Why I’m still not going to these upcoming Bowie shows

I posted the below explanation of why I’m not going to any of the many upcoming Bowie tribute shows anytime soon. I’m updating the post in part because more shows are popping up, while all the time the COVID infection rate is surging (I’ve added a chart showing that the rate of COVID is the highest its been since the Omicron surge of 2022). We shouldn’t be going to shows together. We shouldn’t be going to mass gatherings together. We should be (correctly) wearing K95 masks. We should be testing. We should be tracking. Our governments should be requiring some basic protocols, not to restrict activities but to enable them to be done more safely.

Today is my birthday. I’d like to be going to a Bowie show. Maybe next year.

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I don’t know if it’s because I’m looking for them or if they have just become part of the entertainment landscape, but there seem to be a lot of Bowie cover shows. I’ve attached a couple of advertisements for upcoming shows within driving distance of where I live. If you’re interested, by all means, go. Sadly, I won’t be joining you.

The third image I added is a screen shot of the front page of my local newspaper on the day I’m writing this. The headline story is about how COVID (and other respiratory disease) cases are on the rise and that people are beginning to once again wear masks. Nonetheless, next to that story is a picture of some sort of gathering, with maskless people hugging and crowding together indoors. Is there any confusion about why COVID, the flu, RSV and other communicable diseases are spreading? You might look at that picture and see smiling, happy people— I see spreading, mutating disease.

Despite news reports of someone, somewhere wearing a mask, as society we have just decided to embrace the inevitability of getting sick, spreading disease, maybe dying, maybe killing someone else, and ignoring the idea that there might be long-term health problems like long COVID. Not wearing masks, gathering indoors rather than using heat lamps outside, and hey, not even getting the most recent vaccines are all more important than, you know, health or even life.

For me, health and life are more important than those things and even more important than going to a Bowie show (which I’d very much like to do). I mentioned on Friday that I was recently in New York City. On the one hand, I saw plenty of places accommodating outdoor wintertime activities, including several restaurants. I saw people eating outside under heat lamps, in “igloos” and in many cases just at outside tables or benches without any additional heat. Yet I also saw people crowded indoors like it was 2018.

We probably had the tools to know that crowding indoors without taking any precautions against, say, flu or even the common cold could be mitigated even in 2018. I certainly remember the default of going into work sick, unless I was too delirious with fever to function. I know today that I couldn’t have actually been sick all the time, but I was sick quite a bit. Now, I haven’t had a communicable disease since either early 2020 or late 2019. No Bowie shows or indoor dining, but my quality of life has improved dramatically.

Actually, I probably picked up some sort of virus in late October or early November at a point I went to three gatherings. I was wearing a mask and frequently washing my hands, but I got something. It’s wasn’t COVID (at least I tested twice and those tests gave me negative results), but it was something. I didn’t like it and was reminded of the benefits of taking simple precautions, and wondered why more peopled don’t.

Or more to the point, why cultural leaders don’t model healthy behavior and why governments on all levels have just decided to give up on slowing the spread of such diseases.

The answer, of course, is not too much of a mystery. As a society we wish 2020 never happened. I even see some nostalgia, mostly from conservatives, longing for the good old days of 2020 (which wins the up-is-down prize in my mind for historical revisionism). We wish we could ignore the invisible enemy that continues to lurk among us. And, as I can attest, being the only one wearing a mask can draw uncomfortable stares from others. I was recently at an event— I don’t go to many but on occasion I put on the mask, pay my respects and try to get out— someone asked me if I had had a bad experience with COVID. I said the reason I was wearing a mask is that I never had it and wanted to keep it that way. He actually said I was one of the chosen few. I wasn’t chosen. I chose to take actions to reduce the risk of getting COVID, and in so doing I reduced my risk of getting anything else.

Oh well, I can go on and since this is my blog I probably will again in the future. Meanwhile, I’m going to have to listen to David Bowie CDs or David Bowie on YouTube or watch Bowie movies and sadly will miss these shows. As the world falls down, indeed…