Writer Photos Darrell J Banks

OPINION PIECE cr 2020 darrelljbanks
LET’S GO CRAZY….
BY DARRELL J BANKS author, screenwriter, journalist
The other day I found a pre COVID 19 food receipt. I had a two-piece dark chicken and some ribs around March 8, 2020; a full lunch.
I miss those days, not so much the fifteen dollars for lunch and Starbucks iced Mocha with whip cream. But just the concept of a lunch, outside of my house, with other people talking, laughing and joking at the university student center.
In these days of mask or unmask, I am reminded of the Lone Ranger, quarantined from society, who wore only an eye mask. What would he do in today’s pandemic? Wear a balaclava?
Let’s go crazy.
Which is the title of this piece, in the midst of madness in the middle of one pandemic and the possibility of several in the fall of 2020; COVID 19, Swine, or just plain SARS, well one is right to question the nature of our new normal?
Let’s go crazy.
Because each day is a struggle as I continue to form a solid pattern; cook breakfast, lunch dinner, a small nap. A bike ride for a package, a trip to the grocery store with DAD, every two weeks.
Some photography. But mainly I watch my DVD collection a game or too, that reminds me I am just here on earth.
Today.
Let’s go crazy.
Staying normal, is well a stretch under these conditions. I mean if we will still had Joan Rivers, Richard Pryor or George Carlin we could at least get some real jokes. Instead we get Hollywood squares SNL, and our comics well we have Tiffany, Chris and Kevin, sounds like a list of clerks at the GAP. (I love all of you).
Let’s go crazy.
How is it possible to stay sane with all the deaths coast to coast? Knowing that the best of us have well, checked out ( Doctor’s, Nurses etc.) Well they say structure your day, so as I struggle to stay on topic, conduct, zoom matters, talk to a friend via What’s App in Germany.
Is this my new normal, how I will stay sane, once the snow flies again. I mean I cannot water the grass in December. Or can I?
After I ate at that Chicken Shack and enjoyed my ribs, chicken leg and a thigh. Well, I wasn’t concerned about COVID 19. Corona, no I’ll take a Tecate beer..
Let’s go crazy?
The following week things were shut down in most of sane America. Was this real news or fake news?
Was this like really real, when I got on a hot, crowded bus and every seat was occupied. This was before I saw the video of the bus driver who tried to warn us. This virus will kill you; he died.
Is that bus driver video a daily requirement to prevent those in California, Arizona and Florida from flocking to the beach? Oh that’s right Arizona is land locked. So where are they going, to the Grand Canyon, the golf course, Death Valley?
Let’s go crazy.
As we head toward another season, was this new reality, this new normal one something I could survive?
Well it was real for me because it affected me. I bet it was real for you too. It will be real for along time according to my M.P.H. credentialed \daughter.
She reads the Harvard T.H. Chan newsletter. According to them and this COVID 19 report from the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy ( CIDRAP); the acronym says it all, this will be our way of life until 2022.
Let’s go crazy.
I mean after those first two months.
Who would blame us?
Decades ago, when I was taught basic journalism, I was told to produce the facts with clarity. So read the report here, if you dare.
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/report-covid-19-will-likely-spread-for-up-to-two-more-years/
When I wrote a real news article on South Africa divestment, I interviewed our school treasurer; quoted a Harvard University president and was informed that I had pushed administration buttons. In more subtle Bostonian ways. I was told to tone down my journalism.
Spin that up thirty plus years, the press is under attack economically through a pay to play model for consumers. Television reporters are openly and verbally assaulted by the leader of “free” world. And so on, click clack.
Let’s go crazy.
Which makes me wonder which bubble I will burst, when everyone reads this piece and discovers it could be two years of chicken, potatoes and carry out. Do you dare dine in at your favorite rib shack if your government allows you enjoy a night out with your significant other.
What country is?
Let’s go crazy?
Then I remember I cannot go crazy. My reality, my dead ex- neighbor Art, who didn’t drive but once owned a sail boat. Died of COVID 19.
Arthur Bowman son of a judge, down to earth guy, who donated a kidney to a friend.
Died doing the pandemic.
Jerome Crawford, my cousin’s best friend, died during this economic, and viral madness.
We cannot go crazy.
All who died directly or indirectly doing this pandemic because of COVID 19 or other causes deserve our utmost attention and respect of the word called; ‘LIFE.
Because like Debi Mazar said in her Instagram videos. Pay attention.

1. Wear a mask.
2. Social Distance.
3. Wash your hands.
4. Keep a structured day
   SURVIVE
   Because ultimately that’s what this virus wants to make us go crazy, with or without a mask, to
   effectively forget we are human, that for all of our human history, if we fail. Well, lets not think about that.

Ciao.