Stranger in a Strange Land

690/2

I landed in L.A. a couple of hours ago. I’ve only been here once, maybe twice, and it is just not my kind of city. Laws of physics notwithstanding, apparently everything is 45 minutes away from everything else, you have to drive everywhere, and the traffic is terrible. But we are doing the very first live on-stage version of “The Mary Trump Show with the Nerd Avengers” at a small theatre downtown (wherever that is), so here I am.

This is my second trip this week. I was in Chicago on Monday to do a fundraiser for Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s re-election campaign. The last time I’d flown before that was last November (which, incidentally, was the same week I started “The Good in Us”) when I attended an event in Amsterdam. Back then, which seems a decade ago, masks were mandatory. Now I’d say fewer than 1% of the people in the airport and on the plane were wearing masks—including staff. I just had pneumonia for two months so I find this infuriating, especially considering we’re in the middle of what they’re calling a tripledemic—the highly contagious flu, COVID, and RSV (Respiratory Syncytial Virus) trifecta.

I lay this squarely at Donald’s feet. His refusal to encourage mask wearing, isolation, and social distancing, at a time when COVID could have been eradicated, led to prolonging the need for mask wearing, isolation, and social distancing. A significant minority of Americans refused vaccines for the same reason they refused to wear masks. A lot of them died but many more of them keep getting infected, spreading COVID, and prolonging the virus’ ability to mutate and outsmart our vaccines. It’s gotten to the point where I think many of the rest of us are just sick of the whole thing.

I occasionally check The New York Times Corona virus tracker and I am gobsmacked every time I realize that 0.5% of the population of New York City died from COVID. It’s unfathomable. So as we head into winter and cases—of seemingly everything—are on the rise, please be safe. Which is to say, at the very least, wear a mask.

---

It was just confirmed today that The January 6th Committee will be holding a hearing on Monday, December 19th at 1:00 p.m. ET so I will be live-streaming it along with some of the Nerd Avengers. (If you don’t know who they are you can check out one of our shows here.)

And we’re video-taping the live, in-person show Monday night. If all goes well, I’ll drop a link to that here on Tuesday. We’re hoping to take this show on the road so, with luck, we may be coming to your city someday soon.