Cirque Du Coronavirus

Pandemic shmandemic. I roam through life unfrightened and undeterred.

Case in point: I took my first post-coronavirus panic outing yesterday. The family and I decided to spend the afternoon in a closed tent with about 2,000 of our closest, hopefully uninfected friends. We saw VOLTA, the current Cirque Du Soleil production in their big top, which is set up at Dodger Stadium.

It had everything to make the CDC and World Health Organization shake their hazmat-covered heads.

Crowds of people. Closed space. Different nationalities. Surfaces like chairs and armrests that've been touched by thousands of people before us. Port-a-potties that, shall we say were less than spotless.

It was a recipe for disaster. And yet, we all seemed to have gotten out just fine. There was a vague awareness of everyone being a little more cautious not to be in each other's faces, and no matter when you looked it was always rush hour at the hand washing stations outside the restrooms.

I fully expected lots of empty seats from people who'd decided not to venture out in public. I was also sure I'd see surgical masks everywhere I looked. I only saw one, and there wasn't an empty seat in the house.

Only two things reminded everyone of the current cautions. First was before the show when a young child sneezed, and every head within earshot snapped around to look at him waiting to see what was going to happen next. The other was the clown who came down the aisle before the show, and interacted with me by running his gloved hand up and down my sleeve. It made me a little nervous, although the coronavirus was probably the least of the reasons why.

The show was great, and I couldn't help but be amazed by how similarly built the performers and I were. It was like looking in a mirror.

I definitely don't want to minimize the virus and the cautions to be taken, but life just can't stop because of it. And besides, the precautions aren't that hard to abide by.

For starters I've been washing my hands like Howard Hughes since I can remember. And because I've never been a fan of knuckle crushers or sweaty palmed frat boys who shake my hand like it's a dry water pump in rural Alabama, I'm just swell with handshaking going the way of the Zune. Bottles of Purell? Check the center console of my car - I've pretty much cornered the market.

So here's my take on it all: with or without the virus, life is a high-wire act. Let's not go out of our way to turn it into a real circus.

The luckiest actor alive Part 2: Channing Tatum

Astonishing charisma. Gritty realism. Award-winning performances. Channing Tatum has none of these.

What he did have is what every other good looking kid from Alabama who spent weekends at the local movie house had: a Greyhound bus ticket and a dream.

Unfortunately his dream is every movie lover's nightmare.

Performance after endlessly dull performance, Tatum walks through movies, smiling and posing then calling it "acting." It's a bad imitation of the male stars he used to see in that dingy Alabama theater. It's also the way he thinks the character would act, if the character were a bored and boring individual getting by on his good looks alone. It's what I like to call "model acting." He knows how to walk around and look good. Worse, he thinks that's enough, just like it was when he modeled for Abercrombie & Fitch.

Every one has to start somewhere. But Ricky Martin's She Bangs video? Some people will do anything for $400.

You have to wonder who he has pictures of, or who he took pictures with. It's hard to figure out how the Hollywood fame lottery works. There are a million guys who look good and actually can act, but maybe they don't play the game as well as Tatum does.

It is amazing how many different types can be lucky in Hollywood. My last luckiest actor post was about Jonah Hill, who'll certainly never be mistaken for Channing Tatum. But at least, as he proved in Moneyball, has some acting talent besides being the funny fat guy.

He can also be the serious fat guy.

Tatum is quoted as saying, "I've been able to explore life, and through exploring it I've found that I love art, I love writing, I love acting, I love all the things that make sense to me."

I just wish it made sense to the rest of us.

The punishment should fit the crime

On my friend Rich's blog, Round Seventeen, he's started a series of posts called People We Need To Kill. I'd like to nominate these two examples of human garbage.

Joyce Hardin Garrard on the left and Jessica Mae Hardin on the right are, respectively, grandmother and stepmother to 9-year old Savannah Hardin. Or at least they were.

What happened is that Savannah lied to the grandmother about having eaten some candy, so as punishment last Friday they made Savannah run for 3 hours straight. She wasn't allowed to stop, nor was she allowed to drink any water.

Dehydrated and sodium depleted, Savannah had a seizure and died days later.

I suppose the telltale line in the news story was "The trailer where Savannah lived..."

I'd like everyone who thinks I'm kidding when I say you should need a license to be a parent to take a good look at these two aberrations. I hate to judge books by their covers, but what's painfully evident to me is this couldn't have been the first physical or emotional abuse this little girl suffered from these inbred freaks.

Fortunately they've both now been charged with murder. As I said in the title, I think the punishment should fit the crime.

They need to make both these women run for three hours nonstop in the Alabama sun, then let them die of dehydration. Preferably while holding ice-cold water bottles in front of them, just out of reach.

I know some of you think the death penalty is wrong, and I should be more forgiving and merciful. Here's my answer to that.

Tell it to Savannah.