My Corona: A Dispatch in Screens from Appalachia
BY IAN WOODE
Part 2: Anxiety — Confined to the house, one man reviews his coping strategies through the screens in his living room and his pocket.
RuPaul’s Drag Race
I was 28 years old when I learned that RuPaul is actually RuPaul’s Christian name. I’d heard the name most of my lifetime — I think my mother used to watch his talk show back in the 90s — and I always figured it was just a drag moniker, a showbiz name.
Nope, said my girlfriend, it’s his actual name.
That’s about the only fact that seems to stick with me — watching three seasons of Drag Race in a week’s time leaves the memory soft and misty, like the snippets one finds after a lost weekend spent slurping back beers and blacking out.
“Was there actually a challenge where the queens wrestled each other?” becomes just as hazy as “Was I staggering in the rain at 4 am with a knife in my pocket, looking to score crack?” Binge-watching anything becomes a blur, but something as formulaic as Drag Race? Even more so. Binge-watching Drag Race in a pandemic makes you question how many days have passed since you last ate.
In some ways, the pandemic feels like it’s careening at 100 miles per hour. With the numbers posting up around the country, the barrage of press conferences, tweets, and news reports, a development from three days ago feels like a fortnight. Two weeks feels like a century. What the hell was there before the Coronavirus? Did we use to go to the grocery store and jack each other off in a fully-stocked bread aisle? Back in February, did I hold an old Vietnam veteran’s hand at Ponderosa, kiss him on the lips and say, “Thank you for your service?” Did we frot? I don’t know — I feel reborn, and not in the holy-rolling, jumping-for-Jesus sense of the word. I feel reborn in the sense that I have no goddamn clue what’s going on. Except when to shit.
The Coronavirus is a paradigm shift, like 9/11, without the bumper stickers reading, United We Stand: Six Feet Apart. Then again, if the same Boomers who wanted to bust Bin Laden’s bum after the towers fell and who blasted Tobey Keith’s “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue” on a loop handled the Coronavirus the same way, they wouldn’t be keeling over. Somebody write that down: get Tobey Keith to cut a song about social distancing.
In other ways, King Corona’s reign feels timeless.
It’s like pacing the halls of a lunatic asylum and noticing each clock is a minute off from the other. Which time is which? Can we go outside? Can we go to Bob Evan’s? Or must we stay locked away until the pestilence has passed? Each clock is slightly off, each governor is the same way. Beshear is shutting down bingo halls and DeWine is asking for everyone to stay inside — Justice, up until recently, had no goddamn clue what the $64 answer to the 200,000 and counting question is. The only difference between COVID-19 and catching a mental hygiene in West Virginia is the patients are running the asylum on this side of the river.
The nut house I got locked-up in played CMT non-stop, so RuPaul’s Drag Race seems like a better departure when gazing out the windows. Sure, the show absolutely has its problems — just to name one: the recent revelations that America’s most mainstream drag queen is letting the gas industry frack on his lands out west. Gay, Liberal, Black: a rich man still has a side to pick.
Our celebrities can’t all be like Britney Spears, calling for the heads of the bourgeoisie. Of course, if Britney had access to her bank account, I doubt she’d be singing that ballad. Who knows what Derrick Barry, the Drag Race Season 8 Britney Impersonator who made it entirely too far, thinks.
For my household, RuPaul’s Drag Race has enough predictability to be comforting, and enough variety to keep it interesting.
Every episode, RuPaul is going to come out of a side door presenting male and throw down some BS mini-challenge for the girls. Maybe he’ll have them size up a line of beefy boys’ cocks. Maybe he’ll have them craft a tiara for a legless drag queen. Or maybe he’ll open the library — where they “read,” drag queen lingo for roasting one another — and let the queens completely tear each other apart. Then he’ll pick a winner, then turn around and shaft them by having them helm a group project (which, in my opinion, is all the more reason to lose). He throws out the main challenge and lets them get to it.
“Gentlemen start your engines, and may the best woman win!” he’ll say, before waltzing off to run his empire.
Cut to the B-Roll of contestants scrambling to hot glue and sew trash bags into dresses. Catty interview, catty interview. Que a practice routine. Then RuPaul comes back in and interviews a handful of contestants one-on-one. Before leaving, he adds a rub to the challenge — with less than 10 hours before show time, they’ve got to put together a dance routine.
“Don’t fuck it up,” RuPaul tells the queens, before going away.
