Chris Fritz's Blog - Posts Tagged "covid"
The pandemic is dead, long live the pandemic.
With myself and my fellow countrymen getting vaccinated against the coronavirus I must say that a significant phase of my life is ending and for better or worse a status quo is returning. With this fact staring me in the face I can’t help but look back on how I spent my time over the past year. I had some highs and some lows. I wrote my second book, I got called an essential worker and then got hung out to dry, I had a coworker who absolutely refused to wear a mask over his nose, I marched in a BLM rally, I voted by mail, and a nurse shoved a cotton swab up my nose. But overall I had a good time throughout the pandemic. When I reminisce about those times I’m probably just going to remember the good stuff. Even with all these good feelings going around I can’t help but feel a little guilty. Because there are a lot of people out there who had an absolutely horrible time during the pandemic and just because my experience was rather bright it doesn’t mean their pain isn’t any less painful. The pandemic has forced me to reflect and reevaluate my life and now I feel like I’m at a crossroads. I’ll have to make some big decisions soon. The pandemic has most likely had massive effects on our society that we still have to understand. There are many things I can say about all this and I think a lot of them were encapsulated by the new comedy special by Bo Burnham called Inside. That’s kind of what I really wanted to talk about. Now over the years no other modern artist has made me feel more emotions than Bo Burnham. He’s made me happy, sad, confused, content, afraid, and unfathomably angry. But when I watched Inside I felt all of those things and more. In this special Bo locks himself in a room for a year and made his entire special in this one room. He really focused on writing his songs, performing them in his one room that he makes into a stage, and turning them into music videos. Watching this special now forced me to reflect on all the different stages of the pandemic. What I felt as an individual and how we felt as a society that was disconnected from each other. It forced me to admit that I was afraid sometimes.
Let me tell you a story. During the summer of 2020 and at the height of the lockdown in my city a band of unhoused people came together and built a tent city on the steps of city hall. City hall was vacant at the time so they weren’t really disturbing anybody. It was a month long demonstration to show the people in my city that there is a housing crisis that must be addressed. So I went down to the tent city to see what all the commotion was all about. I didn’t have anything better to do so why not? So with a mask on my face I took a stroll through the tent city. When I took that stroll I was afraid. There were scores of unhoused people sitting in their tents, people were trying to properly dispose of dirty heroin needles, and there were volunteers gathered to try to get people help. I scurried away from the tent city after only a few minutes. I had to admit to myself that I was afraid. Maybe I was afraid of getting stabbed with a bloody heroin needle but if you think about it most times in life you don’t get stabbed with a bloody heroin needle unless you really piss somebody off. My point is that I was afraid and I had to find out why I was afraid. To wrap up this little aside I think I should add that when Trump didn’t get re-elected it felt like this huge weight was lifted off my shoulders but I digress.
The lighting for the special is absolutely astonishing. No matter what I ever say about Bo Burnham he is a good lighting director. Don’t ever let me say otherwise. Inside is truly a document of a man spending time with himself. A man looking back on what he did in the past and accepting himself, looking at who he is now and coming to terms with himself, and looking to the future to see who he wants to be. That process could be the hardest thing that a man can do in life. There are aspects of it that I find condescending. This guy is basically a millionaire trying to convince us that he has mental illness. One lesson I want to impart is this. Mental illness is a serious problem but if you have a shit ton of money you’re in a better position to deal with it. If you’re a normal person with a normal amount of money going through the same problems you’re going to have a much more difficult time. So whenever Mr. Burnham makes art about mental health issues I really don’t see it coming from a good place. Same thing with the pandemic. If somebody has a shit ton of money then they’re going to be just fine throughout the pandemic. Over all I like to think of Bo Burnham as pop culture’s first YouTuber. He makes silly videos about himself and through ways that most people don’t understand he’s made money at it. Hence my unfathomable anger. Who knows maybe I’m just destined to be this man’s harshest critic. Maybe I’ll talk about him more in the future but who knows.
So here I am in my crossroads. I have a need to make my life better and an extreme lack agency to do so. The last thing I want to do is ask you beautiful readers to do something for me. Talk about the hardships you’ve had over the past year. Feel free to write about it in the comments or just write about it on your individual social media platforms. No matter what story you have to tell your story is valid and deserves to be read.
Goodnight and go read a book.
Let me tell you a story. During the summer of 2020 and at the height of the lockdown in my city a band of unhoused people came together and built a tent city on the steps of city hall. City hall was vacant at the time so they weren’t really disturbing anybody. It was a month long demonstration to show the people in my city that there is a housing crisis that must be addressed. So I went down to the tent city to see what all the commotion was all about. I didn’t have anything better to do so why not? So with a mask on my face I took a stroll through the tent city. When I took that stroll I was afraid. There were scores of unhoused people sitting in their tents, people were trying to properly dispose of dirty heroin needles, and there were volunteers gathered to try to get people help. I scurried away from the tent city after only a few minutes. I had to admit to myself that I was afraid. Maybe I was afraid of getting stabbed with a bloody heroin needle but if you think about it most times in life you don’t get stabbed with a bloody heroin needle unless you really piss somebody off. My point is that I was afraid and I had to find out why I was afraid. To wrap up this little aside I think I should add that when Trump didn’t get re-elected it felt like this huge weight was lifted off my shoulders but I digress.
The lighting for the special is absolutely astonishing. No matter what I ever say about Bo Burnham he is a good lighting director. Don’t ever let me say otherwise. Inside is truly a document of a man spending time with himself. A man looking back on what he did in the past and accepting himself, looking at who he is now and coming to terms with himself, and looking to the future to see who he wants to be. That process could be the hardest thing that a man can do in life. There are aspects of it that I find condescending. This guy is basically a millionaire trying to convince us that he has mental illness. One lesson I want to impart is this. Mental illness is a serious problem but if you have a shit ton of money you’re in a better position to deal with it. If you’re a normal person with a normal amount of money going through the same problems you’re going to have a much more difficult time. So whenever Mr. Burnham makes art about mental health issues I really don’t see it coming from a good place. Same thing with the pandemic. If somebody has a shit ton of money then they’re going to be just fine throughout the pandemic. Over all I like to think of Bo Burnham as pop culture’s first YouTuber. He makes silly videos about himself and through ways that most people don’t understand he’s made money at it. Hence my unfathomable anger. Who knows maybe I’m just destined to be this man’s harshest critic. Maybe I’ll talk about him more in the future but who knows.
So here I am in my crossroads. I have a need to make my life better and an extreme lack agency to do so. The last thing I want to do is ask you beautiful readers to do something for me. Talk about the hardships you’ve had over the past year. Feel free to write about it in the comments or just write about it on your individual social media platforms. No matter what story you have to tell your story is valid and deserves to be read.
Goodnight and go read a book.
