have to look good? Answer: I don’t.

So I started in on my hair, trying to emulate the moves I’ve seen stylists perform in the mirror for decades. They make it look so easy, right? Lift a little hair, snip, snip, comb, clip, snip, lift a little more, snip a little more. Ask if you have any “big plans” for the weekend. Pretend to listen to your answer. Snip some more.

Next thing you know, you’re leaving the styling salon twenty bucks lighter with your ears lowered and the tan line on the back of your neck on full display.

It’s such an integral part of American life that you don’t even think about it. Until it’s gone and you’re standing there with scissors in your hand while muttering a prayer to Furfullson, the Norse god of ponytails and braided beards.

The humorous ending to this column would be to report I now look like an extra in a “Mad Max” movie. But I don’t. It turns out some of my mother’s skill with the scissors made its way into my DNA after all.

My first attempt at self-trimming was a rousing success. I look the same as always. Not great, but at least as good as John-Boy.

G’night, Mary Ellen.

Call me Bill Gates

I have bleach.

A few weeks ago, that wouldn’t have been a big deal. But now? Oh, baby, now it definitely is. I also have toilet paper, hand sanitizer and flour. Thanks to a tiny little virus, I’ve gone from being a man of modest means to a post-apocalyptic millionaire.

Like most turns of fate in my life, this one wasn’t planned. I bought all that stuff back in early February, just before the world went nuts and the nitwits among us decided they need 2,000 rolls of TP in order to feel “safe.” (If you currently have a garage stuffed to the rafters with Charmin, then yes, I’m talking about you, you hoarding jerk.)

I didn’t buy my bleach to ward off the Andromeda Strain or even sanitize the house after a visit from the cootie factories that are my grandchildren. I bought it because I wear white socks, often without shoes when I’m walking around the house in the evening. They get dirty. Bleach mitigates that.

The toilet paper and hand sanitizer I purchased for the same reason all non-hoarders purchase this stuff; I needed them for their intended purposes.

Thanks to blind luck, when the stores emptied out, I was already stocked up on these few essentials. Enough to last me for the next couple months, if I’m careful, which I intend to be, things being what they are.

I used most of the flour to make Irish soda bread for my St. Patrick’s Day repast. The corned beef and cabbage somehow escaped the attention of the hoarders and I was able to purchase that at the grocery without using my Kung-fu moves on any little old ladies attempting to balance the last brisket atop their TP-stuffed carts.

That made me happy. Not only did I not have to hurt any little old ladies, but I avoided the very real possibility that a little old lady might wind up hurting me. Win-win.

The only actual hoarding I’ve done myself was tins of Tuna. I’m addicted to the kind in sweet chili sauce and nobody else seems to buy it anyway. Plus, they were half-off last week, only 50-cents per can. I bought 30. Whatever I don’t eat myself I can trade for toilet paper once the hoarders realize paper isn’t edible, no matter how soft or strong it might be.

So, between my three packs of TP, two bottles of Purell, big bag of flour and cupboard full of Tuna, I’m set to enter our new Mad Max reality. Or as set as I’ll ever be.

Problem is, over the years I’ve grown accustomed to being a man of modest means. My poverty means I’ve rarely had anything anyone else wants to steal. Now? Well, like I said, I’m a coronavirus Bill Gates. And I’m ill-prepared to protect my new-found wealth.

Will barbarian hordes (of hoarders) storm my little house on the hill carrying pitchforks and torches? If they do, should I dump pots of boiling oil on them or just soak them down with the garden hose? I really don’t know the protocol.

I don’t want my response to seem unneighborly, but I also want to hang onto my three packs of toilet paper, which, just for the record, is only the cheap stuff from the dollar store. I actually prefer that to the “good” kind, though The Lovely Mrs. Taylor mocks my plebeian tastes at every opportunity. She uses Charmin at her house and isn’t she just ever so la-de-da!

