16.03.2020 | Holy Shit…

There are stories now worth being told.
There are victories to grasp more valuable than gold
That we will speak of to our children when we’re old.
(The Lifeboat ~ Frank Turner, 2018)

Holy Shit! If a year or so ago, someone had written a novel or made a movie about a global pandemic which killed so many people and so quickly changed life as we know it, we all probably would have thought it’d be over the top and unrealistic and all.

Less than a week ago I had still planned to travel to the UK for some gigs. Shops and pubs were open and every day life was going on as normal, even though there had been first Corona cases in Germany. Today, travel is limited, schools are closed as well as clubs and swimming pools and basically every place which isn’t a necessity for life! HOLY SHIT! I still really can’t wrap my mind around it. I did a shop run this afternoon and except for the “limits on pasta, toilet paper etc. purchases” signs it didn’t seem too bad. I’m back at work tomorrow and it’s going to be peculiar to be out in the city centre in my lunch break and probably see mostly closed shops! I actually had planned to get my (still) broken phone screen fixed, but I guess that shop’s closed for a while as well.

Originally I had planned to use this free three day weekend to be productive at home. Do some chores. Get order into so much of my mess here. But I felt sort of paralyzed. I spent too much time glued to my phone the first two days. To the extent that I felt the need to make use of some “limit phone use apps” I have on my phone and haden’t used yet. I try to limit my look on news feeds to several times a day and not like every 15 minutes. I lack impulse control, so this has been hard. But necessary. Being at work might help with keep me distracted a bit more, as there I have to do stuff whereas at home I can just ignore the mess. Still…

Today Frank Turner announced that he cancelled the rest of his UK tour and the Southern Hemisphere Tour which was supposed to start in April. I’m glad that he finally pulled the plug; for his own health and everyone involved, but I absolutely understand why it was a difficult decision and why it took him a while. As of today, the UK government still hasn’t banned anything, just given out advice and recommendations for gatherings and such. But if your livelihood relies on people gathering and you cancel it on your own you face such a huge financial loss. And it’s not just Frank’s fee or profit. He has to pay a crew (or not pay them and thus make them lose money). There are tickets which someone has to refund, same goes for venue hires and bar staff and everyone involved in the touring business. And it’s not just about not making money or losing money. For some people involved this might mean going bankrupt! And thus I get why Frank didn’t take this decision lightly. He did an interview two days ago where he talked about that and he mentions – not by name, but still Tarrant Anderson. Tarrant plays bass in the Sleeping Souls and for the past 15 years also has built one of the biggest tour bus and vans company in the UK. He might be out of business very soon and I have now idea when and if at all a business like this will recover from such a blow. If you follow me on Twitter and Instagram you know that I’m “Team Tarrant 4 Life” (it’s a bit of an in-joke), but still… I feel so so bad for T right now. He just became a dad a couple of months ago! Remember when we worried that Brexit might be the death of the UK tour bus company business? Fuck! 

I’m honestly not too worried for myself yet, even though I’m a high risk patient. I try to keep my distance to people, wash my hands, be diligent… It’s all I can do for now. I have no idea how it will be back at the office tomorrow. All in all I try to not let it all get too me too much, but somehow it still does somehow. Underneath all of it I feel anxious and yes a bit scared, because HOLY SHIT we seem to be still on this exponential curve and that’s freaking me out! Meditation helps a bit, but still… I don’t know. There is not much point to this post, other than sharing my emotions with anyone who’s willing to read this…

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