  Happy Fucking New Year Mr. President!, Ms. Prime Minister, Queen and Country, Chieftains, and Popes alike -- Today we celebrate that we can finally take that fucking glove off, because we are all mutually assured destruction. "Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops, uh, depending on the breaks." -Gen. Buck Turgidson "Dr. Strangelove" M.A.D.ness, like our current fear-scape, Or simply M.A.D., refers to our Mutually Assured Destruction; A novel concept, in 1960 in which each side is supposed to be deterred from a nuclear war by the prospect of a universal cataclysm regardless of who "won." M.A.D.ness was brought to bear by Military strategist and former physicist Herman Kahn, in the book On Thermonuclear War (1960). This quip swam along with many contemporary concepts surrounded Cold War Doctrine -- As such we all sat at home digesting TV-Dinners and listening to the news-caster's grim account of what will assuredly happen when the first bomb drops. Growing up during Wartime, or coming up during a Cold War have many common qualities. The one maxim we all shared was this: "...As soon as that air-raid siren sounds we are all going to strip naked with the first human we see and have reckless absurd consensual free-love sex whilst the bombs fall. Today, we all (of course) initially fear the worst, until we simply do not give a fuck any longer -- Or... We go off the deep end in a kill or be killed mental breakdown. Whatever your coping strategy is or was, the fear-scape, keeps us complacently catatonic, shoveling Snack-food and Netflix, and What-if's into our heads until we reach a boiling point. "Dr. Strangelove" poignantly subtitled "How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to love the Bomb" was an odyssey into the American Psyche chock full of "What If's" well prior to when "The Big Fuck You" was finally issued by most PTSD Americans. "THE BIG FUCK YOU", only happens once in a decade or so, after citizens snap out of living under a stuffy blanket or cowering under one's school desk, for far too long. One can no longer sustain an imagination for the One or Two possible outcomes on offer, and fear finally fades. We then build a steamy headwater, with slurred speech, statistics, unintelligible technical jargon, and "Numbers" (as in: "the numbers are up" or "the numbers are down") -- With that, we break-through in a resplendent orgy, and we get back to getting sick from good ol' venereal disease. The Big Fuck You is coming after the New Year, when some group of Epidemiologists and pundits begin to shrug off the fact that Ominous Omicron cannot be stopped, Not by Pharma, and not with Prophylaxis, not a QR Code, nor a secret handshake... You simply get that shit, and then ride it out! ...As we have done for millennia.   Oh How I miss the good old days when we all scattered like roaches under a Table, Desk, or deep below the house practicing our quiet complacency whilst the missiles fall to earth and crater the entire city in a cloud of glowing ash. Peaceful as Hindu cows we all go down to cower and hide, while "The Numbers" go up. Remember when Pink Floyd's "The Wall" showed spooky gas mask clad school teachers and children without faces falling in line like soldier zombies, as they went peacefully into the meat grinder. Yep, It's like that. Traumatized? Yes, Have some... PPE, may be the single most traumatic takeaway so called "Normal People" see in their nightmares. Legions of people sweating, fogging, and writhing behind PPE. Is it a good Idea to use it? -- Yep Sure. Should you live in fear? Well, that depends upon what outcome you were hoping for. A year ago a friend asked me, (how) "...the children will be changed by such a monumental shift in their social lives". My first answer was rather flippant, insensitive, even crass... "They wont be affected much", ..."they don't interact as it is..., so they will just get better at socializing online". He said, "...but thinking about the masks, and the fear, and the distancing... I worry about how generations will change fundamentally because of COVID, what can we do to get them back to normal". "Act Normally" I said. And it was at that moment, that I envisioned Slim Pickens as Major T. J. "King" Kong riding a Nuke down from his bomber in Soviet Airspace to MADden up the place. Mutually Assured Destruction, can only happen, if you let it... (right?) I became a student of the Cold War and began studies in an era of Mutually Assured Destruction, (M.A.D.) and One's desire to play a proper role in this circus reinforces many life lessons which we gave a big shit about back when, but we now know to be blase', self-evident, trite. As we say, "the concept of ignorance being bliss follows, with a collective sea-change, or in the least, everyone playing along needs to happen first, ...and we will get there. 