49 days. That’s seven weeks.

Seven weeks of FaceTime, Zoom and Webex.

The last time I did anything in the actual world was March 12, when I went to McCabe Pub in Sylvan Park for my weekly cheeseburger – something I’d been doing for more than twenty years. I hope that tradition can resume one of these days, but I imagine it will be weird with only three or four people at the bar, spaced two or three bar stools apart. Will I need to make a reservation? How do you eat a cheeseburger through a mask?

I’d started using a grocery delivery service a couple of months before “stay home!” started; I’ve continued that routine, getting delivery once a week and leaving a generous cash tip taped to the front door for the shopper. Those people are my heroes. Their efforts provide a weekly reminder just how upside down our culture and economy are.

Several times a week, when the weather is nice and the sun is shining, I’ve indulged myself with #TopDown joy rides over the back roads out here in West Bumfuque. That has necessitated several trips to the Shell station in Pegram; I gas up the car with a rubber glove on one hand. I made one trip to another service station to swap out my propane tank and two trips to the post office to drop off stuff I’d sold on eBay. That is the full extent of my outside-the-house commerce. Amazon/UPS delivers everything else.

Every morning I get out of bed, put on my sneakers and go for a two-mile walk trough my neighborhood. I listen to a lot of podcasts. I have all the conspiracy theories sorted out, and I almost understand what is happening in WestWorld. Thomas Jefferson is still dead but Clay Jenkinson lives! Most days I take another walk in the late afternoon, then I sit on the back deck and read a book, watch the hummingbirds – and remind myself repeatedly how fortunate I am. Despite it all…. #gratitude.

In seven weeks, the only other humans I have seen are the neighbors I encounter on my walks. We stand on opposite sides of the street and exchange pleasantries. Their dogs are the only living creatures I have touched. I regret not getting a kitten when I was thinking about it last year. The animal shelter not far from here has been closed.

The only people who have been to my house are my housekeeper who comes every other Tuesday, a plumber and the HVAC guy. Otherwise, all my “human interactions” (including two ‘virtual dinner dates’) have been mediated by screens, electrons, and digits. Thank you all for setting your camera in “landscape” mode and minimizing the backlight.

Speaking of dating: I did a bit of that in the months that followed my divorce last year, but was informed / reminded numerous times that: divorced less than a year, I was essentially radioactive. Late last year I decided to go into hibernation and wait for the year to end. The year ended in January and then…. oh boy, more hibernation.

It has been seven weeks since I’ve gone to my job, which keeps me on my feet – and burning calories – for eight hours several days a week. I know I am among the fortunate ones to work for such a large company that I have stayed employed and paid even though I have not really been working; the company has kept us engaged with video conferences and online training. They’re doing their level-best to get us ready for reopening, though it is quite uncertain when that will be or it will look like. In the meantime, I look forward to those video-interactions with my co-workers (aka “the kids”).

So it was no surprise when I stepped on the scale this morning and learned that in seven weeks I have gained six pounds.

It has been seven weeks since I’ve have had a hug; seven weeks since I’ve had any physical contact with another human being.

If I can’t touch anybody or anything, I’m starting to wonder why I even need a physical body.

And then I remember: my body a transportation device.

It transports my mouth to the refrigerator.

Just take a few minutes and watch the video:

Last week, I posted this query on Facebook.

The question arose after watching my good friend Jerry Vandiver delivered an otherwise wonderful performance of his music from the porch of his house in East Nashville to his friends and fans via Facebook Live. I say “otherwise” because the delivery was marred by what I consider the Cardinal Sin of Internet Video and a Scourge of Our Times surpassed only by the Coronavirus and herpes: ‘vertical’ video.

See the problem?

I will spare you all the diatribe about why vertical video is such an anathema. Suffice it to say that 9-out-of-9 video and photography professionals agree.

In Jerry’s case last week, he had is band socially-distant-spread across his lawn, but because the video was shot in “portrait” (vertical) mode, the bottom half of the frame was just empty street. Apparently when he tried to set his iPhone camera in “landscape” (i.e. horizontal, like the way we watch TeeVee) mode, the image got “flipped” so that it looked like everybody was playing their instruments left-handed. So Jerry settled on the “vertical” aspect, I threw a gasket, and posted the question above on my own Facebook page.