Main challenge commences — they might shoot a music video, act in a skit for a sitcom, or do one of the old standbys: Snatch Game. Based on the 1970s Gene Rayburn classic Match Game, Snatch Game features RuPaul (dressed in a classic 70s checkered suit with a skinny Bob Barker microphone) asking two C-list celebrities (looking to make a dollar) to match their answers with a panel of drag queens (impersonating A-list royalty). Having watched three seasons so far during the pandemic, I haven’t been disappointed in one Snatch Game yet. Sure, some queens fall on their face and fuck it up, but others — like when Chad Michaels continued switching wigs during his impersonation of Cher on Season 4 — make it the greatest thing you’ve ever seen. In terms of the actual race, this challenge is legit when the top three begin pulling away from the rest of the pack, gaining several yards on the rest for the checkered flag.
Cue RuPaul walking onto the runway in an evening dress. “Cover Girl” plays, the camera obnoxiously zooms in on the judges laughing. We see Michelle Visage, Santino Rice, and maybe some has-been who hasn’t worked since they sat next to Martin Mull on Hollywood Squares. RuPaul walks the runway and stops. She flirts a bit with the judges, who all play along presumably because they’re grateful to have a purpose in life — I wasn’t aware Michelle Visage was a person until I saw this show. And who the fuck is Santino Rice? If he’s so fucking fashionable, why is he constantly wearing those cabbie hats?
Then RuPaul says, “Gentleman start your engines, and may the best woman win!”
This time, though, she lifts her right arm, as if carrying a silver platter. Very important to the persona. As a man, RuPaul does no such thing, but in drag, it’s very in character. Because RuPaul is a bougie bitch, it has to be a silver platter.
Runway shots, with catty commentary. Line them up, make them shit razors while the judges critique. The middle of the pack is cut loose, the winner is announced, and then comes the knife fight — the bottom two lip sync for their lives.
Predictable, yet the sheer personalities of the queens add just enough variety to make it interesting. Watch a couple episodes and suddenly, you’re invested in a queen. Watch a couple seasons and the next thing you know, you’re calling which one is going to make it to the end. It’s like baseball for the arts. Every baseball game has the same rules, the same form, yet the actual play is wildly different. Take a queen like Sharon Needles or Bob the Drag Queen —compared to the pageant queens, who work so hard to present feminine, they’re the fucking Cubs or the Red Sox. All of a sudden, they catch fire and you have to root for them — and having something to root for can go a long way. Especially when it comes to taking your mind off what seems like an essentially hopeless situation.
The Daily Presser
Where RuPaul’s Drag Race offers distraction, the presidential and gubernatorial daily press conferences offer sheer terror.
Much copy has been written about Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear’s Dad approach to handling the Coronavirus. Was he pissed when he heard some teenagers held a Coronavirus party? No, he was disappointed — now go to your room and think about what you did for 14 days while we wait to see if symptoms present themselves. Every day, Mr. Beshear comes out with a new tweak to the plan, kind of like when your daddy is trying to slap together a piece of furniture, but doesn’t quite have enough wood. Through all the political platitudes, what Gov. Beshear is really saying every day is, “Fuck it, let’s try this.”
And whether your daddy was a church deacon or the town barfly, each and every one of them had that kind of attitude toward certain shit. My dad was like that with cars: “Hell, hit it with a hammer, see if it will budge.” You think he knows what he’s doing, but he really doesn’t. But you trust him anyway, because by God, it makes sense.
That’s Andy “Shut Down the Damn Bingo Hall” Beshear. A fine departure from the glorified commercials Donald Trump puts on — when will he invite Tom Kruse, the inventor of the Hoveround? Nope, Andy Beshear keeps it business; he’s offering a cool head in the face of this storm.
But just because he has a cool head doesn’t make his press conferences any less terrifying — after all, with cases rising and deaths accumulating, Gov. Beshear is pretty frank about the situation: the worst is yet to come. And despite the occasional hiccup like a redneck protest to reopen Ruby Tuesdays or a renegade congregation holding Easter service, the curve is flattening in the Blue Grass State.
Gov. Mike DeWine in Ohio is nothing to write home about in his approach. His voice is a bit grandfatherly, so his reports on the situation feel like some old guy from church telling you about how he used to turn in pop bottles for bubble gum. He’s informative and he’s on top of it — he dragged his feet a bit on some aspects of social distancing, but he ain’t no Ron DeSantis down in Florida, waiting until fucking April to get real about the situation.
In fact, given my work schedule, he’s the one I tune in to the most — I’m not saying he’s the best, but he lets me know he’s steering the burning ship the best he can. I appreciate that. He’s consistent, for the most part — something that’s lacking in the horseshit coming from the White House. When that orange fucker starts spouting off, I tune the fuck out. The only thing that matters coming from him is when my goddamn check arrives in the mail.
