Stu Shostak kept telling me he wanted to try to keep yesterday's Stu's Show (with m.e. as guest) down to two hours. I hinted here it would run longer than The Irishman and, well…The Irishman runs three hours and thirty minutes and yesterday's Stu's Show ran three hours, fifty-five minutes and six seconds. There you go. You can watch the whole danged thing for two bucks over on this page. You'll get a lot for your money.
I felt a little odd when it ended because it was the only thing on my calendar before July…and what I have down for July is the Comic-Con International in San Diego, which is still a maybe of immense proportions. Apparently, a lot of people tuned in yesterday to hear what I had to say about that so let me summarize…
First, I have to remind you that I do not work for Comic-Con and am in no way a spokesperson for that fine organization. I've been to all fifty of 'em and hosted something like 400 panels at 'em but all I am is a frequent guest. If you ask someone who does work for Comic-Con, the official answer is that the July 23-26 affair is still on for those dates. A decision on whether to have it, postpone it or cancel it will be made in a few weeks. My personal opinion (and possibly yours) is that it won't happen in July but that's just my or our opinion.
I don't think most people comprehend the magnitude of what's involved in putting on this convention — all the different businesses, unions, outside suppliers, hotels, food service and security people, the convention center, etc. Calling it off or rescheduling it involves hundreds of phone calls, discussions, renegotiations, working with everyone's calendars and so forth. It ain't like moving our picnic-in-the-park from this Saturday to next Saturday and pondering if the potato salad you bought will still be edible then.
These people know what they're doing. Be patient. Give them time to assess the long list of variables and considerations and to make a wise decision. One of the overarching problems of the current Pandemic is that no one knows when and how it will go away and no one has much experience in dealing with the problems it presents. We're all learning as we go. I know the people who run Comic-Con. They're really smart and I've had a good vantage point to observe how smart they are about running an annual gathering that's way more complicated to stage than it appears. They'll do the right thing at the right time.
And everything else here is fine. The other day, I had to go to the CVS Pharmacy to pick up a prescription. I wore a mask and carried a little man-purse I have that's filled with gloves, sanitizer, another mask and a few other possible necessities. All of the folks working in the store and most of the customers were masked and we kind of stared at the unmasked ones and wondered, "Have these people watched the news?" I am reasonably certain I got in and out with no contamination. Even better, I got two gallon bottles of Crystal Geyser drinking water.
Coping with this crisis gives us all a lot of little proud moments when you think, "Hey, I did that right!" or "Hey, I solved that problem!" I've also reconnected with some friends I haven't spoken with in quite a while. This whole thing is a ghastly tragedy but it's not without its moments when we feel just a little smarter and just a little more connected to others with whom we share the crisis. Don't overlook those moments. They're the thing that convinces me the world will be normal again and we can get through just about anything. Why, just yesterday, I managed to get through a four-hour Stu's Show.