Here\u2019s my beef for today: COVID safeguards and regulations say I can get my hair cut, and even styled\u2014and I have\u2014but I can\u2019t get my nails done. Pet groomers are open, so poodles can get their nails done. But an honest California taxpayer is stuck all alone in the bathroom nursing a bottle of Revlon ColorStay.<\/p>\n
I can go to a gym, for perhaps the first time in my life, but I\u2019m afraid for a fitness center to meet safety guidelines<\/a> it will be like working out in a hamster habitat rather than taking a nice relaxing nap on the bench press.<\/p>\n Hollywood is back in business, sort of. I can now go out and shoot a movie on the streets of Long Beach, but I can\u2019t go to a movie theater to watch my own masterpiece, even though a typical review might proclaim, \u201cIt is obviously extremely low-budget, but also stylish and clever. You\u2019ll walk away humming the theme song.\u201d Straight to Netflix.<\/p>\n I can holler at the fact that the health regulations are arbitrary and unfair, but when I do I can hear my teenage voice hollering the same thing at my mom because she wouldn\u2019t let me go to the Colorado River on Spring Break (actually, she did let me go; it was my older sister she wouldn\u2019t let go somewhere fun on the break, because our mom was, in fact, arbitrary and unfair).<\/p>\n Can I stay in a hotel these days? Sure, as long as it\u2019s for \u201ctourism or individual travel.\u201d So if I show up in a Reyn Spooner shirt tucked into my cargo shorts I can go to the Hyatt, but if I have a \u201cHello, my name is Tim\u201d name tag stuck to my sport coat or I’m, perhaps, sporting a tasseled fez, I\u2019ll be swiftly identified as a conventioneer or business traveler and shown the door.<\/p>\n The unfairness and arbitrariness sprawls up and down the state and throughout the county and city. I can call play-by-play at a professional football game but I can\u2019t sit in the stands with my mouth shut and enjoy the game.<\/p>\n The immense stress of my job can send me to a chiropractor or physical trainer for a massage, and it ends when it ends. But the masseuse working next to the taekwondo studio at a strip mall in Carson is invited to keep her hands to herself.<\/p>\n The time we\u2019re living in is as confusing as it is perilous, fraught in equal amounts with regulations, rules, loopholes, inequities and workarounds. The new normal is utterly abnormal. The day before many restaurants were timidly set to open, the peaceful protests in Long Beach spun off gaggles of looters who worked mayhem on many of those restaurants, and some are only now getting back into a sort of wary business, trying to capture an even shakier clientele because, well, for starters, COVID-19 is still rolling along and is not subsiding in any way that makes very many people eager to resume life without masks. And if they can manage to put the virus out of their mind in favor of a nice evening at their favorite restaurant, the pandemic is brought back in sharp detail when their server approaches armored with not just a mask, but a face shield, since you, the customer aren’t wearing any protection at all, because you\u2019re eating and enjoying cocktails.<\/p>\n And the reason you can drink cocktails is because you\u2019re eating. Another arbitrary thing: Bars are to remain closed. But bars\u2014let\u2019s call them pubs just in order to keep some semblance of order here\u2014that serve food, can open, and you can enjoy a cocktail as long as you also enjoy a bite to eat. Some pubs will sell you a minimal order of fries, which you can pick at throughout the course of your evening.<\/p>\n The Hawk<\/a> bar on Anaheim Street, is planning a workaround-ish pop-up drive-up parking lot bar on Saturday from noon to 5 p.m., with to-go cocktails and the food component being covered by the 4th Horseman. Get your order in by 9 tonight.<\/p>\n Is the fact that they don\u2019t serve food unfair to food-free bars? Yes, it is. And what, exactly, is food? The state\u2019s guidance on restaurants, bars and wineries<\/a> skirts the philosophical question of \u201cwhat is food?\u201d In my younger days I would occasionally visit a bar on 7th Street that threw on a pot of hotdogs that cost a dime or a quarter. One could make the argument that that was food. Ditto with a crockpot of chili simmering back by the pool tables. Oh, your bar has pool tables? Then it has to follow the state\u2019s guidance of family entertainment centers<\/a>, as well.<\/p>\n No matter where you go and how much you\u2019re intending to flap your newfound wings of freedom, there\u2019s still the same old boring stuff you need to do: wear a face covering, stay 6 feet away from other people, sing \u201cHappy Birthday\u201d a couple of time while you wash your hands over and over and if you don\u2019t feel safe going out, don\u2019t go out. And remember, if your dad never told you life is unfair, he didn’t do you any favors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Is the fact that they don\u2019t serve food unfair to food-free bars? Yes, it is. And what, exactly, is food? The state\u2019s guidance on restaurants, bars and wineries skirts the philosophical question \u201cwhat is food?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":208,"featured_media":1053,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,7],"tags":[15,20],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[22],"class_list":["post-32","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","category-news","tag-coronavirus","tag-tim-grobaty","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/208"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=32"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=32"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}