Because I’ve procrastinated so long writing this essay, we’re long past West Virginia’s village Idiot Jim Justice reassuring us that we can still eat at Bob Evan’s, it’ll just have to be take-out. That, my friends, was mild compared to where we’re at today. To be truthful, I hadn’t really been keeping up with what ole Jimbo had to say — I knew the broad brush strokes, but since he wasn’t coming out every single day for the first few weeks of this crisis, I figured he was just copying and pasting from Beshear. And for a while, that’s how it seemed — wait to see what Kentucky’s Dad and Ohio’s Pew Paw did, and do the same here.
It was after I had successfully blotted out the terror of the virus with RuPaul’s Drag Race — watching Jinkx Monsoon pull an upset over Roxxxy Andrews — that I actually sat down and watched that Jim Justice press conference. You know which one — the one where it cemented in the minds of all West Virginians that the ship is sinking and our Captain has no idea how to man the life boats. The infamous $64 question could be answered by Quentin Tarantino’s portrayal of a blind street preacher in Little Nicky:
“The end is near, we are all gonna die!”
Oh yes, Jim. That did not set peoples’ minds at ease. Not a lick. Your comment about eating at Bob Evan’s a few days before certainly didn’t address the gravity of the situation — we all know Cracker Barrel is the true apocalypse food. And the orders to quarantine out-of-staters and shutting down the Eastern Panhandle have only further shown whenever you stick your diabetic fingers into the sauce, it only sours it more.
While RuPaul’s Drag Race may give the viewer a small jolt out of the everlasting panic and fear that the pandemic leaves hanging over society, the daily pressers — whether it’s Pappy DeWine, Daddy Beshear, or Drunk Uncle Jim — don’t help.
I’m not saying don’t stay informed: how the hell are we going to know where to buy more shit tickets or avoid winding up seeing grandma who’s been dead for 20 years because we didn’t know to wear a mask?
Listen, I once had a drunk uncle who laid up in my grandmother’s basement, sipping Budweiser and watching 24/7 cable news like a redneck version of the bad guy in Tomorrow Never Dies. A big box 1980s television sitting on a nightstand and two little 10 inchers stacked on top of that, he’d toggle between Fox, CNN, MSNBC, and fucking CSPAN while getting progressively torn down. He was prone to fits of rage, anxious about what was going to happen next. I remember one time, about half-cocked, he got into it with my dad about how John Kerry was going to take a whooping in the 2004 general election. Calling my dad a fucking fool for even thinking “Horse Face” was going to come close to making W a single-term president.
“He’s been cooped up down there too long watching fucking Crossfire,” my old man said, while we rode on in his Bronco II.
Setting aside the alcoholism, that’s what 24/7 consumption gets you — pissed about the world, but with a feeling that there’s not a fucking thing you can do about it. Was my uncle right? Absolutely — ole 9–1–1 George knocked the Wood Man on his ass and spit in his eye.
Just because you’re right doesn’t mean you’re sane.
Today, we don’t need three TVs stuck together to get pumped with the fear and the hate and the loathing. No siree Bob, we got that shit pumping into our phones. For a lot of folks, the last four years have pushed them to the edge — throw COVID-19 on top of it and the constant barrage will drive you mad.
Then you’re like me, pacing about your living room with an unlit cigarette in your mouth with your ole lady asking you, “Are you ok?” No baby, I’m so panic stricken I can’t feel my body. Fucking Foghorn Leg Horn down there in Charleston has no fucking clue where his asshole is and he’s going to kill us all.
I remember I once fucked with a nine fingered biker’s ride, spitting on his seat and grinding a cigarette out on the leather. It all stemmed from a rather stupid dispute — hurt pride and anger on my part, mostly — but after that I rode around with a ball bat in my trunk and a switchblade in my pocket for a month, just on the off chance Ole Nine Digits decided to punch my number. Nothing ever came of it, except for a lie I decided to tell myself:
“I’m not scared, I’m prepared.”
Buying a pair of mirrored sunglasses to casually place in front of you, so you can check over your shoulder while eating in a restaurant is not preparation, it’s fucking fear. But it’s a good sentiment, y’all.
Watch enough news to know how to prepare, but don’t watch too much, or else you’ll be wearing a gimp suit with the inside filled with hand sanitizer.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons
On Thanksgiving Day 2019, I was one of those post-family assholes jockeying for a Nintendo Switch at some shopping center in what would later be West Virginia’s District 13, the Eastern Panhandle. Years ago, when I stocked shelves at Target and rang up frantic shoppers at K-Mart, I swore to myself I wouldn’t be the reason the stores stay open on Thanksgiving Day. Fast forward a decade later and there I was, queuing up in a 25-person line to get my hands on the Switch.
