‘Don’t Make Me Come Down There’ — and Other COVID Comedy

This week’s Burke’s Law has a very special guest: Horacio Gutierrez, a veteran of political campaigns and a resident of New York’s East Village. My usual compatriots, Leonard Jacobs and Michael Houk, are buried with work this week — so welcome, Horacio!

He and I go way back. We’ve worked on campaigns and Democratic conventions together and I’m thrilled he could find time in his schedule to talk about the events of last week.

We start on the (in-) famous St. Mark’s Place in NYC. This magical street has gone through a few transformations from ’60s hippies to the bridge-and-tunnel (B-and-T) crowd of which I was one as a teenager. We discuss the petri dish of the current B-and-T COVID-infested teens and millennials cavorting recently in the East Village, sans masks, before possibly spreading COVID back home in the suburbs. Yeesh. As Governor Cuomo tweeted:

Don’t make me come down there… https://t.co/OeVGMW7LEO

— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) June 13, 2020

Also on St. Mark’s are a number of small theaters, and Horacio and I discuss what will happen to them as part of the already shrinking number of independent theater companies in NYC. There is widespread concern that while Broadway and well-funded Off Broadway nonprofit theaters will hold on and re-open at some point — Broadway, most likely, in January — the tiny venues that are the lifeblood of independent theater may be dead.

From there, we take on the subject of open-air protests vs. indoor rallies. As we all know by now, Trump’s shoulder-to-shoulder MAGA-rific rally was in Tulsa, first on June 19 but then, after making Juneteenth famous, he moved the date to June 20, delighting K-Pop fans everywhere. Science says indoor events, with people packed together, is vastly more dangerous for the spread of an airborne, highly contagious virus. MAGAts say otherwise — that science is for snowflakes.

Horacio and I then discuss the rise in COVID cases in ruby-red states and the possibility that the second wave may not be a thing as we may not ever get through the first wave; that the first wave is unending due to the incompetence of our federal government.

And we enjoy Trump being slapped down by the men he liked to call “My Generals,” such as “Mad Dog Mattis.” After Gen. Mattis tore him a new asshole, denouncing Trump as a threat to the Constitution in The Atlantic, Trump rage-tweeted that Mattis was overrated, lied about giving him the nickname “Mad Dog,” lied about firing him (Mattis quit), and then claimed he didn’t like Mattis’ leadership style. Gosh, he does seem to hire lots of losers!

Try as I may, I could not get Horacio to give me his pick for Biden’s Vice President. We also argued about the importance of that pick and how it can shape the election. Horacio says it’s not the most important choice a presidential candidate will make. I say “Sarah Palin.”

Join us for a lively discussion as we drink wine and talk and share a few laughs. And now, a sincere note of appreciation to our listeners for your support. If you enjoy this podcast, leave us a review and share this episode on social media. On Twitter, follow Liz at @burkelawNYC and follow CFR at @TheCFReport. Stay safe.