I digress. My point is I now have the not insubstantial task of protecting my vast fortune. I’d buy a gun and some ammo, but I’m guessing if the panic-stricken masses are hoarding toilet paper then the firearms are also flying off the shelves and will soon be in short supply. Also, I don’t think I’m ready to cap someone over a roll of dollar store TP or a couple tins of tuna in sweet chili sauce.

I suppose if it comes down to it, anyone who breaks into my house can just go ahead and steal my TP, my flour, my tuna. I live on a lake that’s full of fish, so I won’t starve. And I suppose I could fashion some sort of crude bidet out of my garden hose (the one I was going to use to disband the rampaging horde of hoarders). So even the toilet paper is optional.

In truth, I’ll sleep better at night once I’m poor again. This wealth thing is just too stressful.

Coronavirus, the musical

The world is about to get a whole lot more musical, thanks to the only thing most people are talking about these days: the coronavirus.

In last week’s column, I wrote about an unfortunate bit of knowledge I possess: that singing the first verse of “Yankee Doodle Dandy” exactly corresponds to the 20 seconds it takes to wash your hands well enough to avoid contracting the disease du jour.

That’s a fact I’ve known for years, long before the latest outbreak sent the world’s population into a mad rush to acquire bulk packs of toilet paper. And as I mentioned last week, the song is contributing to my slow decline into madness. One can sing “Yankee Doodle Dandy” only so many times before one snaps one’s cap.

What with the current CDC advice that I wash my hands about a million times a day … well, let’s just say “Yankee Doodle Dandy” is wearing really thin.

Fortunately, Daily News readers came to my rescue big time! That column struck a chord with readers, many of whom have been having their own musical meltdowns over this recent hand-washing fanaticism.

Elaine P., for instance, has her own musical cross to bear, thanks to her grandchildren. They informed her that “Happy Birthday” (twice) also is the perfect hand-washing tune; just about 20 seconds if sung the way most people sing it at Chuck E. Cheese.

“I go crazy every time singing that tune,” Elaine wrote. Who can blame her? “Happy Birthday” is the only song in the world more annoying than “Yankee Doodle.”

Fellow Daily News columnist and researcher extraordinaire Sandy Main sent me a link to a list of 10 songs (or parts of them) that also work. The chorus to Prince’s “Raspberry Beret,” for instance: “She wore a raspberry beret / The kind you find in a secondhand store / Raspberry beret / And if it was warm she wouldn’t wear much more / Raspberry beret / I think I love her.”

I’m a Prince fan, but not where that song’s concerned. Just never liked it. So I won’t be picking that one; it would make me just as crazy as you-know-what-song is making me now.

Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” also fits. However, were I to get caught singing the chorus in some biker bar somewhere, the results might be worse than the virus: “Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene / I’m begging of you please don’t take my man / Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene / Please don’t take him just because you can.” Hard for a straight guy to feel manly when he’s begging someone not to take his man. Just sayin’.

Then there’s Stevie Nick’s “Landslide”: “Well, I’ve been afraid of changin’ / ‘Cause I’ve built my life around you / But time makes you bolder / Even children get older / And I’m gettin’ older too.”

The problem with that one is it reminds me I’m not only getting older, I have arrived at that particular station and am therefore more susceptible to the coronavirus’ more deleterious effects. Who needs to thump that point home? Not me.

One I really DO like is from Natasha Bedingfield, called “Unwritten.” It goes: “Feel the rain on your skin / No one else can feel it for you / Only you can let it in / No one else, no one else / Can speak the words on your lips / Drench yourself in words unspoken / Live your life with arms wide open / Today is where your book begins / The rest is still unwritten.”

I like that one for several reasons. It seems hopeful and implies I’m probably going to live through this virus thing. Also, it has the words “rain” and “drench” in it, which fits with the hand-washing theme.

Unfortunately, I have no idea who Natasha Bedingfield is or what the tune to her song might be. One of the curses of getting old is you no longer give a rat’s patootie about “current” music. (If Bedingfield isn’t considered current, please don’t tell me; it’ll only make me feel older still.)

