Serenity Gardens (03.09.20)

A night at Serenity Gardens in Second Life, doing music about time and death. Yay! Photo by Kat.

There's a saying that is attributed to the iconic writer Hunter S. Thompson which goes, "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." Honestly, times have been nothing if not weird lately. Frankly, they've been pretty damn weird going back to 2016, but I digress.

Coronavirus Blues
It's a scary-ass world out there, and disease has been one of the things -- along with war, famine, conquest, genocide, and environmental change -- that has wiped out huge swaths of humanity on multiple occasions over the course of our existence as a species. It's understandable that people get anxious when a new form of a disease with potential deadly effects becomes front-page news.

Beginning in December 2019 but hitting the US news in January/February, a newly-defined respiratory disease started taking its toll. There have been many instances of different types of coronavirus-based illnesses going back to the 1960s (though they've been around for millennia), and you're probably already familiar with earlier varieties including SARS and MERS. They can be super mild... many common colds are the result of coronaviruses. This particular illness is more accurately called COVID-19 (for coronavirus disease 2019), and it's caused by the strain of coronavirus named SARS-CoV-2.

This odd-looking illustration is based on the electron microscope view of a coronavirus, which gets its name from the corona-like club-shaped spikes that surround it.

People who specialize in widely contagious sicknesses are called epidemiologists, and I am not one of them. But I can tell you a couple of things. First, you don't want to get COVID-19. Second, if you do, it's likely that you won't die. However, it's a nasty virus and as of today (March 10, 2020), out of 110,000 diagnosed cases, about 4,200 people worldwide have died as a result of it, with the majority of them being in mainland China. The largest percentage of severe cases happen when the disease hits the elderly and people who already have compromised immune systems. That being said, we really have no idea how many total people have been exposed to or have contracted COVID-19, and upcoming days/weeks may paint a different picture of the severity of this epidemic.

Why Is This Affecting the Stock Market?
In addition to being bad for people themselves, epidemics are bad for the economy. With the uncertainty and fear from a contagious disease like COVID-19, people are far less likely to place themselves in proximity to other people. That affects businesses like air and sea travel, hotels, conferences, concerts and more. While that was happening, the price of crude oil went into a tailspin due to a glut of supply (and a perceived lack of upcoming demand due to the illness worries) among worldwide producers, namely Saudi Arabia and Russia. That, combined with existing fears about a coming recession, caused a historic drop in stock prices culminating (for now) with yesterday's massive drop. This is a situation in progress, so it remains to be seen what the long-term effects on world economies will be.

You can see the effects of COVID-19 on this chart of the Dow Jones Industrial Average for the past month. This shouldn't cause you to panic unless you were intending on retiring this month. Ouch, my IRA/401(k)!

But... Why Can't I Find Toilet Paper Anywhere?
Ah. That is because people are frightened apes who revert to me-first actions when they get particularly scared. Toilet paper has nothing to do with COVID-19, a respiratory ailment, but the idea of being quarantined in a house with no toilet paper is unpleasant. What transpired was a two-step bit of irrationality. The first group of toilet paper hoarders were those who were particularly scared of being affected by COVID-19. The second (and probably larger) wave were people who heard about the first group getting toilet paper and other supplies, and didn't want to be the ones left behind when they started noting empty shelves at their local stores. Of note: the supplies of medical masks and hand sanitizers were also part of the round of panic buying.

Ultimately, as I've mentioned several times... we're in the middle of this story. It could clear up quickly and most people will be fine, or it could get worse, and most people... won't. My advice, for whatever it's worth, is that minimizing your contact with other people, thoroughly washing your hands often, and taking other basic precautions can't hurt. If you are otherwise healthy, it's likely you will be fine. If you are often in contact with people who might be severely affected by COVID-19, take extra care to protect them and to minimize their exposure. There's not much more to say while this plays out. Should it become as serious in the USA as it has been in places like China, Italy, Iran, and South Korea, we need to hope that our government is really prepared for testing and treatment of people at all income levels. Viruses don't discriminate, and any person can pass it along to another. Hopefully this all works out.

Time Change Whine
I won't spend much time on this topic, pun unintended, but I hate all time changes, whether it's the start of Daylight Saving Time or the end of it, or actual jet-lag based time differences when traveling. I am definitely a creature of habit, and the fact that it's now pitch black dark when I get up at 6am is enough to annoy me. It will typically take the remainder of this week for me to feel normal in this new time frame. Is it a big huge deal? No. Is it irritating to me? Yeah, it is. I'll live.

That Show Though
So, the reason I mentioned COVID-19 and the start of DST is because I ended up having a dual-themed show with both topics dictating the songs I played, as you can see in the set list below. The theme was "Time and Death", and as should be self-evident, the songs had some basis in the title or lyrics or vibe relating to time and death. What was up with the theme from "The Love Boat"? Well, the passengers of the Grand Princess, who'd been under quarantine at sea after a large coronavirus outbreak, had just come ashore before the start of my show, and the scenes of them being hosed down and taken to military bases upon disembarking the ship were fresh in my mind.

Despite my being cranky about the time change, the show itself went just fine. We had a reasonably good crowd, and both my voice and guitar were behaving. Honestly, as I've told my crowd many times, it's invariably a mood-lifter when I put on my guitar and perform, no matter what kind of day I'd been having before I started my first tune.

It's a funny thing; some people who go to events at Serenity Gardens are up front and dancing near the stage, while others tend to hang back or use the venue's seating and relaxation areas. Either way, I tend to underestimate the size of my crowds there which are usually larger than I realize even on a "slow" night. Photo by Kat.

I noted this great-looking dog from the stage while I was playing. Then I saw a name tag on the dog, and thought it might have been someone's avatar, rather than something that someone rezzed and brought to the show. Whatever the case, it's perfectly fine with me. Maybe someday I'll switch to a non-human avvie and I'll be a musical tree or something. Why not? Could be cool. Photo by Kat.

Serenity Gardens set list...
Dead Flowers (Rolling Stones)
Long Time Gone (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
Perfectly Calm (They Stole My Crayon)
The Last Time I Saw Richard (Joni Mitchell)
*The Love Boat Theme (Charles Fox/Paul Williams)
Time in a Bottle (Jim Croce)
Time Never Waits for You (Zak Claxton)
Comes a Time (Neil Young)
Tomorrow Never Knows (Beatles)
Half Moon Bay (Sun Kil Moon)
Everybody Hurts (R.E.M.)
In My Time of Dying (Traditional)

*Indicates the first time I performed this song in SL.

Big ol' thanks to every single person who came to my show, and extra special thanks to the following who helped support it!
AaronCabottJones Resident, Trouble Streeter, Kat Claxton, Karmagrl Resident, patchworkpink Resident, Grace McDunnough, Kat Chauveau, BAT8997 Resident, and the fabulous team at Serenity Gardens, Tilly Rose and Ilsa Wilde!