After a couple of days another Facebook friend, another singer/songwriter by the name of Bill Mann, posted the complete solution:

Let me break it down for you and simplify where I can: 1

1. Facebook Live is accessible when you go to make a post to your FB (personal)) profile or (business) page. Clickd the little red camera icon:
2. HERE’S THE IMPORTANT STEP: Before you do ANYTHING ELSE, rotate your phone into LANDSCAPE (horizontal) mode and LEAVE IT THAT WAY!
3. When the Facebook Live window opens, tap the text line that lets you put in a description.
4. Tap on the little wand with a star, in the lower right-hand corner (I think Bill may have misplaced this icon in his post – it’s on the lower right, not left).
5. This will open up two rows of icons at the bottom of the screen. Ignore the top row of colored icons; find the screw-driver-and-wrench on the lower right. Tap that to open the “settings” panel.
6. Tap the icon on the far left to reverse the mirror image.
7. Make sure you back out of this menu by clicking the “X” in the upper left-hand corner.
8. Now, keeping your device IN LANDCAPE MODE, tap the blue button to the right or your screen to begin broadcasting (I use the term loosely). You might want to mount the phone on a tripod first.

These steps pre-suppose that you are going to use the front-facing (aka the “selfie”) camera for your broadcast – assuming you want to be able to see what is in the frame while you’re transmitting. This is OK with newer phones, like the iPhone 10 and newer, because the resolution of the front facing camera is adequate (though never as good as the primary, rear camera) for what you’re doing.

If you’re using the rear camera, you can skip steps 4-6, just make sure you have the camera mounted in landscape mode before you click the blue “start” button. You can’t change the orientation once the recording/streaming has begun.

Jerry and I tested all this out this morning, and discovered that it is only with that front-facing “selfie” camera that Facebook flips the image so that normal guitarists all look like they are playing left-handed.

Which, with the only exception being Paul McCartney, is another violation of the laws of the natural universe on par with vertical videos.

I hope somebody finds this helpful.

What is Spring without baseball???

Along with everything else that his been canceled or postponed, there is no baseball. No major league baseball. No minor league baseball, no Little League baseball. No hits, no runs, no errors.

I’ve been hearing that maybe the entire MLB 2020 season will be televised from (empty?) stadiums in Arizona and Florida. The Nashville Sounds should have had their opening day and my friends and I should be triangulating on our first game of the season. And my annual 4th (3rd) of July game? Could be canceled for the first time since 1999.

I’m trying to fill the void by reading Phillip Roth’s The Great American Novel, which is all about baseball (what else would the “Great American Novel” be about?). Yesterday I read a passage in which one of the characters waxes eloquently his objection to flood lights and night games, which passage I share with you here – as a reminder of what we are missing.

– – – –

The great Ulysses S. Fairsmith, renowned manager of the Ruppert Mundy’s in the Roth’s fictional Patriot League, and known throughout league not as Mr. Fairsmith but as Mister Fairsmith expressed his opposition to against the introduction of baseball played under artificial light rather than the bright natural sunlight that God himself had intended:

I do feel in every part around the league, on those golden days of sweet, cheerful spring, hot plenteous summer, and bountiful and benevolent autumn, when physically strong and morally sound young men do sport in seriousness beneath the sun, as did the two in Eden, before the Serpent in the Fall. Daytime baseball is nothing less than a reminder of Eden in the time of innocence in joy; and too, an imitation of that which is yet to come. For what is a ball park but that place wherein Americans gathered to worship the beauty of God’s earth, the skill and strength of his children, and the holiness of his commandment to order and obedience.

For such are the twin rocks upon which all sport is founded.And woe onto him, I say, who would assemble our players in our fans beneath the feeble, artificial light of godless science! For in the end is in the beginning, in the Paradise to come as in the Eden we have lost, it is not by the faint wattage of the electric light bulb that you shall be judged, but rather in the unblinking I of the Lord, wherein we are all as bareheaded fans in the open bleachers and tiny players prancing the vault of His Heaven.

So, that’s what’s missing. Just one more reason we all feel so disoriented. Because it’s April, and there is no baseball.

Daytime, nighttime… Play ball already!

At 9AM I placed the scheduled FaceTime breakfast call.

No answer.

I ate my bagel with cream cheese and orange juice alone at the table, looking out he window at the backyard, skimming the news and Facebook on my iPad

Incoming text message: “Overslept… lemme walk the dogs…*”

I’m watching John Prine videos.

Hello In There.

A wave of sadness overwhelms me.

This is the saddest I have felt in years.

I almost cried.

Almost.

I don’t want to wind up like the old people in this song.

*

*the call came through about 45 minutes later. I’m better now.