Name: 1 Year of Coronavirus -- What Now?
Uploaded: 2021-03-05T21:09:05.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video '1 Year of Coronavirus -- What Now?' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-03-05. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video '1 Year of Coronavirus -- What Now?' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-03-05. Transcript available.

the Joe Rogan experience how's Brooklyn it's grim it's grim right now it's I've
lived in New York for the majority of my life I love New York City and this is
by
far the grimmest I have ever seen it really I mean this winter because it's
everything that the entire country is facing but it's the worst for COVID it's
also extremely cold a lot of city services seem to have been impaired in
one way or another the streets are covered in garbage and ice and dog shit
and you can't pretty much the only thing that I can do to maintain my sanity is
run but everything including the outdoor running track is covered in ice and
shit
and so it's just this dystopian frozen pandemic landscape where every local
business that I loved is closing down it's a dark time yeah um I hear that
about Los Angeles I saw a lot of it but I got out early I saw the writing on
the
wall and I was looking to move in May I just once that once the lockdown got
extended once they're like we're just gonna lock down for two weeks to flatten
the curve I was like that makes sense and then here we are in April all the way
through April here we are in May and then I'm like oh they're never gonna let
us
out of this I was like and then the crime started happening and the you know it
started it started getting dark and I was like oh we gotta get the fuck out of
here homeless the homeless thing was like flowers blooming out of rocks like
out of
cracks in the concrete it's like more tents tents tents tents tents tents like
Los
Angeles is filled with tents like you can't believe it like when I tell people
about it and then they go there they're like oh I thought you were exaggerating
like no I was understating like Los Angeles is overwhelmed with tents it's
fucking crazy like you can't believe that on La Brea they just allow people to
set up
tents everywhere it's nuts well yeah what are people going to do that's the
question what are people gonna do yeah where are you gonna put them do you have
hospitals available for and a lot of those the problem is a lot of those
shelters they won't let them do drugs yeah and the lies people like I would
rather rather be in a fucking tent outside by the beach than be under your
thumb because Los Angeles doesn't get cold you know I mean a cold day is 50 you
know it's a big deal right sleeping bag you're outside it's nice yeah it's
really
emphasized a lot of these economic divides you know because everyone in New
York just
orders everything on Amazon yeah so every apartment building and every nice
part of
New York receives a daily shipment of every tenants stuff from Amazon and then
there's
like a secondary economy of people just going into all the buildings and
stealing all the
packages you've seen a lot of that yeah I've seen a lot of ring videos the doorbell
camera videos of
people stealing shit oh yeah it's almost comical I mean I had one where I was
loading my car with bags at two in the
morning on a Tuesday and in the lobby of my building for maybe 15 minutes
somebody just as soon as I walk
around the corner someone goes and scoops everything up yeah it's it's a it's a
wild
time and I hope we're coming out of it I mean right when I came to Austin this
is
the first time I've you know been on an airplane since the beginning of the
pandemic you're the first person I've spoken to without a mask no really the
first face did you feel weird coming in here but you knew everyone was tested
no no
yeah no I felt fine I thought I've just been very careful and because it's also
cold in New York it just promotes this prison cell like lifestyle where I'm
just
sitting in my apartment reading and doing push-ups all day oh yeah oh yeah the
dog shit thing is like so people just don't clean up anymore they just gave up
you know how it is it's it's there's this kind of tumbling character where
things
just start to accumulate and then no one shovels the streets and then it gets
easier probably it's harder to pick it up because there's just like mounting
layers of
garbage everywhere and it just starts to look increasingly disgusting I mean
maybe
we'll we'll just get out of this in a couple weeks and everything will be oh
yeah the problem that I don't think the people that shut everything down for a
fucking year ever take into consideration is that people don't have the
resources to bounce back things don't bounce back on their own right people if
you want to start a business it takes money like it takes quite a bit of money
to
get a lease to put the stock the shelves to hire employees and when you've been
out of
business for a year you don't have any money so you've probably used up all