1. The other kid can't get under your skin, if you ignore them. Check! 2. Ignoring your work will only lead to more work later. Check! 3. Homework (like all rules) suck, and so if we all just ignore it, they can't fail all of us, right? Check! COVID, like the clever participants who manage to ride this bomb down to mutually assured destruction, soon come to discover that they could leave their basements, travel, explore, exercise, and even fuck like humans used to. Not like Porn Stars, and not like Actors on T.V., but like humans did before they shopped for face masks, rubber gloves, sanitizers, test kits, PPE, and vibrators. Look!, you're never gonna sleep with that trainer from your Peloton Bike, so you might as well assume the siren is clanging outside and venture out to find someone outside to do. It turns out that when I truly consider the concept of COVID19, I keep returning to the "19" Thing -- (NINETEEN) Bloody Hell! 2019 was a fucking lifetime ago. As we peek out from under the covers of 2022, let's straighten our backs from the 2020 YOGA position called: "Cowering Under the Desk", and do some shit... Today, I realize that my life has really not changed significantly since 2019, except for all the B.S. after-burn ingested, and politics we've became accustomed to in our new Cold War / Post-911-land. Here, Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge sounded the Orange Alert Sirens for another Terrorist Attack every fucking day and every fucking night for a decade -- Early in the decade we all learned to remove belts, and shoes, and laptops... and then tune this shit the fuck out. A clever Brother of mine reminded me of the genius (The) Onion Article Dated February 26th, 2003, illustrating just how important our government and media are in a time of crisis: Orange Alert Sirens To Blow 24 Hours A Day In Major Cities "These 130-decibel sirens, which, beginning Friday, will scream all day and night in the nation's 50 largest metro areas, will serve as a helpful reminder to citizens to stay on the lookout for suspicious activity and be ready for emergency action," Ridge said. "Please note, though, that this is merely a precautionary measure, so go about your lives as normal." "Go about your usual business," Ridge said. "Of course, while you do so, keep in mind that we are just barely this side of Red Alert, the highest level of danger possible." ( -The Onion c. 2003) It may come as no surprise that the genius dark comedy "Dr. Strangelove" never won an Oscar, but won loads of parallel awards abroad. Shit gets lost on the lay public, because they are watching the ball drop, instead of the Hottie next to you. It's no surprise either that "Dr. Strangelove" never made it to your dumb-shit Netflix hit-list, For twenty-four tedious COVID months whilst you scarfed takeout, and scoured for more Czech Cop Procedurals, The Good Stuff eluded your occluded path toward agoraphobic redemption. Later, in awe of it's social relevance and posthumus brilliance, in 1989 "Strangelove" was selected, by the United States Library of Congress as one of the first twenty-five films for preservation in the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". They had to wait until the sting of hiding under our desks had worn off, I suppose. The thing is... with the latest 2019 mechanism thingy called "Omicron" set to destroy you and everyone you know and love, wouldn't it be good to actually feel something first? I mean, right before you go on life support, what would you rather be wearing...? Today you can roll those sleeves up, peel off the latex, and learn to love Someone, Something, or some more PPE -- But you cannot shake that creepy prophylactic feeling that you've been "playing-along" with gloves on far too long. In your second anniversary sedentary social experiment bound by latex, and isopropyl, set to the soundtrack of re-run laugh-tracks -- Your New Year's Resolution should actually be to quit your sterile rubber-glove love-dramas altogether -- Touch someone with your bare hand, grab a hug as the bombs are falling, ride that cool breeze down to earth, and learn to love the fucking bomb. Cough!... #COVID22 P.S. You know Putin is going to get real Bond Villian Soon, and we'll be back in the shit-show watching the war again, so enjoy your so called freedom whilst it lasts, and I'll meet you under the desk in March. 
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