What changed? My ole lady’s 7-year-old girl for one. The other was the only deal for the God Blessed thing was for $299, throwing in Mario Kart. And I’m a sucker for Mario Kart — I might not be a world champion or anything, but give me a second and I’ll whip any one of your asses with Wario.
So yeah, there I was in the Martinsburg Game Stop, waiting to lay down half my paycheck to make this little girl’s Christmas special. And to relive a bit of my childhood, too. Amidst the shoppers flipping through the used game bins and stock clerks writing down orders like those commodity brokers in Trading Places, a man jostled through the front door.
He looked directly into my eyes and said, “It’s like Game Stop Armageddon in here.”
I laughed and said, “Buddy, I have no clue what’s going on.”
He smiled, shrugged his shoulders, and joined the scrum for his kid’s Christmas morning. If only he knew how prophetic his words would turn out to be — we were already stocking up for COVID-19 and didn’t know it. Long before the reports out of China, before the scenes of Italian mortuaries, there we were stockpiling digital heroin.
A paranoid holdover in my brain from three years of near daily amphetamine use wonders if COVID-19 was really a concoction whipped up by Nintendo, Charmin, Wal-Mart and Amazon to drive up sales? What if the wingnuts claiming that 1.)COVID-19 is really just the common cold and 2.) Bill Gates is using it as a way to take over the world are right?
If only the world were so simple, ya know? Setting aside the meth smokers and the schizophrenics, the only reason why anyone would even think the Coronavirus was caused by 5G towers installed by the Illuminati with funding from the lizard people is because it’s more comforting to have a bad guy, a shadowy cabal to blame. To acknowledge bad shit happens to good people for fuck all reason, to accept the good and bad of this globe for what it is, can stress the psyche. How is Jesco White still alive? Is Betty White distantly related to him? If so, does that indicate some kind of a genetic advantage for the Whites? Will their DNA be harvested to create a vaccine? Who knows?
Don’t get me wrong, I still question shit — I just don’t let the questions keep me up at night.
Back to Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
I can’t stop playing it. Between the fishing — the Joy-con control rumbles when you get a bite, vaguely mimicking the adrenaline rush you get from hooking into the honest Hatfield — the mining for iron, the creation of product, the speculation of turnips, the logging of tropical islands, and getting stung in the faces by wasps, it’s hard not to play.
There’s no contest to it, no object — you’re just some cartoon peasant looking to pillage the land and make as much dough as you can. All so you can buy shit — it’s like real life, except you don’t have a boss to answer to, unless you count that goddamn owl at the museum who’s always begging for donations. He doesn’t give a shit about you; he never will. And the ungrateful bastard balks at bugs, which is weird, because he’s an owl. Owls eat insects, right?
Sure, there’s Tom Nook, the Little Island Venture Capitalist. Trying to pack in as many residents as he can, that raccoon-looking motherfucker has the gall to ask you if you want to lay down 500,000 bells (the AC currency) after you done paid off the first loan on your house by framing it as a “celebration for paying off your debt.” It’s almost like he took a page of out of the banking practices of the mid-2000s. Then, he’ll beg you for materials so he can build his shop to sell shit to you — get this — for free. Yes, he expects you to give him shit so he can build a shop to turn around and sell you shit — think of it like when a town gives a Big Lots and a Save-a-Lot a 10 year tax break to be the anchor store at a shitbox shopping center where you get your nails done.
Despite all the parallels AC has with modern society, there’s one thing curiously absent — Coronavirus. See, unlike us, the little critters inhabiting the island with you in AC have no worries. They’re relaxed. They want to kick back and shake trees and run around the beach. The chill music score further sets the mood — AC ain’t about death and destruction. The worst thing that can happen to you is you get bit by a spider and wake back up at your house. Who hasn’t come to back at their house? Is that just a me thing?
Here at the Woode House, AC has become a family affair, a shared escape from the sickness waiting outside our door. Sure, we each have our individual pursuits — my ole lady crafts and cooks, her girl reads and plays with toys, while I fish and mow the yard. But AC, that’s something we all do together.
My girlfriend and I take turns with her character, me picking every island clean of the resources I can stuff into my pockets, leaving it weedless and full of stumps, while she accumulates decorations and makes the island look good. Since our girl is only 7 and hasn’t figured out how to play the game entirely, she’s basically a homeless person living in a tent and stealing shit out of our front yard and leaving it scattered around the island. Still, she has a blast — except the other day she stole my ole lady’s turnips and sold them, then tried to lie about it.
The only downside I see from AC is it’s so goddamn relaxing, so easy to get sucked into, that I’ve been procrastinating on this essay for almost two weeks.
Like I said, it’s digital heroin — damn does it take the anxiety away.