savings if you had any
savings try getting a loan when you don't have anything there's there's really
there's no real
logical path forward for a lot of these businesses in Los Angeles 75% of the
restaurants are gone oh
yeah I'm so worried about the restaurants in New York yeah it's terrible it
doesn't seem like it's
even talked about sufficiently no because in New York in the wintertime I mean
they're really trying
they're doing things that I would have never like truly extraordinary things
like making these little
heated space gazebos that are covered in mylar on the inside and they're and
you know ultimately most
people don't even really want to do that so then there's this weird conflict of
is it moral to
support these businesses because you want them to stay in business or are you
feeding into a system
where people are subjecting themselves to unsafe working conditions and is it
actually immoral to go
to restaurants and of course people endlessly argue about that um well personal
choices are not immoral
right so if the people decide that they're willing to work there and they're
masked up and they feel safe
working there isn't that better than not having a choice to work there I guess
the idea is that it
instead of people going on unemployment they are feel pressured to put
themselves at risk when they really should be at home not
potentially spreading coronavirus and ideally receiving some sort of government
assistance
well it's all it's also like when does the government assistance run out
because it has run out for a lot of people
there is no more unemployment for a lot of folks and then on top of that
the way everything's been mismanaged is so terrible in so many ways like why is
it okay to be at target
on top of people why is it okay to be at walgreens on top of people but it's
not okay to have these mom and pop stores open or retail stores
retail stores oh yeah or you know like I said I haven't been on an airplane
until I came to see
you but of course I see all these stories in the news that are like this guy
went on an airplane and
he took off his mask and they had to do an emergency landing and they kicked
him off the plane and everyone
cheered and if you haven't been on a plane you just kind of read that and you
think oh yeah wow that guy
sounds like quite an asshole good that they kicked him off the plane but then
on the plane
i then i hadn't even considered this like what what is done with snacks
what are the snack provisions are there no more peanuts is there no water and
if it is served
then everyone has to take off their masks so this is all just sort of like
security theater because
they still serve food and everyone unmasks simultaneously to eat so there's a
period of at least 15 minutes
where everyone on the plane is unmasked by the doing of the actual airline yeah
it's nonsense
it's full nonsense across the board well i think people just don't know what to
do it's it's you know
they're aware that all these things are contradictory everyone is trying to do
their best they're confused
they don't understand it even to this day um people are trying not to be an
asshole you know when you
wear a mask which you're basically saying is i'm not an asshole you know i'm
gonna go around and i
want you to feel like i care and i want you know i want you to feel all right
so i'm gonna wear a mask
but it's not i mean maybe it's protecting somewhat it's not certainly not 100
safe you know like it's
protecting you against droplets someone sneezes but you're breathing oh yeah
the masking is definitely
good i think that's pretty well established but uh i guess what i don't
understand is the hypocrisy like
if we have established that masking is good then we also have to not have
snacks on the flight or water
or water but yeah so then what do you do you're on top of each other sitting
three people next to
each other i mean it's like literally the opposite of social distancing it's
incredibly intimate you
don't even know these people you're touching elbows with them yeah it's crazy
yeah i mean and
this is why when it started i was one of these people that you know i was
thinking why you know
i work in media i know the way the media blows everything out of proportion i
remember swine flu
i know that they sell newspapers by making everyone terrified this can't
possibly be as bad as people
think it is and i was sort of in covid denial and i was also in the middle of
filming the third season of
my tv show so i was just sort of seduced by the momentum of production and didn't
want it to end
and uh and people were saying you know i don't think we can film anymore i
think we have to stop
and i thought what is the world going to shut down yeah i remember that is the
like this is unprecedented
yeah the the world isn't going to shut down we're not going to be kept in our
apartments it's just not
conceivable that such a thing could happen cut to one year later catch new
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