What I Still Miss About My Pre-Covid-19 Life

A Dark Journey by Craig Cloutier

I still miss going to Sulphur Creek Nature Center with my wife, Maria, and our son, Miguelito.

I still miss our weekly father-and-son grocery store shopping trips.

I miss having father-and-son time because it rarely happens now that he’s become even more attached to my wife during this pandemic.

I still miss our libraries.

I miss seeing my nephew smile when I come over for a visit.

2020-2021 NBA Season Predictions

Ready or not, the NBA, its writers, analysts, and fans are in for a tumultuous ride. The league is about to embark on its craziest season ever since…last season’s. In 2020-2021, the NBA is attempting to play the most games of any American professional sports league during this historic pandemic. At this present juncture—because it’s the only view we’re afforded—it seems like a bold, defiant move on the part of the league and its players, but money fucking talks. If the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has taught us anything in this country, it is that.  

Last season, LeBron James led a third different franchise to a championship, triumphing over his former team, the upstart Miami Heat. On December 30th, he will turn 36. He has climbed to 9th on the list of All-Time Minutes Played Leaders, and is expected to soon pass Kobe Bryant. In his storied career, he has yet to miss a single playoff game, which is probably his most extraordinary accomplishment, especially since he has gone to the NBA Finals a whopping 10 times, including 9 out of the past 10 Finals. At this point, I humbly believe there is no question that James is one of the greatest athletes ever. Can he continue to defy peerless Father Time? Can he lift the Lakers to confetti-laden glory again?

The novel coronavirus will undoubtedly have a huge effect on this season. Players, coaches, and their families will be infected. Vaccines are literally on the horizon, and its not inconceivable to believe that an NBA team—or multiple teams, owned by billionaires—will secretly procure vaccines for their teams to give them a competitive edge throughout the season.

It’s going to be wild.

Clown Without Pity’s Quick & Dirty 2020 NBA Playoff Predictions

The NBA just successfully pulled off two weeks of seeding games that surpassed my highest expectations. One of the three hotels in their Orlando bubble has now been vacated since 6 teams have left. On a recent Lowe Post podcast with guest Pablo Torre, ESPN's Zach Lowe shared that he spoke with a number of league officials who privately thought the riskiest juncture in the entire NBA restart were the seeding games when there would be more teams in the bubble and more players who could potentially become disengaged and partake in activities that could get them and others infected with the novel coronavirus. Before the NBA bubble was set up, I thought they had a less than 5% chance of pulling it off, but now I’m realistically hopeful that they can keep their Covid-19 bubble intact and that we will ultimately see an NBA champion crowned. There’s so much that is still horribly wrong with our country, so I’ll take this good sports news and run with it. 

I feel especially grateful to have the opportunity to again put down some predictions for the NBA playoffs. This time around, I’m going to start each conference by highlighting the series I’m most interested in following. As usual, the Western Conference matchups look significantly more interesting, so let’s start there.

Thoughts on the NBA Restart

On March 11, 2020, everything went to shit: seconds before tip-off between the Utah Jazz and Oklahoma City Thunder, a member of the Thunder’s medical staff sprinted onto the court and spoke to the officials. The game was eventually postponed. The Jazz’s All-Star center, Rudy Gobert, had tested positive for Covid-19, which prompted the league to “suspend” its season. For many of us ‘Muricans, the NBA’s shutdown is when we undoubtedly knew shit got real with this pandemic.

Although it was four and a half months ago, it feels like that date was at least half a year ago. This pandemic and our country’s subsequent unfuckingconceivably horrific response has a way of warping our collective sense of time. So much can change in a matter of days, and something two weeks out viscerally feels much longer than that because so many bad turns can and have happened in such a minute time frame. Since early March, so much has happened in this country and I’m not even going to try to begin to talk about that mad whirlwind because once I get going I’m not sure where I should conceivably end.

Instead, for one of the few times since early March, I’m going to try to focus my attention on something that isn’t related to SARS-CoV-2, the Black Lives Matters movement, police brutality, and the death spiral of the American empire we are witnessing in real time. Although this pandemic and the correlated destruction resulting from American hypercapitalism is far, far, far from over, I want to share some of my thoughts on the NBA’s 2019-2020 restart.