Other readers sent in their own ideas: “Karma Chameleon” by Boy George (another one to avoid singing in biker bars, along with “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me.”) The chorus to “Old Time Rock & Roll” also works, but I’ve been playing that song for 40 years in my own bar band and would rather inhale the virus through a used plastic straw than sing that turkey for free.

At any rate, I’m thinking of combining all these great hand-washing tunes into a Broadway Musical. Look for the film version, “Keepin’ Kleen,” coming to a theater near you this October. Assuming civilization hasn’t crumbled by then.

Can coronavirus drive you mad?

This coronavirus thing is making me crazy.

In the 24/7 news cycle in which we now live, the coverage is abundant, but not always accurate. On one hand you’ve got fringe news outlets screaming about the end of the world; on the other end of the spectrum are politicians assuring us the whole thing might “miraculously go away” on its own just as soon as the tulips begin to bloom in April.

And of course, the first coronavirus victim hadn’t so much as sneezed before the conspiracy theorists trotted out their fractured fairy tales. Everything from secret government laboratories manufacturing germ warfare to politicians (again) using the crises for political gain, nothing is too crazy to believe, particularly for those willing – and in many cases anxious – to ignore anything remotely resembling a fact.

We have sooooo much information and so little truth.

I’ve been trying to get my news directly from the W.H.O. (World Health Organization) and the C.D.C. (Centers for Disease Control) whenever possible. My thinking is that neither of these organizations has a political ax to grind, at least not when it comes to something like the coronavirus. All they want to do is get the information out there and convince people to start washing their hands, already.

That’s the part that’s making me crazy. Not the terrible cable news coverage or the political twit-storm; the hand washing. That’s what’s bugging me most. The damn hand washing.

Look, I’m not a complete slob. I wash my hands a dozen times each day anyway. I’ve always been a bit germ-o-phobic. It’s one of the reasons I’m always nervous prior to a visit from my younger grandchildren, whom I think of as Pool of Contagion #1 and Pool of Contagion #2. Most kids that age are.

One of them always seems to have a cold, the sniffles, a mild fever, leprosy, or some other easily-transmitted disease. As soon as they arrive, they immediately begin doing things like licking the TV remote or sneezing into the potato salad when nobody’s looking.

They are cootie central.

But I digress. My point is, I wash my hands a lot already. Since the coronavirus hit the news, I’ve become borderline obsessive about it. I’ve even begun using those germ-killing wipes the grocery stores provide to disinfect your shopping cart. In the past, I always considered these silly and paranoid. Lately, not so much.

But I digress again. Hand washing; that’s what this column is about. Not politics, fringe media screamers or cootie-infested grandchildren. Hand washing.

Why should hand washing make me crazy? Because of a song written prior to the Revolutionary War. “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” You’ve probably heard of it.

It was originally sung by British military officers (thank you Wikipedia) who sang it to make fun of the rustic colonial “Yankees” who fought by their side in the French and Indian War. It wasn’t until five years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence that the song became one of natural pride.

Hang with me here; this will all come together soon. I promise.

The reason my hand washing habit is tied inexorably to a song older than our country may be traced to an article I read over 30 years ago, one probably published by the C.D.C. or W.H.O. That article suggested washing your hands for at least 20 seconds, the amount of time, as it turns out, required to sing the first verse of “Yankee Doodle Dandy.”

For reasons I will never understand, that tidbit of random information stuck with me.

So for the past 30 years, whenever I wash my hands I find myself humming that stupid song. Every. Single. Time. I’ve tried to stop, but can’t.

In the pre-coronavirus days, I only had to hear that tune rattling around my head a dozen or so times a day. Now? Forty, maybe 50 times. Every. Single. Day. So, yes, it’s slowly driving me nuts.

And now that that tidbit of random information is also in your head? What can I say; sorry, and welcome to the party.