It was 1984. Ronald Regan was president. Los Angeles was welcoming the Summer Olympics.

I was 13.

In the bloom of puberty, on the eve of entering my freshman year of high school. Pimply faced. Braces. Awkward physiology – trying to manage my arms and my legs in their new and lengthening forms.

And gay. Closeted. Already terrified in an Irish Catholic Republican household in a red-necked desert backwater of a agricultural suburban Southern California town. Doomed to a ‘ lifestyle ‘ of isolation only to be condemned to Hell upon my death.

And then… Colleen Wiliams on local affiliate NBC4 reported something about a ‘ gay cancer ‘ .

It was dinner when I heard it for the first time. Me, my brother, Mom and Dad. Seated at that … weird butcher block, laminate square kitchen table, with the white enameled steel legs. I don’t remember what we were eating – probably green beans and pork chops with milk, or maybe fried chicken with potato salad and Pepsi. I didn’t hear anything more than ‘ gay ‘ and ‘ cancer ‘.

Like now… so surreal to me, Dr. Fauci appeared on the scene. He very quickly, in hindsight, became the calming and collected voice of reason around what we would define, and forever know, as AIDS.

The decades that have followed have been defined by a consistent malaise of headlines around AIDS. Who had it. Who would get it. How they would die. Who was doing anything about it. Who was to blame. Who did we yell at. Who did we hate. Who did we avoid. … and would there ever be a cure.

I remember – vividly – a night out in Palm Springs with my family… I think I was 14 then, when we were staying in the desert for the weekend, and we found ourselves dining in a restaurant attached to a hotel in downtown Palm Springs that was hosting some sort of convention for gays and lesbians – more properly referred to today as the LGBTQ community. It took a bit for my Dad to catch on. But once he did, I remember – again, vividly – being abruptly, and in a terrified combination of anger and panic, dragged out of the men’s room where I was pee’ing, by the arm, zipper not even up, and with my brother and mother, being rushed to our car to depart the scene. We went back to our condo and were holed up for the rest of our weekend. Terrified that this ‘ AIDS ‘ or ‘ HIV ‘ or whatever the hell it was … was everywhere – on every toilet seat, every sink handle, every dinner plate and water glass, door handles… just everywhere. And we were certain to contract the disease and die if we weren’t careful.

That was 1984.

Today is 2020.

Dr. Fauci is back on the scene. I like Dr. Fauci. Very much. In fact love him. And I have to admit to having a crush on the guy through my 20’s. For this matured [ at least I hope so ] adult gay man now of 50, seeing him – hearing his voice, watching his demeanor… I’m calmed. Dr. Fauci was right from the first moment on the scene with the AIDS epidemic. He was the most prominently intelligent human being identifying a virus, while advocating for an effected community at a time when so many wished the gay community would all simply die and take the gay cancer with us. Dr. Fauci never stopped. Not for a moment. Is in fact still working on AIDS to this day. And looks at the virus, like today, simply through the lens of a medical professional committed to serving humanity. When he leaves this Earth – which, like the Honorable Ginsberg [ and Cher and Barbra and Bette], I hope is a long, long time from now – he will be remembered, with great affection, as the man… neigh, the human being, who stood tall and strong in the face of a horrible epidemic. Not just a health epidemic, but a cultural, emotional and spiritual epidemic of fear and panic and hate. Now – twice.

Seeing him on the various screens in my life today, throughout the 24 hour news cycle that seems to reset every 60 minutes with some alarming headline; hearing his voice – that sweet Northeast/NYC vernacular and tone I so love; reading his words in quotes… gives me comfort. That we’ll be ok. Dr. Fauci is watching this pandemic. There is someone with intelligence, experience and a gifted common sense at the helm. Guiding every moment of it for us, our country and the planet.

We’ll be ok.

Between 1984 and 2020, we’ve seen other moments in our collective safety that have shaken us to our core.

.com bubble burst

Y2K – we forget now, but we were pretty freaked out then.

9/11

2008

… and all the zika’s, and swine’s, and bird’s, and ebola’s that have peppered the landscape with each passing flu season.

This… this moment. Is unprecedented. Our little blue marble spinning in the universe is silenced… isolated… quarantined… socially distanced tonight. On lockdown. Fighting, with eyes terrified wide open, an invisible microscopic virus we dread is all around us. And once on us, or in us, or affecting us, will surely be our end. All 8 billion of us. Breathing… with a single bated breath, together as one body. The statistics alone evidence that at a 3% mortality rate –  240 million of us seem to be in the crosshairs, certain to die. That’s a lot of dead people.

I was in Los Angeles this last week for a very, very – canceled – West Week. A time when the design industry comes together on the West Coast to celebrate all that is happening and all that there is to look forward to in the coming six to twelve months. Me and my team stayed the course and went. I’ve always wanted to go. Have never been. And LA is my home turf. I was committed to staying the course, COVID19 be damned.

Many in the design community kept their doors open and welcomed us. So many more did not. Doors were shut everywhere… each with 8 ½” x 11” copy paper signs sharing changed operational intentions, with well wishes for safety and health.