2020 (in Words)

Words, terms, and acronyms I’ve learned in 2020 (and we’re only halfway through):

coronavirus
community spread
aerosols
super-spreader
social distancing
PPE
The Rona
Hydroxychloroquine
respiratory droplet
cytokine storm
COVID cliff
Juneteenth
qualified immunity
BIPOC
TERF
testilying
gypsy cops
karen
Cocoa Puffin

What I Miss About My Pre-Covid-19 Life

I miss going to Sulphur Creek Nature Center with Miguelito.

I miss going to the farmers’ market as a family.

I miss our father/son grocery store shopping trips.

I miss going to parks and playgrounds with Miguelito.

I miss our libraries.

I miss going to the Castro Valley Library with Miguelito.

I miss seeing Miguelito and his cousin play together.

The Tango Doctor

At the foot of Montaigle Castle by Eric Huybrechts

There was once a young man who was dying and terrified of never waking to see his beautiful face in the mirror again. His wavy golden-brown hair was reminiscent of a lion’s mane though he lacked such kingly vigor. Instead, his fair skin was palish with a sickly tinge of yellow. Over a year’s time, the poor man had been afflicted with a mysterious ailment that left him more and more exhausted although he slept plentifully, did not suffer from hypothyroidism, ate a nutritious balance of food, exercised sound hygiene and was not clinically depressed. As the months passed, his spirits caved. His eyes developed a distant, far-off quality to them. It was from staring down Death, his loyal wife swore. A beautiful specimen herself, she accompanied him everywhere throughout that vexing, difficult time. When they first married years before, the man often marched home across the town’s cobblestone streets instead of waiting for the tram. But once he became sick for months on end, merely flipping off his bed sheets to trudge down the hall to the bathroom took every ounce of energy he could muster.

The man and his wife sought every trusted medical means to diagnose his malady. All of his bodily faculties seemed in good order: his lungs, heart, mind, and cardiovascular and digestive systems were normal for a man of his young age. They were confounded. On a lark he sought a psychotherapist to help him conclude that the symptoms were not psychosomatic, nor that he secretly wished to be ill so his wife could shower him with attention. His therapist assured the man that he had not subconsciously manifested his illness to sabotage his lucrative business. Quite the opposite, his therapist deduced.

Into the COVID-19 Fray: An Interview with an ER Nurse

Ebola test laboratory in Liberia, Image courtesy of UNMEER

This interview was recorded on the 03/20/2020 weekend.

JAV: How was your shift today?

NURSE: It almost felt more normal than I expected it to, I guess. There’s this combination of…and I feel bad saying this…ignorance, panic, and self-entitlement that we’re seeing that’s really difficult to deal with. But then, at the same time, we’re kind of used to dealing with this already. I think some of the staff, even among medical people, you’re getting some of that panic where people want all the [personal protective] gear even if they don’t need it to be in that room, or they’re a little hyper-paranoid. And there’s actually a lot of people calling in sick because they just don’t want to be around it. It’s a little crazy. We’re all at home being very careful about social distancing. Everybody is staying home and being very careful about not bringing germs home and all that and then at work all of us are super close together as if it was just any other day. It’s kind of weird.

JAV: How long have you worked as an ER nurse?

NURSE: I’ve worked down in the ER for nine years. I had previously worked in other units.

JAV: How do you think you ended up becoming an ER nurse?

NURSE: (laughs) Almost by accident! When I was a new grad I worked in medical oncology. I wanted to go back to school but the only position that allowed me the flexibility was a float nurse. Back then, I always said, I don’t want to work in the ER. It’s too chaotic. It seems crazy. I like things organized. I like to have my day and plan it but I had a friend at the hospital who kept telling me, come down and work with us…and I just had no interest. That seems like a mess.

Blueberries

On the morning of February 28, 2016, I slipped out of bed and sauntered over to the living room since our apartment was unusually quiet. My wife, Maria, sat at the far end of the couch, her arms wrapped around her shins, her knees drawn into her chest. Her mouth was a tight line. The blinds were shut, casting our living room into shadow. It seemed as though she was trying to draw into herself. To hide within the darkness. Something was wrong. Very wrong. She was seven weeks pregnant with our first child.