In my 50 years, as a native Southern Californian, I have never – NEVER – seen La Cienega, Melrose, San Vicente, Robertson… void of moving vehicles. NEVER. To turn on to Sunset Boulevard at 8 pm on a Monday night and not see a soul walking the sidewalks, not a Bentley or a Lamborghini cruising the lanes, not a wanna-be movie star strutting her stuff into a red carpeted lobby, not a sidewalk restaurant or café draped with glittering bodies… just quiet neon lights and bizarre billboards announcing coming attractions to nobody. That was all. Its hard to wrap my head around.

But wrap our heads – our sensitive, fragile human heads – around this, we must.

I’ll admit it – quarantine and isolation, social distancing and elbow bumping – I think its all just stupid. Flat fucking stupid and annoying as all hell. But here we are. Like it or not. Buck up Scott!

As these bizarre, surreal, wrap-your-head-around-it-days stack up, like so many wobbly uncertain domino’s certain to tip at any moment, one to the next, I am hopeful – in fact, certain – that I will soon find myself in navy blue board shorts, on the captain’s seat of a boat, in crystal blue-green lake water, in the sun… It will be summer. Warm. Laughter all around. People crowding the beaches and the piers. A little boy excitedly playing in the water. Dogs shaking off excess water as they come aboard. And we’ll be saying ‘ Gosh, can you believe how crazy that COVID19 was. What an insane Spring we had this year ‘ . Sunglasses on, ball cap protecting my bald head, I’ll look out over the horizon, grateful for the afternoon breeze on my sunned skin.

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The AIDS epidemic of 1984 has been followed by decades of a global response to disease management and finding a cure. These 36 years later, we just might be there.

The .dotcom bubble burst of 1999 was followed up by thoughtful government regulation and a conscious self-regulation of the technology industry with its investors and stakeholders to better realize the value of the goods and services that make up our Silicon Valley reality. And to never make those mistakes again.

Y2K… no comment. But that t-shirt you have may be worth something on eBay. Who knows?

9/11. Where do you start. We are as structurally insecure today as we are perceptually safe. The globe and all our human interactions have been profoundly affected by the events of that day and will never return to the ‘ normal ‘ that lead up to that sunny September morning. I think we’re still too close to it to understand the end game of it. But we’re here. It didn’t kill us.

2008. A lot of us, myself included, ‘ lost ‘ everything. A lot of us, myself included, have recovered. I wish more stakeholders involved in the fundamentals of the event were sitting in prison today. In fact, just one would be nice at this point. But that ship sailed a long time ago. I hope we’re smarter… I think the jury is still out. I hope we never forget. But we do have a tendency toward stupidity and failed memories. I hope that we make better decisions around risk. We’ll see. We’re still too close to it. But it didn’t kill us.

All the flu’s that have come and gone… perhaps Julio Iglesias can pen a new melody – ‘ of all the flu’s I’ve known before ‘ . Some of us perished. They haven’t killed the vast majority of us.

2020… COVID19.

What will we write about this moment? We are certain to see a lot of death. And with that death we’re are certain to experience a lot of fear. And all the associated behavior that goes with fear. But, with history as our educator, I am certain that this will not kill the majority of us. It will surely change all of us in ways we don’t yet understand.

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Back to Basics

Tell your kids ‘ I love you ‘ . A lot.

Call your family and friends – CALL THEM – not text, or DM, or Facebook message. CALL YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY and share important time together on the phone until you can meet up for lunch on a sunny cafe terrace again.

Check in with your various community groups – from school to church to neighborhood bingo. I am certain there is someone who needs something and will be so grateful to hear from you. Or maybe you just need to talk to someone.

Pray… I do to God. You pick your receiver. But pray.

Meditate… its just a cooler hippy form of prayer.

Exercise… and I mean outside! We all need fresh air right now. And as I heard – I think for the first time ever… the birds in Los Angeles. All this quiet lets their songs rise up. It was beautiful!

Work! … don’t give up. And don’t give in. Work! You have something important to contribute. We all do. So its at a different desk. So its likely to have a different – lower – value than it had a few weeks ago. So it may be something different all together since being laid off – time to become a potter? Or a stock broker? So what. Work!

And for God’s sake remember… you aren’t going to die. However, if you do, there’s a loving embrace on the other side of that passage. Let it go. Knock it off. Be grateful for this moment, and for everthing you have in your life that comes with it. You’re alive.

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FOOTNOTE

I have to get this off my chest.

What the fuck with the toilet paper hording? For God’s sake – KNOCK IT OFF! Are you kidding me. To all of you – friends and family alike, and every dipshit stranger I see cramming multiple shopping carts with cushioned softness – buying toilet paper in bulk, unless there is something deeply profound that I am not aware of, and unless you literally think you’re going to be shitting yourself for, what, the next year?? – IS NOT the appropriate reaction or behavior to this pandemic event. So knock it the fuck off. There is actually someone out there, currently with stomach flu or diarrhea, who could use those rolls you’ve now got stockpiled in your pantry. You’re feeding panic. You look stupid. You’re messing with the supply chain. You don’t have room enough to store that toilet paper in your home. So just knock it off.

Here’s an idea – buy some oranges! Every grocery store I’ve been in for the past week has mountains of oranges and every other fruit and vegetable. That’s a ton of Vitamin C. And if you overdue it, you might get diarrhea and you can start using up some of that TP… seriously.

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Ok… Just a voice. Struggling for reason. During COVID19

Stay safe. Be healthy. Stand tall. Keep Calm. Carry on.

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