I woke up and found blood on my underwear when I went to the bathroom, she told me.

I didn’t know how to react. This was all new to us. Maria had just told me she was pregnant three days before on the last day of my artist residency. But I had enough sense to know this didn’t sound good.

I remember the way she gazed at the wall—how still she was. As though she was frozen, or unwilling to move.

Shortly after, we passed through the security checkpoint at the hospital’s ER entrance. Maria’s contractions had sharpened. Sometimes it made her double over in pain. I stood by her side as she sat and told the intake nurse the reason for our visit. We then took a seat in the waiting room. Maria and I tucked our chins into our chests. I patted her arm. I was scared, but I tried to hide my fear with a mask of stoicism.

Before long, the intake nurse called us. I could feel my stomach clench. They triage patients at emergency rooms, attending first to those with the most urgent problems. We must have waited only five or so minutes—and we were called in before all the other folks who had already been waiting.

That’s when I realized how grave Maria’s bleeding was.

My Top 10 Movie-Going Experiences

I don’t have many things to brag about my life, but one thing I can boast about is that I’ve seen a lot of good fucking films. In my late teens and early twenties—formative, formative years—I was blessed to have a couple of friends in my lifeless, pedestrian, suburban hometown of Fremont, CA who had wicked-good taste in films. They opened my impressionable eyes to a slew of gnarly movies. Before I could legally drink, I was an undergraduate film student at San Francisco State and pulling a Tarantino by working at a local video store (which back then was this corporation known as Blockbuster Video). During my two years of film studies—especially the first year—I saw (and slept!) through a parade of fantastic films during my 9 a.m. classes when my night-owl ass would stagger through the early morning hours to commute from my parents’ house to the fog-veiled westerly end of San Pancho.

In compiling this list, I was surprised that none of my all-time favorite movie-going experiences happened at the Embarcadero Center Cinema, the exquisite Castro Theatre (Eddie Muller’s annual Film Noir Festival is always fucking awesome), or Shattuck Cinemas in Berkeley. I’ve seen a lot of movies at these film houses, especially the Embarcadero Center Cinema, while I was a substandard film student.

This list was originally meant to be five deep with a few honorable mentions, but the longer I sat and rifled through my memories the more my honorable mention list ballooned (much like the budget of a James Cameron film).

But without further ado, here are the top ten I’ve been graced with.

Stroller Landmine

August 2018

It’s 6:35 p.m. Early for your bedtime, but you’re tired. You gave a big yawn while Mama was feeding you. You’re rubbing your eyes and acting sluggish, so Mama tried to lull you to sleep by holding and rocking you on the bed while giving you lechita from a bottle but you stubbornly shook it off. She got frustrated. I offered to take you for a walk. After strapping you in the stroller, you and me head out the door.

It’s August so the sun is still bright. We circle the block around your abuelitos’ house but you keep sitting forward in your seat; I can tell by feeling the weight shift in the stroller, by peeking through the canopy’s ventilation window. I stop and kneel next to you. I look into your eyes and gently push you back and caress your forehead. Relax, I say to you in Spanish, and we continue on. Not a minute later, you begin to lean forward again, peering out at the suburban neighborhood. As we turn the corner back onto the street your abuelitos live on, I sigh with frustration.

My Dying Wishes

Written April 3, 2005 (at age 25)


This should be pretty simple: if doctors—especially court-appointed ones (if it were ever to come to that)—find that I am cognizant and mentally capable of making rational decisions for myself, than allow me to make whatever decisions I want with my life. If I’m found to be in a state where I am not conscious and able to make coherent decisions, where my life can only be prolonged with the use of breathing or feeding machines and there is no chance of recovery, then I do not want to be kept alive. I strongly believe this is not true living, so I’d rather join the dead.

I am largely indifferent about my remains (because, you know, I’d be dead). Since my parents brought me into this world, they have every right to bury and mourn my death in whichever way they see fit. If my parents are not alive to make this decision, I give my sister, Mariana, the right to take care of my remains. If she is not available for this, then next in line would be my sister, Carmen. From there, fuck, let anyone who comes forward with the desire to take care of my carcass have the power (no necrophiliacs, though!)

Some tips, though, as to how I’d like my remains to be disposed of: